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In a walled garden across the street a pair of blackbirds whistled among the almond trees. Hastings swallowed the lump in his throat, for the song of the birds and the ripple of water in a Paris gutter brought back to him the sunny meadows of Millbrook. "That's a blackbird," observed Miss Byng; "see him there on the bush with pink blossoms. He's all black except his bill, and that looks as if it had been dipped in an omelet, as some Frenchman says" "Why, Susie!" said Mrs. Byng. "That garden belongs to a studio inhabited by two Americans," continued the girl serenely, "and I often see them pass. They seem to need a great many models, mostly young and feminine" "Why, Susie!" "Perhaps they prefer painting that kind, but I don't see why they should invite five, with three more young gentlemen, and all get into two cabs and drive away singing. This street," she continued, "is dull. There is nothing to see except the garden and a glimpse of the Boulevard Montparnasse through the rue de la Grande Chaumire. No one ever passes except a policeman. There is a convent on the corner." "I thought it was a Jesuit College," began Hastings, but was at once overwhelmed with a Baedecker description of the place, ending with, "On one side stand the palatial hotels of Jean Paul Laurens and Guillaume Bouguereau, and opposite, in the little Passage Stanislas, Carolus Duran paints the masterpieces which charm the world." The blackbird burst into a ripple of golden throaty notes, and from some distant green spot in the city an unknown wildbird answered with a frenzy of liquid trills until the sparrows paused in their ablutions to look up with restless chirps. Then a butterfly came and sat on a cluster of heliotrope and waved his crimsonbanded wings in the hot sunshine. Hastings knew him for a friend, and before his eyes there came a vision of tall mulleins and scented milkweed alive with painted wings, a vision of a white house and woodbinecovered piazza,a glimpse of a man reading and a woman leaning over the pansy bed,and his heart was full. He was startled a moment later by Miss Byng. "I believe you are homesick!" Hastings blushed. Miss Byng looked at him with a sympathetic sigh and continued "Whenever I felt homesick at first I used to go with mamma and walk in the Luxembourg Gardens. I don't know why it is, but those oldfashioned gardens seemed to bring me nearer home than anything in this artificial city." "But they are full of marble statues," said Mrs. Byng mildly; "I don't see the resemblance myself." "Where is the Luxembourg?" inquired Hastings after a silence. "Come with me to the gate," said Miss Byng. He rose and followed her, and she pointed out the rue Vavin at the foot of the street. "You pass by the convent to the right," she smiled; and Hastings went. III The Luxembourg was a blaze of flowers. He walked slowly through the long avenues of trees, past mossy marbles and oldtime columns, and threading the grove by the bronze lion, came upon the treecrowned terrace above the fountain. Below lay the basin shining in the sunlight. Flowering almonds encircled the terrace, and, in a greater spiral, groves of chestnuts wound in and out and down among the moist thickets by the western palace wing. At one end of the avenue of trees the Observatory rose, its white domes piled up like an eastern mosque; at the other end stood the heavy palace, with every windowpane ablaze in the fierce sun of June. Around the fountain, children and whitecapped nurses armed with bamboo poles were pushing toy boats, whose sails hung limp in the sunshine. A dark policeman, wearing red epaulettes and a dress sword, watched them for a while and then went away to remonstrate with a young man who had unchained his dog. The dog was pleasantly occupied in rubbing grass and dirt into his back while his legs waved into the air. The policeman pointed at the dog. He was speechless with indignation. "Well, Captain," smiled the young fellow. "Well, Monsieur Student," growled the policeman. "What do you come and complain to me for?" "If you don't chain him I'll take him," shouted the policeman. "What's that to me, mon capitaine?" "What! Isn't that bulldog yours?" "If it was, don't you suppose I'd chain him?" The officer glared for a moment in silence, then deciding that as he was a student he was wicked, grabbed at the dog, who promptly dodged. Around and around the flowerbeds they raced, and when the officer came too near for comfort, the bulldog cut across a flowerbed, which perhaps was not playing fair. The young man was amused, and the dog also seemed to enjoy the exercise. The policeman noticed this and decided to strike at the fountainhead of the evil. He stormed up to the student and said, "As the owner of this public nuisance I arrest you!" "But," objected the other, "I disclaim the dog." That was a poser. It was useless to attempt to catch the dog until three gardeners lent a hand, but then the dog simply ran away and disappeared in the rue de Medici. The policeman shambled off to find consolation among the whitecapped nurses, and the student, looking at his watch, stood up yawning. Then catching sight of Hastings, he smiled and bowed. Hastings walked over to the marble, laughing. "Why, Clifford," he said, "I didn't recognize you." "It's my moustache," sighed the other. "I sacrificed it to humour a whim ofofa friend. What do you think of my dog?" "Then he is yours?" cried Hastings. "Of course. It's a pleasant change for him, this playing tag with policemen, but he is known now and I'll have to stop it. He's gone home. He always does when the gardeners take a hand. It's a pity; he's fond of rolling on lawns." Then they chatted for a moment of Hastings' prospects, and Clifford politely offered to stand his sponsor at the studio. "You see, old tabby, I mean Dr. Byram, told me about you before I met you," explained Clifford, "and Elliott and I will be glad to do anything we can." Then looking at his watch again, he muttered, "I have just ten minutes to catch the Versailles train; au revoir," and started to go, but catching sight of a girl advancing by the fountain, took off his hat with a confused smile. "Why are you not at Versailles?" she said, with an almost imperceptible acknowledgment of Hastings' presence. "II'm going," murmured Clifford. For a moment they faced each other, and then Clifford, very red, stammered, "With your permission I have the honour of presenting to you my friend, Monsieur Hastings." Hastings bowed low. She smiled very sweetly, but there was something of malice in the quiet inclination of her small Parisienne head. "I could have wished," she said, "that Monsieur Clifford might spare me more time when he brings with him so charming an American." "Mustmust I go, Valentine?" began Clifford. "Certainly," she replied. Clifford took his leave with very bad grace, wincing, when she added, "And give my dearest love to Ccile!" As he disappeared in the rue d'Assas, the girl turned as if to go, but then suddenly remembering Hastings, looked at him and shook her head. "Monsieur Clifford is so perfectly harebrained," she smiled, "it is embarrassing sometimes. You have heard, of course, all about his success at the Salon?" He looked puzzled and she noticed it. "You have been to the Salon, of course?" "Why, no," he answered, "I only arrived in Paris three days ago." She seemed to pay little heed to his explanation, but continued "Nobody imagined he had the energy to do anything good, but on varnishing day the Salon was astonished by the entrance of Monsieur Clifford, who strolled about as bland as you please with an orchid in his buttonhole, and a beautiful picture on the line." She smiled to herself at the reminiscence, and looked at the fountain. "Monsieur Bouguereau told me that Monsieur Julian was so astonished that he only shook hands with Monsieur Clifford in a dazed manner, and actually forgot to pat him on the back! Fancy," she continued with much merriment, "fancy papa Julian forgetting to pat one on the back." Hastings, wondering at her acquaintance with the great Bouguereau, looked at her with respect. "May I ask," he said diffidently, "whether you are a pupil of Bouguereau?" "I?" she said in some surprise. Then she looked at him curiously. Was he permitting himself the liberty of joking on such short acquaintance? His pleasant serious face questioned hers. "Tiens," she thought, "what a droll man!" "You surely study art?" he said. She leaned back on the crooked stick of her parasol, and looked at him. "Why do you think so?" "Because you speak as if you did." "You are making fun of me," she said, "and it is not good taste." She stopped, confused, as he coloured to the roots of his hair. "How long have you been in Paris?" she said at length. "Three days," he replied gravely. "Butbutsurely you are not a nouveau! You speak French too well!" Then after a pause, "Really are you a nouveau?" "I am," he said. She sat down on the marble bench lately occupied by Clifford, and tilting her parasol over her small head looked at him. "I don't believe it." He felt the compliment, and for a moment hesitated to declare himself one of the despised. Then mustering up his courage, he told her how new and green he was, and all with a frankness which made her blue eyes open very wide and her lips part in the sweetest of smiles. "You have never seen a studio?" "Never." "Nor a model?" "No." "How funny," she said solemnly. Then they both laughed. "And you," he said, "have seen studios?" "Hundreds." "And models?" "Millions." "And you know Bouguereau?" "Yes, and Henner, and Constant and Laurens, and Puvis de Chavannes and Dagnan and Courtois, andand all the rest of them!" "And yet you say you are not an artist." "Pardon," she said gravely, "did I say I was not?" "Won't you tell me?" he hesitated. At first she looked at him, shaking her head and smiling, then of a sudden her eyes fell and she began tracing figures with her parasol in the gravel at her feet. Hastings had taken a place on the seat, and now, with his elbows on his knees, sat watching the spray drifting above the fountain jet. A small boy, dressed as a sailor, stood poking his yacht and crying, "I won't go home! I won't go home!" His nurse raised her hands to Heaven. "Just like a little American boy," thought Hastings, and a pang of homesickness shot through him. Presently the nurse captured the boat, and the small boy stood at bay. "Monsieur Ren, when you decide to come here you may have your boat." The boy backed away scowling. "Give me my boat, I say," he cried, "and don't call me Ren, for my name's Randall and you know it!" "Hello!" said Hastings,"Randall?that's English." "I am American," announced the boy in perfectly good English, turning to look at Hastings, "and she's such a fool she calls me Ren because mamma calls me Ranny" Here he dodged the exasperated nurse and took up his station behind Hastings, who laughed, and catching him around the waist lifted him into his lap. "One of my countrymen," he said to the girl beside him. He smiled while he spoke, but there was a queer feeling in his throat. "Don't you see the stars and stripes on my yacht?" demanded Randall. Sure enough, the American colours hung limply under the nurse's arm. "Oh," cried the girl, "he is charming," and impulsively stooped to kiss him, but the infant Randall wriggled out of Hastings' arms, and his nurse pounced upon him with an angry glance at the girl. She reddened and then bit her lips as the nurse, with eyes still fixed on her, dragged the child away and ostentatiously wiped his lips with her handkerchief. Then she stole a look at Hastings and bit her lip again. "What an illtempered woman!" he said. "In America, most nurses are flattered when people kiss their children." For an instant she tipped the parasol to hide her face, then closed it with a snap and looked at him defiantly. "Do you think it strange that she objected?" "Why not?" he said in surprise. Again she looked at him with quick searching eyes. His eyes were clear and bright, and he smiled back, repeating, "Why not?" "You are droll," she murmured, bending her head. "Why?" But she made no answer, and sat silent, tracing curves and circles in the dust with her parasol. After a while he said"I am glad to see that young people have so much liberty here. I understood that the French were not at all like us. You know in Americaor at least where I live in Milbrook, girls have every liberty,go out alone and receive their friends alone, and I was afraid I should miss it here. But I see how it is now, and I am glad I was mistaken." She raised her eyes to his and kept them there. He continued pleasantly"Since I have sat here I have seen a lot of pretty girls walking alone on the terrace there,and then you are alone too. Tell me, for I do not know French customs,do you have the liberty of going to the theatre without a chaperone?" For a long time she studied his face, and then with a trembling smile said, "Why do you ask me?" "Because you must know, of course," he said gaily. "Yes," she replied indifferently, "I know." He waited for an answer, but getting none, decided that perhaps she had misunderstood him. "I hope you don't think I mean to presume on our short acquaintance," he began,"in fact it is very odd but I don't know your name. When Mr. Clifford presented me he only mentioned mine. Is that the custom in France?" "It is the custom in the Latin Quarter," she said with a queer light in her eyes. Then suddenly she began talking almost feverishly. "You must know, Monsieur Hastings, that we are all un peu sans gne here in the Latin Quarter. We are very Bohemian, and etiquette and ceremony are out of place. It was for that Monsieur Clifford presented you to me with small ceremony, and left us together with less,only for that, and I am his friend, and I have many friends in the Latin Quarter, and we all know each other very welland I am not studying art, butbut" "But what?" he said, bewildered. "I shall not tell you,it is a secret," she said with an uncertain smile. On both cheeks a pink spot was burning, and her eyes were very bright. Then in a moment her face fell. "Do you know Monsieur Clifford very intimately?" "Not very." After a while she turned to him, grave and a little pale. "My name is ValentineValentine Tissot. Mightmight I ask a service of you on such very short acquaintance?" "Oh," he cried, "I should be honoured." "It is only this," she said gently, "it is not much. Promise me not to speak to Monsieur Clifford about me. Promise me that you will speak to no one about me." "I promise," he said, greatly puzzled. She laughed nervously. "I wish to remain a mystery. It is a caprice." "But," he began, "I had wished, I had hoped that you might give Monsieur Clifford permission to bring me, to present me at your house." "Mymy house!" she repeated. "I mean, where you live, in fact, to present me to your family." The change in the girl's face shocked him. "I beg your pardon," he cried, "I have hurt you." And as quick as a flash she understood him because she was a woman. "My parents are dead," she said. Presently he began again, very gently. "Would it displease you if I beg you to receive me? It is the custom?" "I cannot," she answered. Then glancing up at him, "I am sorry; I should like to; but believe me. I cannot." He bowed seriously and looked vaguely uneasy. "It isn't because I don't wish to. II like you; you are very kind to me." "Kind?" he cried, surprised and puzzled. "I like you," she said slowly, "and we will see each other sometimes if you will." "At friends' houses." "No, not at friends' houses." "Where?" "Here," she said with defiant eyes. "Why," he cried, "in Paris you are much more liberal in your views than we are." She looked at him curiously. "Yes, we are very Bohemian." "I think it is charming," he declared. "You see, we shall be in the best of society," she ventured timidly, with a pretty gesture toward the statues of the dead queens, ranged in stately ranks above the terrace. He looked at her, delighted, and she brightened at the success of her innocent little pleasantry. "Indeed," she smiled, "I shall be well chaperoned, because you see we are under the protection of the gods themselves; look, there are Apollo, and Juno, and Venus, on their pedestals," counting them on her small gloved fingers, "and Ceres, Hercules, andbut I can't make out" Hastings turned to look up at the winged god under whose shadow they were seated. "Why, it's Love," he said. IV "There is a nouveau here," drawled Laffat, leaning around his easel and addressing his friend Bowles, "there is a nouveau here who is so tender and green and appetizing that Heaven help him if he should fall into a salad bowl." "Hayseed?" inquired Bowles, plastering in a background with a broken paletteknife and squinting at the effect with approval. "Yes, Squeedunk or Oshkosh, and how he ever grew up among the daisies and escaped the cows, Heaven alone knows!" Bowles rubbed his thumb across the outlines of his study to "throw in a little atmosphere," as he said, glared at the model, pulled at his pipe and finding it out struck a match on his neighbour's back to relight it. "His name," continued Laffat, hurling a bit of bread at the hatrack, "his name is Hastings. He is a berry. He knows no more about the world,"and here Mr. Laffat's face spoke volumes for his own knowledge of that planet,"than a maiden cat on its first moonlight stroll." Bowles now having succeeded in lighting his pipe, repeated the thumb touch on the other edge of the study and said, "Ah!" "Yes," continued his friend, "and would you imagine it, he seems to think that everything here goes on as it does in his dd little backwoods ranch at home; talks about the pretty girls who walk alone in the street; says how sensible it is; and how French parents are misrepresented in America; says that for his part he finds French girls,and he confessed to only knowing one,as jolly as American girls. I tried to set him right, tried to give him a pointer as to what sort of ladies walk about alone or with students, and he was either too stupid or too innocent to catch on. Then I gave it to him straight, and he said I was a vileminded fool and marched off." "Did you assist him with your shoe?" inquired Bowles, languidly interested. "Well, no." "He called you a vileminded fool." "He was correct," said Clifford from his easel in front. "Whatwhat do you mean?" demanded Laffat, turning red. "That," replied Clifford. "Who spoke to you? Is this your business?" sneered Bowles, but nearly lost his balance as Clifford swung about and eyed him. "Yes," he said slowly, "it's my business." No one spoke for some time. Then Clifford sang out, "I say, Hastings!" And when Hastings left his easel and came around, he nodded toward the astonished Laffat. "This man has been disagreeable to you, and I want to tell you that any time you feel inclined to kick him, why, I will hold the other creature." Hastings, embarrassed, said, "Why no, I don't agree with his ideas, nothing more." Clifford said "Naturally," and slipping his arm through Hastings', strolled about with him, and introduced him to several of his own friends, at which all the nouveaux opened their eyes with envy, and the studio were given to understand that Hastings, although prepared to do menial work as the latest nouveau, was already within the charmed circle of the old, respected and feared, the truly great. The rest finished, the model resumed his place, and work went on in a chorus of songs and yells and every earsplitting noise which the art student utters when studying the beautiful. Five o'clock struck,the model yawned, stretched and climbed into his trousers, and the noisy contents of six studios crowded through the hall and down into the street. Ten minutes later, Hastings found himself on top of a Montrouge tram, and shortly afterward was joined by Clifford. They climbed down at the rue Gay Lussac. "I always stop here," observed Clifford, "I like the walk through the Luxembourg." "By the way," said Hastings, "how can I call on you when I don't know where you live?" "Why, I live opposite you." "Whatthe studio in the garden where the almond trees are and the blackbirds" "Exactly," said Clifford. "I'm with my friend Elliott." Hastings thought of the description of the two American artists which he had heard from Miss Susie Byng, and looked blank. Clifford continued, "Perhaps you had better let me know when you think of coming so,so that I will be sure toto be there," he ended rather lamely. "I shouldn't care to meet any of your model friends there," said Hastings, smiling. "You knowmy ideas are rather straitlaced,I suppose you would say, Puritanical. I shouldn't enjoy it and wouldn't know how to behave." "Oh, I understand," said Clifford, but added with great cordiality,"I'm sure we'll be friends although you may not approve of me and my set, but you will like Severn and Selby becausebecause, well, they are like yourself, old chap." After a moment he continued, "There is something I want to speak about. You see, when I introduced you, last week, in the Luxembourg, to Valentine" "Not a word!" cried Hastings, smiling; "you must not tell me a word of her!" "Why" "Nonot a word!" he said gaily. "I insist,promise me upon your honour you will not speak of her until I give you permission; promise!" "I promise," said Clifford, amazed. "She is a charming girl,we had such a delightful chat after you left, and I thank you for presenting me, but not another word about her until I give you permission." "Oh," murmured Clifford. "Remember your promise," he smiled, as he turned into his gateway. Clifford strolled across the street and, traversing the ivycovered alley, entered his garden. He felt for his studio key, muttering, "I wonderI wonder,but of course he doesn't!" He entered the hallway, and fitting the key into the door, stood staring at the two cards tacked over the panels. FOXHALL CLIFFORD RICHARD OSBORNE ELLIOTT "Why the devil doesn't he want me to speak of her?" He opened the door, and, discouraging the caresses of two brindle bulldogs, sank down on the sofa. Elliott sat smoking and sketching with a piece of charcoal by the window. "Hello," he said without looking around. Clifford gazed absently at the back of his head, murmuring, "I'm afraid, I'm afraid that man is too innocent. I say, Elliott," he said, at last, "Hastings,you know the chap that old Tabby Byram came around here to tell us aboutthe day you had to hide Colette in the armoire" "Yes, what's up?" "Oh, nothing. He's a brick." "Yes," said Elliott, without enthusiasm. "Don't you think so?" demanded Clifford. "Why yes, but he is going to have a tough time when some of his illusions are dispelled." "More shame to those who dispel 'em!" "Yes,wait until he comes to pay his call on us, unexpectedly, of course" Clifford looked virtuous and lighted a cigar. "I was just going to say," he observed, "that I have asked him not to come without letting us know, so I can postpone any orgie you may have intended" "Ah!" cried Elliott indignantly, "I suppose you put it to him in that way." "Not exactly," grinned Clifford. Then more seriously, "I don't want anything to occur here to bother him. He's a brick, and it's a pity we can't be more like him." "I am," observed Elliott complacently, "only living with you" "Listen!" cried the other. "I have managed to put my foot in it in great style. Do you know what I've done? Wellthe first time I met him in the street,or rather, it was in the Luxembourg, I introduced him to Valentine!" "Did he object?" "Believe me," said Clifford, solemnly, "this rustic Hastings has no more idea that Valentine isisin fact is Valentine, than he has that he himself is a beautiful example of moral decency in a Quarter where morals are as rare as elephants. I heard enough in a conversation between that blackguard Loffat and the little immoral eruption, Bowles, to open my eyes. I tell you Hastings is a trump! He's a healthy, cleanminded young fellow, bred in a small country village, brought up with the idea that saloons are waystations to helland as for women" "Well?" demanded Elliott "Well," said Clifford, "his idea of the dangerous woman is probably a painted Jezabel." "Probably," replied the other. "He's a trump!" said Clifford, "and if he swears the world is as good and pure as his own heart, I'll swear he's right." Elliott rubbed his charcoal on his file to get a point and turned to his sketch saying, "He will never hear any pessimism from Richard Osborne E." "He's a lesson to me," said Clifford. Then he unfolded a small perfumed note, written on rosecoloured paper, which had been lying on the table before him. He read it, smiled, whistled a bar or two from "Miss Helyett," and sat down to answer it on his best creamlaid notepaper. When it was written and sealed, he picked up his stick and marched up and down the studio two or three times, whistling. "Going out?" inquired the other, without turning. "Yes," he said, but lingered a moment over Elliott's shoulder, watching him pick out the lights in his sketch with a bit of bread. "Tomorrow is Sunday," he observed after a moment's silence. "Well?" inquired Elliott. "Have you seen Colette?" "No, I will tonight. She and Rowden and Jacqueline are coming to Boulant's. I suppose you and Ccile will be there?" "Well, no," replied Clifford. "Ccile dines at home tonight, and II had an idea of going to Mignon's." Elliott looked at him with disapproval. "You can make all the arrangements for La Roche without me," he continued, avoiding Elliott's eyes. "What are you up to now?" "Nothing," protested Clifford. "Don't tell me," replied his chum, with scorn; "fellows don't rush off to Mignon's when the set dine at Boulant's. Who is it now?but no, I won't ask that,what's the use!" Then he lifted up his voice in complaint and beat upon the table with his pipe. "What's the use of ever trying to keep track of you? What will Ccile say,oh, yes, what will she say? It's a pity you can't be constant two months, yes, by Jove! and the Quarter is indulgent, but you abuse its good nature and mine too!" Presently he arose, and jamming his hat on his head, marched to the door. "Heaven alone knows why any one puts up with your antics, but they all do and so do I. If I were Ccile or any of the other pretty fools after whom you have toddled and will, in all human probabilities, continue to toddle, I say, if I were Ccile I'd spank you! Now I'm going to Boulant's, and as usual I shall make excuses for you and arrange the affair, and I don't care a continental where you are going, but, by the skull of the studio skeleton! if you don't turn up tomorrow with your sketchingkit under one arm and Ccile under the other,if you don't turn up in good shape, I'm done with you, and the rest can think what they please. Goodnight." Clifford said goodnight with as pleasant a smile as he could muster, and then sat down with his eyes on the door. He took out his watch and gave Elliott ten minutes to vanish, then rang the concierge's call, murmuring, "Oh dear, oh dear, why the devil do I do it?" "Alfred," he said, as that gimleteyed person answered the call, "make yourself clean and proper, Alfred, and replace your sabots with a pair of shoes. Then put on your best hat and take this letter to the big white house in the Rue de Dragon. There is no answer, mon petit Alfred." The concierge departed with a snort in which unwillingness for the errand and affection for M. Clifford were blended. Then with great care the young fellow arrayed himself in all the beauties of his and Elliott's wardrobe. He took his time about it, and occasionally interrupted his toilet to play his banjo or make pleasing diversion for the bulldogs by gambling about on all fours. "I've got two hours before me," he thought, and borrowed a pair of Elliott's silken footgear, with which he and the dogs played ball until he decided to put them on. Then he lighted a cigarette and inspected his dresscoat. When he had emptied it of four handkerchiefs, a fan, and a pair of crumpled gloves as long as his arm, he decided it was not suited to add clat to his charms and cast about in his mind for a substitute. Elliott was too thin, and, anyway, his coats were now under lock and key. Rowden probably was as badly off as himself. Hastings! Hastings was the man! But when he threw on a smokingjacket and sauntered over to Hastings' house, he was informed that he had been gone over an hour. "Now, where in the name of all that's reasonable could he have gone!" muttered Clifford, looking down the street. The maid didn't know, so he bestowed upon her a fascinating smile and lounged back to the studio. Hastings was not far away. The Luxembourg is within five minutes' walk of the rue Notre Dame des Champs, and there he sat under the shadow of a winged god, and there he had sat for an hour, poking holes in the dust and watching the steps which lead from the northern terrace to the fountain. The sun hung, a purple globe, above the misty hills of Meudon. Long streamers of clouds touched with rose swept low on the western sky, and the dome of the distant Invalides burned like an opal through the haze. Behind the Palace the smoke from a high chimney mounted straight into the air, purple until it crossed the sun, where it changed to a bar of smouldering fire. High above the darkening foliage of the chestnuts the twin towers of St. Sulpice rose, an everdeepening silhouette. A sleepy blackbird was carolling in some near thicket, and pigeons passed and repassed with the whisper of soft winds in their wings. The light on the Palace windows had died away, and the dome of the Pantheon swam aglow above the northern terrace, a fiery Valhalla in the sky; while below in grim array, along the terrace ranged, the marble ranks of queens looked out into the west. From the end of the long walk by the northern faade of the Palace came the noise of omnibuses and the cries of the street. Hastings looked at the Palace clock. Six, and as his own watch agreed with it, he fell to poking holes in the gravel again. A constant stream of people passed between the Odon and the fountain. Priests in black, with silverbuckled shoes; line soldiers, slouchy and rakish; neat girls without hats bearing milliners' boxes, students with black portfolios and high hats, students with brets and big canes, nervous, quickstepping officers, symphonies in turquoise and silver; ponderous jangling cavalrymen all over dust, pastry cooks' boys skipping along with utter disregard for the safety of the basket balanced on the impish head, and then the lean outcast, the shambling Paris tramp, slouching with shoulders bent and little eye furtively scanning the ground for smokers' refuse;all these moved in a steady stream across the fountain circle and out into the city by the Odeon, whose long arcades were now beginning to flicker with gasjets. The melancholy bells of St Sulpice struck the hour and the clocktower of the Palace lighted up. Then hurried steps sounded across the gravel and Hastings raised his head. "How late you are," he said, but his voice was hoarse and only his flushed face told how long had seemed the waiting. She said, "I was keptindeed, I was so much annoyedandand I may only stay a moment." She sat down beside him, casting a furtive glance over her shoulder at the god upon his pedestal. "What a nuisance, that intruding cupid still there?" "Wings and arrows too," said Hastings, unheeding her motion to be seated. "Wings," she murmured, "oh, yesto fly away with when he's tired of his play. Of course it was a man who conceived the idea of wings, otherwise Cupid would have been insupportable." "Do you think so?" "Ma foi, it's what men think." "And women?" "Oh," she said, with a toss of her small head, "I really forget what we were speaking of." "We were speaking of love," said Hastings.

"I was not," said the girl. Then looking up at the marble god, "I don't care for this one at all. I don't believe he knows how to shoot his arrowsno, indeed, he is a coward;he creeps up like an assassin in the twilight. I don't approve of cowardice," she announced, and turned her back on the statue. "I think," said Hastings quietly, "that he does shoot fairlyyes, and even gives one warning." "Is it your experience, Monsieur Hastings?" He looked straight into her eyes and said, "He is warning me." "Heed the warning then," she cried, with a nervous laugh. As she spoke she stripped off her gloves, and then carefully proceeded to draw them on again. When this was accomplished she glanced at the Palace clock, saying, "Oh dear, how late it is!" furled her umbrella, then unfurled it, and finally looked at him. "No," he said, "I shall not heed his warning." "Oh dear," she sighed again, "still talking about that tiresome statue!" Then stealing a glance at his face, "I supposeI suppose you are in love." "I don't know," he muttered, "I suppose I am." She raised her head with a quick gesture. "You seem delighted at the idea," she said, but bit her lip and trembled as his eyes met hers. Then sudden fear came over her and she sprang up, staring into the gathering shadows. "Are you cold?" he said. But she only answered, "Oh dear, oh dear, it is lateso late! I must gogoodnight." She gave him her gloved hand a moment and then withdrew it with a start. "What is it?" he insisted. "Are you frightened?" She looked at him strangely. "Nononot frightened,you are very good to me" "By Jove!" he burst out, "what do you mean by saying I'm good to you? That's at least the third time, and I don't understand!" The sound of a drum from the guardhouse at the palace cut him short. "Listen," she whispered, "they are going to close. It's late, oh, so late!" The rolling of the drum came nearer and nearer, and then the silhouette of the drummer cut the sky above the eastern terrace. The fading light lingered a moment on his belt and bayonet, then he passed into the shadows, drumming the echoes awake. The roll became fainter along the eastern terrace, then grew and grew and rattled with increasing sharpness when he passed the avenue by the bronze lion and turned down the western terrace walk. Louder and louder the drum sounded, and the echoes struck back the notes from the grey palace wall; and now the drummer loomed up before themhis red trousers a dull spot in the gathering gloom, the brass of his drum and bayonet touched with a pale spark, his epaulettes tossing on his shoulders. He passed leaving the crash of the drum in their ears, and far into the alley of trees they saw his little tin cup shining on his haversack. Then the sentinels began the monotonous cry "On ferme! on ferme!" and the bugle blew from the barracks in the rue de Tournon. "On ferme! on ferme!" "Goodnight," she whispered, "I must return alone tonight." He watched her until she reached the northern terrace, and then sat down on the marble seat until a hand on his shoulder and a glimmer of bayonets warned him away. She passed on through the grove, and turning into the rue de Medici, traversed it to the Boulevard. At the corner she bought a bunch of violets and walked on along the Boulevard to the rue des coles. A cab was drawn up before Boulant's, and a pretty girl aided by Elliott jumped out. "Valentine!" cried the girl, "come with us!" "I can't," she said, stopping a moment"I have a rendezvous at Mignon's." "Not Victor?" cried the girl, laughing, but she passed with a little shiver, nodding goodnight, then turning into the Boulevard St. Germain, she walked a tittle faster to escape a gay party sitting before the Caf Cluny who called to her to join them. At the door of the Restaurant Mignon stood a coalblack negro in buttons. He took off his peaked cap as she mounted the carpeted stairs. "Send Eugene to me," she said at the office, and passing through the hallway to the right of the diningroom stopped before a row of panelled doors. A waiter passed and she repeated her demand for Eugene, who presently appeared, noiselessly skipping, and bowed murmuring, "Madame." "Who is here?" "No one in the cabinets, madame; in the half Madame Madelon and Monsieur Gay, Monsieur de Clamart, Monsieur Clisson, Madame Marie and their set." Then he looked around and bowing again murmured, "Monsieur awaits madame since half an hour," and he knocked at one of the panelled doors bearing the number six. Clifford opened the door and the girl entered. The garon bowed her in, and whispering, "Will Monsieur have the goodness to ring?" vanished. He helped her off with her jacket and took her hat and umbrella. When she was seated at the little table with Clifford opposite she smiled and leaned forward on both elbows looking him in the face. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. "Waiting," he replied, in accents of adoration. For an instant she turned and examined herself in the glass. The wide blue eyes, the curling hair, the straight nose and short curled lip flashed in the mirror an instant only, and then its depths reflected her pretty neck and back. "Thus do I turn my back on vanity," she said, and then leaning forward again, "What are you doing here?" "Waiting for you," repeated Clifford, slightly troubled. "And Ccile." "Now don't, Valentine" "Do you know," she said calmly, "I dislike your conduct?" He was a little disconcerted, and rang for Eugene to cover his confusion. The soup was bisque, and the wine Pommery, and the courses followed each other with the usual regularity until Eugene brought coffee, and there was nothing left on the table but a small silver lamp. "Valentine," said Clifford, after having obtained permission to smoke, "is it the Vaudeville or the Eldoradoor both, or the Nouveau Cirque, or" "It is here," said Valentine. "Well," he said, greatly flattered, "I'm afraid I couldn't amuse you" "Oh, yes, you are funnier than the Eldorado." "Now see here, don't guy me, Valentine. You always do, and, and,you know what they say,a good laugh kills" "What?" "Ererlove and all that." She laughed until her eyes were moist with tears. "Tiens," she cried, "he is dead, then!" Clifford eyed her with growing alarm. "Do you know why I came?" she said. "No," he replied uneasily, "I don't." "How long have you made love to me?" "Well," he admitted, somewhat startled,"I should say,for about a year." "It is a year, I think. Are you not tired?" He did not answer. "Don't you know that I like you too well toto ever fall in love with you?" she said. "Don't you know that we are too good comrades,too old friends for that? And were we not,do you think that I do not know your history, Monsieur Clifford?" "Don't bedon't be so sarcastic," he urged; "don't be unkind, Valentine." "I'm not. I'm kind. I'm very kind,to you and to Ccile." "Ccile is tired of me." "I hope she is," said the girl, "for she deserves a better fate. Tiens, do you know your reputation in the Quarter? Of the inconstant, the most inconstant,utterly incorrigible and no more serious than a gnat on a summer night. Poor Ccile!" Clifford looked so uncomfortable that she spoke more kindly. "I like you. You know that. Everybody does. You are a spoiled child here. Everything is permitted you and every one makes allowance, but every one cannot be a victim to caprice." "Caprice!" he cried. "By Jove, if the girls of the Latin Quarter are not capricious" "Never mind,never mind about that! You must not sit in judgmentyou of all men. Why are you here tonight? Oh," she cried, "I will tell you why! Monsieur receives a little note; he sends a little answer; he dresses in his conquering raiment" "I don't," said Clifford, very red. "You do, and it becomes you," she retorted with a faint smile. Then again, very quietly, "I am in your power, but I know I am in the power of a friend. I have come to acknowledge it to you here,and it is because of that that I am here to beg of youaa favour." Clifford opened his eyes, but said nothing. "I am ingreat distress of mind. It is Monsieur Hastings." "Well?" said Clifford, in some astonishment. "I want to ask you," she continued in a low voice, "I want to ask you totoin case you should speak of me before him,not to say,not to say," "I shall not speak of you to him," he said quietly. "Cancan you prevent others?" "I might if I was present. May I ask why?" "That is not fair," she murmured; "you know howhow he considers me,as he considers every woman. You know how different he is from you and the rest. I have never seen a man,such a man as Monsieur Hastings." He let his cigarette go out unnoticed. "I am almost afraid of himafraid he should knowwhat we all are in the Quarter. Oh, I do not wish him to know! I do not wish him toto turn from meto cease from speaking to me as he does! Youyou and the rest cannot know what it has been to me. I could not believe him,I could not believe he was so good andand noble. I do not wish him to knowso soon. He will find outsooner or later, he will find out for himself, and then he will turn away from me. Why!" she cried passionately, "why should he turn from me and not from you?" Clifford, much embarrassed, eyed his cigarette. The girl rose, very white. "He is your friendyou have a right to warn him." "He is my friend," he said at length. They looked at each other in silence. Then she cried, "By all that I hold to me most sacred, you need not warn him!" "I shall trust your word," he said pleasantly. V The month passed quickly for Hastings, and left few definite impressions after it. It did leave some, however. One was a painful impression of meeting Mr. Bladen on the Boulevard des Capucines in company with a very pronounced young person whose laugh dismayed him, and when at last he escaped from the caf where Mr. Bladen had hauled him to join them in a bock he felt as if the whole boulevard was looking at him, and judging him by his company. Later, an instinctive conviction regarding the young person with Mr. Bladen sent the hot blood into his cheek, and he returned to the pension in such a miserable state of mind that Miss Byng was alarmed and advised him to conquer his homesickness at once. Another impression was equally vivid. One Saturday morning, feeling lonely, his wanderings about the city brought him to the Gare St. Lazare. It was early for breakfast, but he entered the Htel Terminus and took a table near the window. As he wheeled about to give his order, a man passing rapidly along the aisle collided with his head, and looking up to receive the expected apology, he was met instead by a slap on the shoulder and a hearty, "What the deuce are you doing here, old chap?" It was Rowden, who seized him and told him to come along. So, mildly protesting, he was ushered into a private diningroom where Clifford, rather red, jumped up from the table and welcomed him with a startled air which was softened by the unaffected glee of Rowden and the extreme courtesy of Elliott. The latter presented him to three bewitching girls who welcomed him so charmingly and seconded Rowden in his demand that Hastings should make one of the party, that he consented at once. While Elliott briefly outlined the projected excursion to La Roche, Hastings delightedly ate his omelet, and returned the smiles of encouragement from Ccile and Colette and Jacqueline. Meantime Clifford in a bland whisper was telling Rowden what an ass he was. Poor Rowden looked miserable until Elliott, divining how affairs were turning, frowned on Clifford and found a moment to let Rowden know that they were all going to make the best of it. "You shut up," he observed to Clifford, "it's fate, and that settles it." "It's Rowden, and that settles it," murmured Clifford, concealing a grin. For after all he was not Hastings' wet nurse. So it came about that the train which left the Gare St. Lazare at 9.15 a.m. stopped a moment in its career towards Havre and deposited at the redroofed station of La Roche a merry party, armed with sunshades, troutrods, and one cane, carried by the noncombatant, Hastings. Then, when they had established their camp in a grove of sycamores which bordered the little river Ept, Clifford, the acknowledged master of all that pertained to sportsmanship, took command. "You, Rowden," he said, "divide your flies with Elliott and keep an eye on him or else he'll be trying to put on a float and sinker. Prevent him by force from grubbing about for worms." Elliott protested, but was forced to smile in the general laugh. "You make me ill," he asserted; "do you think this is my first trout?" "I shall be delighted to see your first trout," said Clifford, and dodging a fly hook, hurled with intent to hit, proceeded to sort and equip three slender rods destined to bring joy and fish to Ccile, Colette, and Jacqueline. With perfect gravity he ornamented each line with four split shot, a small hook, and a brilliant quill float. "I shall never touch the worms," announced Ccile with a shudder. Jacqueline and Colette hastened to sustain her, and Hastings pleasantly offered to act in the capacity of general baiter and takeroff of fish. But Ccile, doubtless fascinated by the gaudy flies in Clifford's book, decided to accept lessons from him in the true art, and presently disappeared up the Ept with Clifford in tow. Elliott looked doubtfully at Colette. "I prefer gudgeons," said that damsel with decision, "and you and Monsieur Rowden may go away when you please; may they not, Jacqueline?" "Certainly," responded Jacqueline. Elliott, undecided, examined his rod and reel. "You've got your reel on wrong side up," observed Rowden. Elliott wavered, and stole a glance at Colette. "IIhave almost decided toernot to flip the flies about just now," he began. "There's the pole that Ccile left" "Don't call it a pole," corrected Rowden. "Rod, then," continued Elliott, and started off in the wake of the two girls, but was promptly collared by Rowden. "No, you don't! Fancy a man fishing with a float and sinker when he has a fly rod in his hand! You come along!" Where the placid little Ept flows down between its thickets to the Seine, a grassy bank shadows the haunt of the gudgeon, and on this bank sat Colette and Jacqueline and chattered and laughed and watched the swerving of the scarlet quills, while Hastings, his hat over his eyes, his head on a bank of moss, listened to their soft voices and gallantly unhooked the small and indignant gudgeon when a flash of a rod and a halfsuppressed scream announced a catch. The sunlight filtered through the leafy thickets awaking to song the forest birds. Magpies in spotless black and white flirted past, alighting near by with a hop and bound and twitch of the tail. Blue and white jays with rosy breasts shrieked through the trees, and a lowsailing hawk wheeled among the fields of ripening wheat, putting to flight flocks of twittering hedge birds. Across the Seine a gull dropped on the water like a plume. The air was pure and still. Scarcely a leaf moved. Sounds from a distant farm came faintly, the shrill cockcrow and dull baying. Now and then a steamtug with big raking smokepipe, bearing the name "Gupe 27," ploughed up the river dragging its interminable train of barges, or a sailboat dropped down with the current toward sleepy Rouen. A faint fresh odour of earth and water hung in the air, and through the sunlight, orangetipped butterflies danced above the marsh grass, soft velvety butterflies flapped through the mossy woods. Hastings was thinking of Valentine. It was two o'clock when Elliott strolled back, and frankly admitting that he had eluded Rowden, sat down beside Colette and prepared to doze with satisfaction. "Where are your trout?" said Colette severely. "They still live," murmured Elliott, and went fast asleep. Rowden returned shortly after, and casting a scornful glance at the slumbering one, displayed three crimsonflecked trout. "And that," smiled Hastings lazily, "that is the holy end to which the faithful plod,the slaughter of these small fish with a bit of silk and feather." Rowden disdained to answer him. Colette caught another gudgeon and awoke Elliott, who protested and gazed about for the lunch baskets, as Clifford and Ccile came up demanding instant refreshment. Ccile's skirts were soaked, and her gloves torn, but she was happy, and Clifford, dragging out a twopound trout, stood still to receive the applause of the company. "Where the deuce did you get that?" demanded Elliott. Ccile, wet and enthusiastic, recounted the battle, and then Clifford eulogized her powers with the fly, and, in proof, produced from his creel a defunct chub, which, he observed, just missed being a trout. They were all very happy at luncheon, and Hastings was voted "charming." He enjoyed it immensely,only it seemed to him at moments that flirtation went further in France than in Millbrook, Connecticut, and he thought that Ccile might be a little less enthusiastic about Clifford, that perhaps it would be quite as well if Jacqueline sat further away from Rowden, and that possibly Colette could have, for a moment at least, taken her eyes from Elliott's face. Still he enjoyed itexcept when his thoughts drifted to Valentine, and then he felt that he was very far away from her. La Roche is at least an hour and a half from Paris. It is also true that he felt a happiness, a quick heartbeat when, at eight o'clock that night the train which bore them from La Roche rolled into the Gare St. Lazare and he was once more in the city of Valentine. "Goodnight," they said, pressing around him. "You must come with us next time!" He promised, and watched them, two by two, drift into the darkening city, and stood so long that, when again he raised his eyes, the vast Boulevard was twinkling with gasjets through which the electric lights stared like moons. VI It was with another quick heartbeat that he awoke next morning, for his first thought was of Valentine. The sun already gilded the towers of Notre Dame, the clatter of workmen's sabots awoke sharp echoes in the street below, and across the way a blackbird in a pink almond tree was going into an ecstasy of trills. He determined to awake Clifford for a brisk walk in the country, hoping later to beguile that gentleman into the American church for his soul's sake. He found Alfred the gimleteyed washing the asphalt walk which led to the studio. "Monsieur Elliott?" he replied to the perfunctory inquiry, "je ne sais pas." "And Monsieur Clifford," began Hastings, somewhat astonished. "Monsieur Clifford," said the concierge with fine irony, "will be pleased to see you, as he retired early; in fact he has just come in." Hastings hesitated while the concierge pronounced a fine eulogy on people who never stayed out all night and then came battering at the lodge gate during hours which even a gendarme held sacred to sleep. He also discoursed eloquently upon the beauties of temperance, and took an ostentatious draught from the fountain in the court. "I do not think I will come in," said Hastings. "Pardon, monsieur," growled the concierge, "perhaps it would be well to see Monsieur Clifford. He possibly needs aid. Me he drives forth with hairbrushes and boots. It is a mercy if he has not set fire to something with his candle." Hastings hesitated for an instant, but swallowing his dislike of such a mission, walked slowly through the ivycovered alley and across the inner garden to the studio. He knocked. Perfect silence. Then he knocked again, and this time something struck the door from within with a crash. "That," said the concierge, "was a boot." He fitted his duplicate key into the lock and ushered Hastings in. Clifford, in disordered evening dress, sat on the rug in the middle of the room. He held in his hand a shoe, and did not appear astonished to see Hastings. "Goodmorning, do you use Pears' soap?" he inquired with a vague wave of his hand and a vaguer smile. Hastings' heart sank. "For Heaven's sake," he said, "Clifford, go to bed." "Not while thatthat Alfred pokes his shaggy head in here an' I have a shoe left." Hastings blew out the candle, picked up Clifford's hat and cane, and said, with an emotion he could not conceal, "This is terrible, Clifford,Inever knew you did this sort of thing." "Well, I do," said Clifford. "Where is Elliott?" "Ole chap," returned Clifford, becoming maudlin, "Providence which feedsfeedsersparrows an' that sort of thing watcheth over the intemperate wanderer" "Where is Elliott?" But Clifford only wagged his head and waved his arm about. "He's out there,somewhere about." Then suddenly feeling a desire to see his missing chum, lifted up his voice and howled for him. Hastings, thoroughly shocked, sat down on the lounge without a word. Presently, after shedding several scalding tears, Clifford brightened up and rose with great precaution. "Ole chap," he observed, "do you want to see erer miracle? Well, here goes. I'm goin' to begin." He paused, beaming at vacancy. "Er miracle," he repeated. Hastings supposed he was alluding to the miracle of his keeping his balance, and said nothing. "I'm goin' to bed," he announced, "poor ole Clifford's goin' to bed, an' that's er miracle!" And he did with a nice calculation of distance and equilibrium which would have rung enthusiastic yells of applause from Elliott had he been there to assist en connaisseur. But he was not. He had not yet reached the studio. He was on his way, however, and smiled with magnificent condescension on Hastings, who, half an hour later, found him reclining upon a bench in the Luxembourg. He permitted himself to be aroused, dusted and escorted to the gate. Here, however, he refused all further assistance, and bestowing a patronizing bow upon Hastings, steered a tolerably true course for the rue Vavin. Hastings watched him out of sight, and then slowly retraced his steps toward the fountain. At first he felt gloomy and depressed, but gradually the clear air of the morning lifted the pressure from his heart, and he sat down on the marble seat under the shadow of the winged god. The air was fresh and sweet with perfume from the orange flowers. Everywhere pigeons were bathing, dashing the water over their irishued breasts, flashing in and out of the spray or nestling almost to the neck along the polished basin. The sparrows, too, were abroad in force, soaking their dustcoloured feathers in the limpid pool and chirping with might and main. Under the sycamores which surrounded the duckpond opposite the fountain of Marie de Medici, the waterfowl cropped the herbage, or waddled in rows down the bank to embark on some solemn aimless cruise. Butterflies, somewhat lame from a chilly night's repose under the lilac leaves, crawled over and over the white phlox, or took a rheumatic flight toward some sunwarmed shrub. The bees were already busy among the heliotrope, and one or two grey flies with brickcoloured eyes sat in a spot of sunlight beside the marble seat, or chased each other about, only to return again to the spot of sunshine and rub their forelegs, exulting. The sentries paced briskly before the painted boxes, pausing at times to look toward the guardhouse for their relief. They came at last, with a shuffle of feet and click of bayonets, the word was passed, the relief fell out, and away they went, crunch, crunch, across the gravel. A mellow chime floated from the clocktower of the palace, the deep bell of St. Sulpice echoed the stroke. Hastings sat dreaming in the shadow of the god, and while he mused somebody came and sat down beside him. At first he did not raise his head. It was only when she spoke that he sprang up. "You! At this hour?" "I was restless, I could not sleep." Then in a low, happy voice"And you! at this hour?" "II slept, but the sun awoke me." "I could not sleep," she said, and her eyes seemed, for a moment, touched with an indefinable shadow. Then, smiling, "I am so gladI seemed to know you were coming. Don't laugh, I believe in dreams." "Did you really dream of,of my being here?" "I think I was awake when I dreamed it," she admitted. Then for a time they were mute, acknowledging by silence the happiness of being together. And after all their silence was eloquent, for faint smiles, and glances born of their thoughts, crossed and recrossed, until lips moved and words were formed, which seemed almost superfluous. What they said was not very profound. Perhaps the most valuable jewel that fell from Hastings' lips bore direct reference to breakfast. "I have not yet had my chocolate," she confessed, "but what a material man you are." "Valentine," he said impulsively, "I wish,I do wish that you would,just for this once,give me the whole day,just for this once." "Oh dear," she smiled, "not only material, but selfish!" "Not selfish, hungry," he said, looking at her. "A cannibal too; oh dear!" "Will you, Valentine?" "But my chocolate" "Take it with me." "But djeuner" "Together, at St. Cloud." "But I can't" "Together,all day,all day long; will you, Valentine?" She was silent. "Only for this once." Again that indefinable shadow fell across her eyes, and when it was gone she sighed. "Yes,together, only for this once." "All day?" he said, doubting his happiness. "All day," she smiled; "and oh, I am so hungry!" He laughed, enchanted. "What a material young lady it is." On the Boulevard St. Michel there is a Crmerie painted white and blue outside, and neat and clean as a whistle inside. The auburnhaired young woman who speaks French like a native, and rejoices in the name of Murphy, smiled at them as they entered, and tossing a fresh napkin over the zinc ttette table, whisked before them two cups of chocolate and a basket full of crisp, fresh croissons. The primrosecoloured pats of butter, each stamped with a shamrock in relief, seemed saturated with the fragrance of Normandy pastures. "How delicious!" they said in the same breath, and then laughed at the coincidence. "With but a single thought," he began. "How absurd!" she cried with cheeks all rosy. "I'm thinking I'd like a croisson." "So am I," he replied triumphant, "that proves it." Then they had a quarrel; she accusing him of behaviour unworthy of a child in arms, and he denying it, and bringing counter charges, until Mademoiselle Murphy laughed in sympathy, and the last croisson was eaten under a flag of truce. Then they rose, and she took his arm with a bright nod to Mile. Murphy, who cried them a merry "Bonjour, madame! bonjour, monsieur!" and watched them hail a passing cab and drive away. "Dieu! qu'il est beau," she sighed, adding after a moment, "Do they be married, I dunno,ma foi ils ont bien l'air." The cab swung around the rue de Medici, turned into the rue de Vaugirard, followed it to where it crosses the rue de Rennes, and taking that noisy thoroughfare, drew up before the Gare Montparnasse. They were just in time for a train and scampered up the stairway and out to the cars as the last note from the startinggong rang through the arched station. The guard slammed the door of their compartment, a whistle sounded, answered by a screech from the locomotive, and the long train glided from the station, faster, faster, and sped out into the morning sunshine. The summer wind blew in their faces from the open window, and sent the soft hair dancing on the girl's forehead. "We have the compartment to ourselves," said Hastings. She leaned against the cushioned windowseat, her eyes bright and wide open, her lips parted. The wind lifted her hat, and fluttered the ribbons under her chin. With a quick movement she untied them, and, drawing a long hatpin from her hat, laid it down on the seat beside her. The train was flying. The colour surged in her cheeks, and, with each quickdrawn breath, her breath rose and fell under the cluster of lilies at her throat. Trees, houses, ponds, danced past, cut by a mist of telegraph poles. "Faster! faster!" she cried. His eyes never left her, but hers, wide open, and blue as the summer sky, seemed fixed on something far ahead,something which came no nearer, but fled before them as they fled. Was it the horizon, cut now by the grim fortress on the hill, now by the cross of a country chapel? Was it the summer moon, ghostlike, slipping through the vaguer blue above? "Faster! faster!" she cried. Her parted lips burned scarlet. The car shook and shivered, and the fields streamed by like an emerald torrent. He caught the excitement, and his faced glowed. "Oh," she cried, and with an unconscious movement caught his hand, drawing him to the window beside her. "Look! lean out with me!" He only saw her lips move; her voice was drowned in the roar of a trestle, but his hand closed in hers and he clung to the sill. The wind whistled in their ears. "Not so far out, Valentine, take care!" he gasped. Below, through the ties of the trestle, a broad river flashed into view and out again, as the train thundered along a tunnel, and away once more through the freshest of green fields. The wind roared about them. The girl was leaning far out from the window, and he caught her by the waist, crying, "Not too far!" but she only murmured, "Faster! faster! away out of the city, out of the land, faster, faster! away out of the world!" "What are you saying all to yourself?" he said, but his voice was broken, and the wind whirled it back into his throat. She heard him, and, turning from the window looked down at his arm about her. Then she raised her eyes to his. The car shook and the windows rattled. They were dashing through a forest now, and the sun swept the dewy branches with running flashes of fire. He looked into her troubled eyes; he drew her to him and kissed the halfparted lips, and she cried out, a bitter, hopeless cry, "Not thatnot that!" But he held her close and strong, whispering words of honest love and passion, and when she sobbed"Not thatnot thatI have promised! You mustyou must knowI amnotworthy" In the purity of his own heart her words were, to him, meaningless then, meaningless for ever after. Presently her voice ceased, and her head rested on his breast. He leaned against the window, his ears swept by the furious wind, his heart in a joyous tumult. The forest was passed, and the sun slipped from behind the trees, flooding the earth again with brightness. She raised her eyes and looked out into the world from the window. Then she began to speak, but her voice was faint, and he bent his head close to hers and listened. "I cannot turn from you; I am too weak. You were long ago my mastermaster of my heart and soul. I have broken my word to one who trusted me, but I have told you all;what matters the rest?" He smiled at her innocence and she worshipped his. She spoke again "Take me or cast me away;what matters it? Now with a word you can kill me, and it might be easier to die than to look upon happiness as great as mine." He took her in his arms, "Hush, what are you saying? Look,look out at the sunlight, the meadows and the streams. We shall be very happy in so bright a world." She turned to the sunlight. From the window, the world below seemed very fair to her. Trembling with happiness, she sighed "Is this the world? Then I have never known it." "Nor have I, God forgive me," he murmured. Perhaps it was our gentle Lady of the Fields who forgave them both. RUE BARRE "For let Philosopher and Doctor preach Of what they will and what they will not,each Is but one link in an eternal chain That none can slip nor break nor overreach." "Crimson nor yellow roses nor The savour of the mounting sea Are worth the perfume I adore That clings to thee. The languidheaded lilies tire, The changeless waters weary me; I ache with passionate desire Of thine and thee. There are but these things in the world Thy mouth of fire, Thy breasts, thy hands, thy hair upcurled And my desire.

" I One morning at Julian's, a student said to Selby, "That is Foxhall Clifford," pointing with his brushes at a young man who sat before an easel, doing nothing. Selby, shy and nervous, walked over and began "My name is Selby,I have just arrived in Paris, and bring a letter of introduction" His voice was lost in the crash of a falling easel, the owner of which promptly assaulted his neighbour, and for a time the noise of battle rolled through the studios of MM. Boulanger and Lefebvre, presently subsiding into a scuffle on the stairs outside. Selby, apprehensive as to his own reception in the studio, looked at Clifford, who sat serenely watching the fight. "It's a little noisy here," said Clifford, "but you will like the fellows when you know them." His unaffected manner delighted Selby. Then with a simplicity that won his heart, he presented him to half a dozen students of as many nationalities. Some were cordial, all were polite. Even the majestic creature who held the position of Massier, unbent enough to say "My friend, when a man speaks French as well as you do, and is also a friend of Monsieur Clifford, he will have no trouble in this studio. You expect, of course, to fill the stove until the next new man comes?" "Of course." "And you don't mind chaff?" "No," replied Selby, who hated it. Clifford, much amused, put on his hat, saying, "You must expect lots of it at first." Selby placed his own hat on his head and followed him to the door. As they passed the model stand there was a furious cry of "Chapeau! Chapeau!" and a student sprang from his easel menacing Selby, who reddened but looked at Clifford. "Take off your hat for them," said the latter, laughing. A little embarrassed, he turned and saluted the studio. "Et moi?" cried the model. "You are charming," replied Selby, astonished at his own audacity, but the studio rose as one man, shouting "He has done well! he's all right!" while the model, laughing, kissed her hand to him and cried " demain beau jeune homme!" All that week Selby worked at the studio unmolested. The French students christened him "l'Enfant Prodigue," which was freely translated, "The Prodigious Infant," "The Kid," "Kid Selby," and "Kidby." But the disease soon ran its course from "Kidby" to "Kidney," and then naturally to "Tidbits," where it was arrested by Clifford's authority and ultimately relapsed to "Kid." Wednesday came, and with it M. Boulanger. For three hours the students writhed under his biting sarcasms,among the others Clifford, who was informed that he knew even less about a work of art than he did about the art of work. Selby was more fortunate. The professor examined his drawing in silence, looked at him sharply, and passed on with a noncommittal gesture. He presently departed arm in arm with Bouguereau, to the relief of Clifford, who was then at liberty to jam his hat on his head and depart. The next day he did not appear, and Selby, who had counted on seeing him at the studio, a thing which he learned later it was vanity to count on, wandered back to the Latin Quarter alone. Paris was still strange and new to him. He was vaguely troubled by its splendour. No tender memories stirred his American bosom at the Place du Chtelet, nor even by Notre Dame. The Palais de Justice with its clock and turrets and stalking sentinels in blue and vermilion, the Place St. Michel with its jumble of omnibuses and ugly waterspitting griffins, the hill of the Boulevard St. Michel, the tooting trams, the policemen dawdling two by two, and the tablelined terraces of the Caf Vacehett were nothing to him, as yet, nor did he even know, when he stepped from the stones of the Place St. Michel to the asphalt of the Boulevard, that he had crossed the frontier and entered the student zone,the famous Latin Quarter. A cabman hailed him as "bourgeois," and urged the superiority of driving over walking. A gamin, with an appearance of great concern, requested the latest telegraphic news from London, and then, standing on his head, invited Selby to feats of strength. A pretty girl gave him a glance from a pair of violet eyes. He did not see her, but she, catching her own reflection in a window, wondered at the colour burning in her cheeks. Turning to resume her course, she met Foxhall Clifford, and hurried on. Clifford, openmouthed, followed her with his eyes; then he looked after Selby, who had turned into the Boulevard St. Germain toward the rue de Seine. Then he examined himself in the shop window. The result seemed to be unsatisfactory. "I'm not a beauty," he mused, "but neither am I a hobgoblin. What does she mean by blushing at Selby? I never before saw her look at a fellow in my life,neither has any one in the Quarter. Anyway, I can swear she never looks at me, and goodness knows I have done all that respectful adoration can do." He sighed, and murmuring a prophecy concerning the salvation of his immortal soul swung into that graceful lounge which at all times characterized Clifford. With no apparent exertion, he overtook Selby at the corner, and together they crossed the sunlit Boulevard and sat down under the awning of the Caf du Cercle. Clifford bowed to everybody on the terrace, saying, "You shall meet them all later, but now let me present you to two of the sights of Paris, Mr. Richard Elliott and Mr. Stanley Rowden." The "sights" looked amiable, and took vermouth. "You cut the studio today," said Elliott, suddenly turning on Clifford, who avoided his eyes. "To commune with nature?" observed Rowden. "What's her name this time?" asked Elliott, and Rowden answered promptly, "Name, Yvette; nationality, Breton" "Wrong," replied Clifford blandly, "it's Rue Barre." The subject changed instantly, and Selby listened in surprise to names which were new to him, and eulogies on the latest Prix de Rome winner. He was delighted to hear opinions boldly expressed and points honestly debated, although the vehicle was mostly slang, both English and French. He longed for the time when he too should be plunged into the strife for fame. The bells of St. Sulpice struck the hour, and the Palace of the Luxembourg answered chime on chime. With a glance at the sun, dipping low in the golden dust behind the Palais Bourbon, they rose, and turning to the east, crossed the Boulevard St. Germain and sauntered toward the cole de Mdecine. At the corner a girl passed them, walking hurriedly. Clifford smirked, Elliott and Rowden were agitated, but they all bowed, and, without raising her eyes, she returned their salute. But Selby, who had lagged behind, fascinated by some gay shop window, looked up to meet two of the bluest eyes he had ever seen. The eyes were dropped in an instant, and the young fellow hastened to overtake the others. "By Jove," he said, "do you fellows know I have just seen the prettiest girl" An exclamation broke from the trio, gloomy, foreboding, like the chorus in a Greek play. "Rue Barre!" "What!" cried Selby, bewildered. The only answer was a vague gesture from Clifford. Two hours later, during dinner, Clifford turned to Selby and said, "You want to ask me something; I can tell by the way you fidget about." "Yes, I do," he said, innocently enough; "it's about that girl. Who is she?" In Rowden's smile there was pity, in Elliott's bitterness. "Her name," said Clifford solemnly, "is unknown to any one, at least," he added with much conscientiousness, "as far as I can learn. Every fellow in the Quarter bows to her and she returns the salute gravely, but no man has ever been known to obtain more than that. Her profession, judging from her musicroll, is that of a pianist. Her residence is in a small and humble street which is kept in a perpetual process of repair by the city authorities, and from the black letters painted on the barrier which defends the street from traffic, she has taken the name by which we know her,Rue Barre. Mr. Rowden, in his imperfect knowledge of the French tongue, called our attention to it as Roo Barry" "I didn't," said Rowden hotly. "And Roo Barry, or Rue Barre, is today an object of adoration to every rapin in the Quarter" "We are not rapins," corrected Elliott. "I am not," returned Clifford, "and I beg to call to your attention, Selby, that these two gentlemen have at various and apparently unfortunate moments, offered to lay down life and limb at the feet of Rue Barre. The lady possesses a chilling smile which she uses on such occasions and," here he became gloomily impressive, "I have been forced to believe that neither the scholarly grace of my friend Elliott nor the buxom beauty of my friend Rowden have touched that heart of ice." Elliott and Rowden, boiling with indignation, cried out, "And you!" "I," said Clifford blandly, "do fear to tread where you rush in." II Twentyfour hours later Selby had completely forgotten Rue Barre. During the week he worked with might and main at the studio, and Saturday night found him so tired that he went to bed before dinner and had a nightmare about a river of yellow ochre in which he was drowning. Sunday morning, apropos of nothing at all, he thought of Rue Barre, and ten seconds afterwards he saw her. It was at the flowermarket on the marble bridge. She was examining a pot of pansies. The gardener had evidently thrown heart and soul into the transaction, but Rue Barre shook her head. It is a question whether Selby would have stopped then and there to inspect a cabbagerose had not Clifford unwound for him the yarn of the previous Tuesday. It is possible that his curiosity was piqued, for with the exception of a henturkey, a boy of nineteen is the most openly curious biped alive. From twenty until death he tries to conceal it. But, to be fair to Selby, it is also true that the market was attractive. Under a cloudless sky the flowers were packed and heaped along the marble bridge to the parapet. The air was soft, the sun spun a shadowy lacework among the palms and glowed in the hearts of a thousand roses. Spring had come,was in full tide. The watering carts and sprinklers spread freshness over the Boulevard, the sparrows had become vulgarly obtrusive, and the credulous Seine angler anxiously followed his gaudy quill floating among the soapsuds of the lavoirs. The whitespiked chestnuts clad in tender green vibrated with the hum of bees. Shoddy butterflies flaunted their winter rags among the heliotrope. There was a smell of fresh earth in the air, an echo of the woodland brook in the ripple of the Seine, and swallows soared and skimmed among the anchored river craft. Somewhere in a window a caged bird was singing its heart out to the sky. Selby looked at the cabbagerose and then at the sky. Something in the song of the caged bird may have moved him, or perhaps it was that dangerous sweetness in the air of May. At first he was hardly conscious that he had stopped, then he was scarcely conscious why he had stopped, then he thought he would move on, then he thought he wouldn't, then he looked at Rue Barre. The gardener said, "Mademoiselle, this is undoubtedly a fine pot of pansies." Rue Barre shook her head. The gardener smiled. She evidently did not want the pansies. She had bought many pots of pansies there, two or three every spring, and never argued. What did she want then? The pansies were evidently a feeler toward a more important transaction. The gardener rubbed his hands and gazed about him. "These tulips are magnificent," he observed, "and these hyacinths" He fell into a trance at the mere sight of the scented thickets. "That," murmured Rue, pointing to a splendid rosebush with her furled parasol, but in spite of her, her voice trembled a little. Selby noticed it, more shame to him that he was listening, and the gardener noticed it, and, burying his nose in the roses, scented a bargain. Still, to do him justice, he did not add a centime to the honest value of the plant, for after all, Rue was probably poor, and any one could see she was charming. "Fifty francs, Mademoiselle." The gardener's tone was grave. Rue felt that argument would be wasted. They both stood silent for a moment. The gardener did not eulogize his prize,the rosetree was gorgeous and any one could see it. "I will take the pansies," said the girl, and drew two francs from a worn purse. Then she looked up. A teardrop stood in the way refracting the light like a diamond, but as it rolled into a little corner by her nose a vision of Selby replaced it, and when a brush of the handkerchief had cleared the startled blue eyes, Selby himself appeared, very much embarrassed. He instantly looked up into the sky, apparently devoured with a thirst for astronomical research, and as he continued his investigations for fully five minutes, the gardener looked up too, and so did a policeman. Then Selby looked at the tips of his boots, the gardener looked at him and the policeman slouched on. Rue Barre had been gone some time. "What," said the gardener, "may I offer Monsieur?" Selby never knew why, but he suddenly began to buy flowers. The gardener was electrified. Never before had he sold so many flowers, never at such satisfying prices, and never, never with such absolute unanimity of opinion with a customer. But he missed the bargaining, the arguing, the calling of Heaven to witness. The transaction lacked spice. "These tulips are magnificent!" "They are!" cried Selby warmly. "But alas, they are dear." "I will take them." "Dieu!" murmured the gardener in a perspiration, "he's madder than most Englishmen." "This cactus" "Is gorgeous!" "Alas" "Send it with the rest." The gardener braced himself against the river wall. "That splendid rosebush," he began faintly. "That is a beauty. I believe it is fifty francs" He stopped, very red. The gardener relished his confusion. Then a sudden cool selfpossession took the place of his momentary confusion and he held the gardener with his eye, and bullied him. "I'll take that bush. Why did not the young lady buy it?" "Mademoiselle is not wealthy." "How do you know?" "Dame, I sell her many pansies; pansies are not expensive." "Those are the pansies she bought?" "These, Monsieur, the blue and gold." "Then you intend to send them to her?" "At midday after the market." "Take this rosebush with them, and"here he glared at the gardener"don't you dare say from whom they came." The gardener's eyes were like saucers, but Selby, calm and victorious, said "Send the others to the Htel du Snat, 7 rue de Tournon. I will leave directions with the concierge." Then he buttoned his glove with much dignity and stalked off, but when well around the corner and hidden from the gardener's view, the conviction that he was an idiot came home to him in a furious blush. Ten minutes later he sat in his room in the Htel du Snat repeating with an imbecile smile "What an ass I am, what an ass!" An hour later found him in the same chair, in the same position, his hat and gloves still on, his stick in his hand, but he was silent, apparently lost in contemplation of his boot toes, and his smile was less imbecile and even a bit retrospective. III About five o'clock that afternoon, the little sadeyed woman who fills the position of concierge at the Htel du Snat held up her hands in amazement to see a wagonload of flowerbearing shrubs draw up before the doorway. She called Joseph, the intemperate garon, who, while calculating the value of the flowers in petits verres, gloomily disclaimed any knowledge as to their destination. "Voyons," said the little concierge, "cherchons la femme!" "You?" he suggested. The little woman stood a moment pensive and then sighed. Joseph caressed his nose, a nose which for gaudiness could vie with any floral display. Then the gardener came in, hat in hand, and a few minutes later Selby stood in the middle of his room, his coat off, his shirtsleeves rolled up. The chamber originally contained, besides the furniture, about two square feet of walking room, and now this was occupied by a cactus. The bed groaned under crates of pansies, lilies and heliotrope, the lounge was covered with hyacinths and tulips, and the washstand supported a species of young tree warranted to bear flowers at some time or other. Clifford came in a little later, fell over a box of sweet peas, swore a little, apologized, and then, as the full splendour of the floral fte burst upon him, sat down in astonishment upon a geranium. The geranium was a wreck, but Selby said, "Don't mind," and glared at the cactus. "Are you going to give a ball?" demanded Clifford. "Nno,I'm very fond of flowers," said Selby, but the statement lacked enthusiasm. "I should imagine so." Then, after a silence, "That's a fine cactus." Selby contemplated the cactus, touched it with the air of a connoisseur, and pricked his thumb. Clifford poked a pansy with his stick. Then Joseph came in with the bill, announcing the sum total in a loud voice, partly to impress Clifford, partly to intimidate Selby into disgorging a pourboire which he would share, if he chose, with the gardener. Clifford tried to pretend that he had not heard, while Selby paid bill and tribute without a murmur. Then he lounged back into the room with an attempt at indifference which failed entirely when he tore his trousers on the cactus. Clifford made some commonplace remark, lighted a cigarette and looked out of the window to give Selby a chance. Selby tried to take it, but getting as far as"Yes, spring is here at last," froze solid. He looked at the back of Clifford's head. It expressed volumes. Those little perkedup ears seemed tingling with suppressed glee. He made a desperate effort to master the situation, and jumped up to reach for some Russian cigarettes as an incentive to conversation, but was foiled by the cactus, to whom again he fell a prey. The last straw was added. "Damn the cactus." This observation was wrung from Selby against his will,against his own instinct of selfpreservation, but the thorns on the cactus were long and sharp, and at their repeated prick his pentup wrath escaped. It was too late now; it was done, and Clifford had wheeled around. "See here, Selby, why the deuce did you buy those flowers?" "I'm fond of them," said Selby. "What are you going to do with them? You can't sleep here." "I could, if you'd help me take the pansies off the bed." "Where can you put them?" "Couldn't I give them to the concierge?" As soon as he said it he regretted it. What in Heaven's name would Clifford think of him! He had heard the amount of the bill. Would he believe that he had invested in these luxuries as a timid declaration to his concierge? And would the Latin Quarter comment upon it in their own brutal fashion? He dreaded ridicule and he knew Clifford's reputation. Then somebody knocked. Selby looked at Clifford with a hunted expression which touched that young man's heart. It was a confession and at the same time a supplication. Clifford jumped up, threaded his way through the floral labyrinth, and putting an eye to the crack of the door, said, "Who the devil is it?" This graceful style of reception is indigenous to the Quarter. "It's Elliott," he said, looking back, "and Rowden too, and their bulldogs." Then he addressed them through the crack. "Sit down on the stairs; Selby and I are coming out directly." Discretion is a virtue. The Latin Quarter possesses few, and discretion seldom figures on the list. They sat down and began to whistle. Presently Rowden called out, "I smell flowers. They feast within!" "You ought to know Selby better than that," growled Clifford behind the door, while the other hurriedly exchanged his torn trousers for others. "We know Selby," said Elliott with emphasis. "Yes," said Rowden, "he gives receptions with floral decorations and invites Clifford, while we sit on the stairs." "Yes, while the youth and beauty of the Quarter revel," suggested Rowden; then, with sudden misgiving; "Is Odette there?" "See here," demanded Elliott, "is Colette there?" Then he raised his voice in a plaintive howl, "Are you there, Colette, while I'm kicking my heels on these tiles?" "Clifford is capable of anything," said Rowden; "his nature is soured since Rue Barre sat on him." Elliott raised his voice "I say, you fellows, we saw some flowers carried into Rue Barre's house at noon." "Posies and roses," specified Rowden. "Probably for her," added Elliott, caressing his bulldog. Clifford turned with sudden suspicion upon Selby. The latter hummed a tune, selected a pair of gloves and, choosing a dozen cigarettes, placed them in a case. Then walking over to the cactus, he deliberately detached a blossom, drew it through his buttonhole, and picking up hat and stick, smiled upon Clifford, at which the latter was mightily troubled. IV Monday morning at Julian's, students fought for places; students with prior claims drove away others who had been anxiously squatting on coveted tabourets since the door was opened in hopes of appropriating them at rollcall; students squabbled over palettes, brushes, portfolios, or rent the air with demands for Ciceri and bread. The former, a dirty exmodel, who had in palmier days posed as Judas, now dispensed stale bread at one sou and made enough to keep himself in cigarettes. Monsieur Julian walked in, smiled a fatherly smile and walked out. His disappearance was followed by the apparition of the clerk, a foxy creature who flitted through the battling hordes in search of prey. Three men who had not paid dues were caught and summoned. A fourth was scented, followed, outflanked, his retreat towards the door cut off, and finally captured behind the stove. About that time, the revolution assuming an acute form, howls rose for "Jules!" Jules came, umpired two fights with a sad resignation in his big brown eyes, shook hands with everybody and melted away in the throng, leaving an atmosphere of peace and goodwill. The lions sat down with the lambs, the massiers marked the best places for themselves and friends, and, mounting the model stands, opened the rollcalls. The word was passed, "They begin with C this week." They did. "Clisson!" Clisson jumped like a flash and marked his name on the floor in chalk before a front seat. "Caron!" Caron galloped away to secure his place. Bang! went an easel. "Nom de Dieu!" in French,"Where in hl are you goin'!" in English. Crash! a paintbox fell with brushes and all on board. "Dieu de Dieu de" spat! A blow, a short rush, a clinch and scuffle, and the voice of the massier, stern and reproachful "Cochon!" Then the rollcall was resumed. "Clifford!" The massier paused and looked up, one finger between the leaves of the ledger. "Clifford!" Clifford was not there. He was about three miles away in a direct line and every instant increased the distance. Not that he was walking fast,on the contrary, he was strolling with that leisurely gait peculiar to himself. Elliott was beside him and two bulldogs covered the rear. Elliott was reading the "Gil Blas," from which he seemed to extract amusement, but deeming boisterous mirth unsuitable to Clifford's state of mind, subdued his amusement to a series of discreet smiles. The latter, moodily aware of this, said nothing, but leading the way into the Luxembourg Gardens installed himself upon a bench by the northern terrace and surveyed the landscape with disfavour. Elliott, according to the Luxembourg regulations, tied the two dogs and then, with an interrogative glance toward his friend, resumed the "Gil Blas" and the discreet smiles. The day was perfect. The sun hung over Notre Dame, setting the city in a glitter. The tender foliage of the chestnuts cast a shadow over the terrace and flecked the paths and walks with tracery so blue that Clifford might here have found encouragement for his violent "impressions" had he but looked; but as usual in this period of his career, his thoughts were anywhere except in his profession. Around about, the sparrows quarrelled and chattered their courtship songs, the big rosy pigeons sailed from tree to tree, the flies whirled in the sunbeams and the flowers exhaled a thousand perfumes which stirred Clifford with languorous wistfulness. Under this influence he spoke. "Elliott, you are a true friend" "You make me ill," replied the latter, folding his paper. "It's just as I thought,you are tagging after some new petticoat again. And," he continued wrathfully, "if this is what you've kept me away from Julian's for,if it's to fill me up with the perfections of some little idiot" "Not idiot," remonstrated Clifford gently. "See here," cried Elliott, "have you the nerve to try to tell me that you are in love again?" "Again?" "Yes, again and again and again andby George have you?" "This," observed Clifford sadly, "is serious." For a moment Elliott would have laid hands on him, then he laughed from sheer helplessness. "Oh, go on, go on; let's see, there's Clmence and Marie Tellec and Cosette and Fifine, Colette, Marie Verdier" "All of whom are charming, most charming, but I never was serious" "So help me, Moses," said Elliott, solemnly, "each and every one of those named have separately and in turn torn your heart with anguish and have also made me lose my place at Julian's in this same manner; each and every one, separately and in turn. Do you deny it?" "What you say may be founded on factsin a waybut give me the credit of being faithful to one at a time" "Until the next came along." "But this,this is really very different. Elliott, believe me, I am all broken up." Then there being nothing else to do, Elliott gnashed his teeth and listened. "It'sit's Rue Barre." "Well," observed Elliott, with scorn, "if you are moping and moaning over that girl,the girl who has given you and myself every reason to wish that the ground would open and engulf us,well, go on!" "I'm going on,I don't care; timidity has fled" "Yes, your native timidity." "I'm desperate, Elliott. Am I in love? Never, never did I feel so dn miserable. I can't sleep; honestly, I'm incapable of eating properly." "Same symptoms noticed in the case of Colette." "Listen, will you?" "Hold on a moment, I know the rest by heart. Now let me ask you something. Is it your belief that Rue Barre is a pure girl?" "Yes," said Clifford, turning red. "Do you love her,not as you dangle and tiptoe after every pretty inanityI mean, do you honestly love her?" "Yes," said the other doggedly, "I would" "Hold on a moment; would you marry her?" Clifford turned scarlet. "Yes," he muttered. "Pleasant news for your family," growled Elliott in suppressed fury. "'Dear father, I have just married a charming grisette whom I'm sure you'll welcome with open arms, in company with her mother, a most estimable and cleanly washlady.' Good heavens! This seems to have gone a little further than the rest. Thank your stars, young man, that my head is level enough for us both. Still, in this case, I have no fear. Rue Barre sat on your aspirations in a manner unmistakably final." "Rue Barre," began Clifford, drawing himself up, but he suddenly ceased, for there where the dappled sunlight glowed in spots of gold, along the sunflecked path, tripped Rue Barre. Her gown was spotless, and her big straw hat, tipped a little from the white forehead, threw a shadow across her eyes. Elliott stood up and bowed. Clifford removed his headcovering with an air so plaintive, so appealing, so utterly humble that Rue Barre smiled. The smile was delicious and when Clifford, incapable of sustaining himself on his legs from sheer astonishment, toppled slightly, she smiled again in spite of herself. A few moments later she took a chair on the terrace and drawing a book from her musicroll, turned the pages, found the place, and then placing it open downwards in her lap, sighed a little, smiled a little, and looked out over the city. She had entirely forgotten Foxhall Clifford. After a while she took up her book again, but instead of reading began to adjust a rose in her corsage. The rose was big and red. It glowed like fire there over her heart, and like fire it warmed her heart, now fluttering under the silken petals. Rue Barre sighed again. She was very happy. The sky was so blue, the air so soft and perfumed, the sunshine so caressing, and her heart sang within her, sang to the rose in her breast. This is what it sang "Out of the throng of passersby, out of the world of yesterday, out of the millions passing, one has turned aside to me." So her heart sang under his rose on her breast. Then two big mousecoloured pigeons came whistling by and alighted on the terrace, where they bowed and strutted and bobbed and turned until Rue Barre laughed in delight, and looking up beheld Clifford before her. His hat was in his hand and his face was wreathed in a series of appealing smiles which would have touched the heart of a Bengal tiger. For an instant Rue Barre frowned, then she looked curiously at Clifford, then when she saw the resemblance between his bows and the bobbing pigeons, in spite of herself, her lips parted in the most bewitching laugh. Was this Rue Barre? So changed, so changed that she did not know herself; but oh! that song in her heart which drowned all else, which trembled on her lips, struggling for utterance, which rippled forth in a laugh at nothing,at a strutting pigeon,and Mr. Clifford. "And you think, because I return the salute of the students in the Quarter, that you may be received in particular as a friend? I do not know you, Monsieur, but vanity is man's other name;be content, Monsieur Vanity, I shall be punctiliousoh, most punctilious in returning your salute." "But I begI implore you to let me render you that homage which has so long" "Oh dear; I don't care for homage." "Let me only be permitted to speak to you now and then,occasionallyvery occasionally." "And if you, why not another?" "Not at all,I will be discretion itself." "Discretionwhy?" Her eyes were very clear, and Clifford winced for a moment, but only for a moment. Then the devil of recklessness seizing him, he sat down and offered himself, soul and body, goods and chattels. And all the time he knew he was a fool and that infatuation is not love, and that each word he uttered bound him in honour from which there was no escape. And all the time Elliott was scowling down on the fountain plaza and savagely checking both bulldogs from their desire to rush to Clifford's rescue,for even they felt there was something wrong, as Elliott stormed within himself and growled maledictions. When Clifford finished, he finished in a glow of excitement, but Rue Barre's response was long in coming and his ardour cooled while the situation slowly assumed its just proportions. Then regret began to creep in, but he put that aside and broke out again in protestations. At the first word Rue Barre checked him. "I thank you," she said, speaking very gravely. "No man has ever before offered me marriage." She turned and looked out over the city. After a while she spoke again. "You offer me a great deal. I am alone, I have nothing, I am nothing." She turned again and looked at Paris, brilliant, fair, in the sunshine of a perfect day. He followed her eyes. "Oh," she murmured, "it is hard,hard to work alwaysalways alone with never a friend you can have in honour, and the love that is offered means the streets, the boulevardwhen passion is dead. I know it,we know it,we others who have nothing,have no one, and who give ourselves, unquestioningwhen we love,yes, unquestioningheart and soul, knowing the end." She touched the rose at her breast. For a moment she seemed to forget him, then quietly"I thank you, I am very grateful." She opened the book and, plucking a petal from the rose, dropped it between the leaves. Then looking up she said gently, "I cannot accept." V It took Clifford a month to entirely recover, although at the end of the first week he was pronounced convalescent by Elliott, who was an authority, and his convalescence was aided by the cordiality with which Rue Barre acknowledged his solemn salutes.

Forty times a day he blessed Rue Barre for her refusal, and thanked his lucky stars, and at the same time, oh, wondrous heart of ours!he suffered the tortures of the blighted. Elliott was annoyed, partly by Clifford's reticence, partly by the unexplainable thaw in the frigidity of Rue Barre. At their frequent encounters, when she, tripping along the rue de Seine, with musicroll and big straw hat would pass Clifford and his familiars steering an easterly course to the Caf Vachette, and at the respectful uncovering of the band would colour and smile at Clifford, Elliott's slumbering suspicions awoke. But he never found out anything, and finally gave it up as beyond his comprehension, merely qualifying Clifford as an idiot and reserving his opinion of Rue Barre. And all this time Selby was jealous. At first he refused to acknowledge it to himself, and cut the studio for a day in the country, but the woods and fields of course aggravated his case, and the brooks babbled of Rue Barre and the mowers calling to each other across the meadow ended in a quavering "Rue Barree!" That day spent in the country made him angry for a week, and he worked sulkily at Julian's, all the time tormented by a desire to know where Clifford was and what he might be doing. This culminated in an erratic stroll on Sunday which ended at the flowermarket on the Pont au Change, began again, was gloomily extended to the morgue, and again ended at the marble bridge. It would never do, and Selby felt it, so he went to see Clifford, who was convalescing on mint juleps in his garden. They sat down together and discussed morals and human happiness, and each found the other most entertaining, only Selby failed to pump Clifford, to the other's unfeigned amusement. But the juleps spread balm on the sting of jealousy, and trickled hope to the blighted, and when Selby said he must go, Clifford went too, and when Selby, not to be outdone, insisted on accompanying Clifford back to his door, Clifford determined to see Selby back half way, and then finding it hard to part, they decided to dine together and "flit." To flit, a verb applied to Clifford's nocturnal prowls, expressed, perhaps, as well as anything, the gaiety proposed. Dinner was ordered at Mignon's, and while Selby interviewed the chef, Clifford kept a fatherly eye on the butler. The dinner was a success, or was of the sort generally termed a success. Toward the dessert Selby heard some one say as at a great distance, "Kid Selby, drunk as a lord." A group of men passed near them; it seemed to him that he shook hands and laughed a great deal, and that everybody was very witty. There was Clifford opposite swearing undying confidence in his chum Selby, and there seemed to be others there, either seated beside them or continually passing with the swish of skirts on the polished floor. The perfume of roses, the rustle of fans, the touch of rounded arms and the laughter grew vaguer and vaguer. The room seemed enveloped in mist. Then, all in a moment each object stood out painfully distinct, only forms and visages were distorted and voices piercing. He drew himself up, calm, grave, for the moment master of himself, but very drunk. He knew he was drunk, and was as guarded and alert, as keenly suspicious of himself as he would have been of a thief at his elbow. His selfcommand enabled Clifford to hold his head safely under some running water, and repair to the street considerably the worse for wear, but never suspecting that his companion was drunk. For a time he kept his selfcommand. His face was only a bit paler, a bit tighter than usual; he was only a trifle slower and more fastidious in his speech. It was midnight when he left Clifford peacefully slumbering in somebody's armchair, with a long suede glove dangling in his hand and a plumy boa twisted about his neck to protect his throat from drafts. He walked through the hall and down the stairs, and found himself on the sidewalk in a quarter he did not know. Mechanically he looked up at the name of the street. The name was not familiar. He turned and steered his course toward some lights clustered at the end of the street. They proved farther away than he had anticipated, and after a long quest he came to the conclusion that his eyes had been mysteriously removed from their proper places and had been reset on either side of his head like those of a bird. It grieved him to think of the inconvenience this transformation might occasion him, and he attempted to cock up his head, henlike, to test the mobility of his neck. Then an immense despair stole over him,tears gathered in the tearducts, his heart melted, and he collided with a tree. This shocked him into comprehension; he stifled the violent tenderness in his breast, picked up his hat and moved on more briskly. His mouth was white and drawn, his teeth tightly clinched. He held his course pretty well and strayed but little, and after an apparently interminable length of time found himself passing a line of cabs. The brilliant lamps, red, yellow, and green annoyed him, and he felt it might be pleasant to demolish them with his cane, but mastering this impulse he passed on. Later an idea struck him that it would save fatigue to take a cab, and he started back with that intention, but the cabs seemed already so far away and the lanterns were so bright and confusing that he gave it up, and pulling himself together looked around. A shadow, a mass, huge, undefined, rose to his right. He recognized the Arc de Triomphe and gravely shook his cane at it. Its size annoyed him. He felt it was too big. Then he heard something fall clattering to the pavement and thought probably it was his cane but it didn't much matter. When he had mastered himself and regained control of his right leg, which betrayed symptoms of insubordination, he found himself traversing the Place de la Concorde at a pace which threatened to land him at the Madeleine. This would never do. He turned sharply to the right and crossing the bridge passed the Palais Bourbon at a trot and wheeled into the Boulevard St. Germain. He got on well enough although the size of the War Office struck him as a personal insult, and he missed his cane, which it would have been pleasant to drag along the iron railings as he passed. It occurred to him, however, to substitute his hat, but when he found it he forgot what he wanted it for and replaced it upon his head with gravity. Then he was obliged to battle with a violent inclination to sit down and weep. This lasted until he came to the rue de Rennes, but there he became absorbed in contemplating the dragon on the balcony overhanging the Cour du Dragon, and time slipped away until he remembered vaguely that he had no business there, and marched off again. It was slow work. The inclination to sit down and weep had given place to a desire for solitary and deep reflection. Here his right leg forgot its obedience and attacking the left, outflanked it and brought him up against a wooden board which seemed to bar his path. He tried to walk around it, but found the street closed. He tried to push it over, and found he couldn't. Then he noticed a red lantern standing on a pile of pavingstones inside the barrier. This was pleasant. How was he to get home if the boulevard was blocked? But he was not on the boulevard. His treacherous right leg had beguiled him into a detour, for there, behind him lay the boulevard with its endless line of lamps,and here, what was this narrow dilapidated street piled up with earth and mortar and heaps of stone? He looked up. Written in staring black letters on the barrier was RUE BARRE. He sat down. Two policemen whom he knew came by and advised him to get up, but he argued the question from a standpoint of personal taste, and they passed on, laughing. For he was at that moment absorbed in a problem. It was, how to see Rue Barre. She was somewhere or other in that big house with the iron balconies, and the door was locked, but what of that? The simple idea struck him to shout until she came. This idea was replaced by another equally lucid,to hammer on the door until she came; but finally rejecting both of these as too uncertain, he decided to climb into the balcony, and opening a window politely inquire for Rue Barre. There was but one lighted window in the house that he could see. It was on the second floor, and toward this he cast his eyes. Then mounting the wooden barrier and clambering over the piles of stones, he reached the sidewalk and looked up at the faade for a foothold. It seemed impossible. But a sudden fury seized him, a blind, drunken obstinacy, and the blood rushed to his head, leaping, beating in his ears like the dull thunder of an ocean. He set his teeth, and springing at a windowsill, dragged himself up and hung to the iron bars. Then reason fled; there surged in his brain the sound of many voices, his heart leaped up beating a mad tattoo, and gripping at cornice and ledge he worked his way along the faade, clung to pipes and shutters, and dragged himself up, over and into the balcony by the lighted window. His hat fell off and rolled against the pane. For a moment he leaned breathless against the railingthen the window was slowly opened from within. They stared at each other for some time. Presently the girl took two unsteady steps back into the room. He saw her face,all crimsoned now,he saw her sink into a chair by the lamplit table, and without a word he followed her into the room, closing the big doorlike panes behind him. Then they looked at each other in silence. The room was small and white; everything was white about it,the curtained bed, the little washstand in the corner, the bare walls, the china lamp,and his own face,had he known it, but the face and neck of Rue were surging in the colour that dyed the blossoming rosetree there on the hearth beside her. It did not occur to him to speak. She seemed not to expect it. His mind was struggling with the impressions of the room. The whiteness, the extreme purity of everything occupied himbegan to trouble him. As his eye became accustomed to the light, other objects grew from the surroundings and took their places in the circle of lamplight. There was a piano and a coalscuttle and a little iron trunk and a bathtub. Then there was a row of wooden pegs against the door, with a white chintz curtain covering the clothes underneath. On the bed lay an umbrella and a big straw hat, and on the table, a musicroll unfurled, an inkstand, and sheets of ruled paper. Behind him stood a wardrobe faced with a mirror, but somehow he did not care to see his own face just then. He was sobering. The girl sat looking at him without a word. Her face was expressionless, yet the lips at times trembled almost imperceptibly. Her eyes, so wonderfully blue in the daylight, seemed dark and soft as velvet, and the colour on her neck deepened and whitened with every breath. She seemed smaller and more slender than when he had seen her in the street, and there was now something in the curve of her cheek almost infantine. When at last he turned and caught his own reflection in the mirror behind him, a shock passed through him as though he had seen a shameful thing, and his clouded mind and his clouded thoughts grew clearer. For a moment their eyes met then his sought the floor, his lips tightened, and the struggle within him bowed his head and strained every nerve to the breaking. And now it was over, for the voice within had spoken. He listened, dully interested but already knowing the end,indeed it little mattered;the end would always be the same for him;he understood nowalways the same for him, and he listened, dully interested, to a voice which grew within him. After a while he stood up, and she rose at once, one small hand resting on the table. Presently he opened the window, picked up his hat, and shut it again. Then he went over to the rosebush and touched the blossoms with his face. One was standing in a glass of water on the table and mechanically the girl drew it out, pressed it with her lips and laid it on the table beside him. He took it without a word and crossing the room, opened the door. The landing was dark and silent, but the girl lifted the lamp and gliding past him slipped down the polished stairs to the hallway. Then unchaining the bolts, she drew open the iron wicket. Through this he passed with his rose. 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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Uninhabited House This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or reuse it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title The Uninhabited House Author Mrs. J. H. Riddell Release date August 1, 2005 [eBook 8602] Most recently updated April 10, 2014 Language English Credits Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Agren, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNINHABITED HOUSE THE UNINHABITED HOUSE MRS. J. H. RIDDELL CONTENTS 1. MISS BLAKEFROM MEMORY 2. THE CORONER'S INQUEST 3. OUR LAST TENANT 4. MYSELF AND MISS BLAKE 5. THE TRIAL 6. WE AGREE TO COMPROMISE 7. MY OWN STORY 8. MY FIRST NIGHT AT RIVER HALL 9. A TEMPORARY PEACE 10. THE WATCHER IS WATCHED 11. MISS BLAKE ONCE MORE 12. HELP 13. LIGHT AT LAST 14. A TERRIBLE INTERVIEW 15. CONCLUSION 1. MISS BLAKEFROM MEMORY If ever a residence, "suitable in every respect for a family of position," haunted a lawyer's offices, the "Uninhabited House," about which I have a story to tell, haunted those of Messrs. Craven and Son, No. 200, Buckingham Street, Strand. It did not matter in the least whether it happened to be let or unlet in either case, it never allowed Mr. Craven or his clerks, of whom I was one, to forget its existence. When let, we were in perpetual hot water with the tenant; when unlet, we had to endeavour to find some tenant to take that unlucky house. Happy were we when we could get an agreement signed for a couple of yearsalthough we always had misgivings that the war waged with the last occupant would probably have to be renewed with his successor. Still, when we were able to let the desirable residence to a solvent individual, even for twelve months, Mr. Craven rejoiced. He knew how to proceed with the tenants who came blustering, or threatening, or complaining, or bemoaning; but he did not know what to do with Miss Blake and her letters, when no person was liable for the rent. All lawyersI am one myself, and can speak from a long and varied experienceall lawyers, even the very hardest, have one client, at all events, towards whom they exhibit much forbearance, for whom they feel a certain sympathy, and in whose interests they take a vast deal of trouble for very little pecuniary profit. A client of this kind favours me with his businesshe has favoured me with it for many years past. Each first of January I register a vow he shall cost me no more time or money. On each last day of December I find he is deeper in my debt than he was on the same date a twelvemonth previous. I often wonder how this iswhy we, so fierce to one human being, possibly honest and wellmeaning enough, should be as wax in the hand of the moulder, when another individual, perhaps utterly disreputable, refuses to take "No" for an answer. Do we purchase our indulgences in this way? Do we square our accounts with our own consciences by remembering that, if we have been as stone to Dick, Tom, and Harry, we have melted at the first appeal of Jack? My principal, Mr. Craventhan whom a better man never breathedhad an unprofitable client, for whom he entertained feelings of the profoundest pity, whom he treated with a rare courtesy. That lady was Miss Blake; and when the old house on the Thames stood tenantless, Mr. Craven's bed did not prove one of roses. In our firm there was no sonMr. Craven had been the son; but the old father was dead, and our chief's wife had brought him only daughters. Still the title of the firm remained the same, and Mr. Craven's own signature also. He had been junior for such a number of years, that, when Death sent a royal invitation to his senior, he was so accustomed to the old form, that he, and all in his employment, tacitly agreed it was only fitting he should remain junior to the end. A good man. I, of all human beings, have reason to speak well of him. Even putting the undoubted fact of all lawyers keeping one unprofitable client into the scales, if he had not been very good he must have washed his hands of Miss Blake and her niece's house long before the period at which this story opens. The house did not belong to Miss Blake. It was the property of her niece, a certain Miss Helena Elmsdale, of whom Mr. Craven always spoke as that "poor child." She was not of age, and Miss Blake managed her few pecuniary affairs. Besides the "desirable residence, suitable," etcetera, aunt and niece had property producing about sixtyfive pounds a year. When we could let the desirable residence, handsomely furnished, and with every convenience that could be named in the space of a halfguinea advertisement, to a family from the country, or an officer just returned from India, or to an invalid who desired a beautiful and quiet abode within an easy drive of the West Endwhen we could do this, I say, the income of aunt and niece rose to two hundred and sixtyfive pounds a year, which made a very material difference to Miss Blake. When we could not let the house, or when the payment of the rent was in dispute, Mr. Craven advanced the lady various five and ten pound notes, which, it is to be hoped, were entered duly to his credit in the Eternal Books. In the mundane records kept in our offices, they always appeared as debits to William Craven's private account. As for the young men about our establishment, of whom I was one, we anathematised that house. I do not intend to reproduce the language we used concerning it at one period of our experience, because eventually the evil wore itself out, as most evils do, and at last we came to look upon the desirable residence as an institution of our firmas a sort of cause clbre, with which it was creditable to be associatedas a species of remarkable criminal always on its trial, and always certain to be defended by Messrs. Craven and Son. In fact, the Uninhabited Housefor uninhabited it usually was, whether anyone was answerable for the rent or notfinally became an object of as keen interest to all Mr. Craven's clerks as it became a source of annoyance to him. So the beam goes up and down. While Mr. Craven poohpoohed the complaints of tenants, and laughed at the idea of a man being afraid of a ghost, we did not laugh, but swore. When, however, Mr. Craven began to look serious about the matter, and hoped some evildisposed persons were not trying to keep the place tenantless, our interest in the old house became absorbing. And as our interest in the residence grew, so, likewise, did our appreciation of Miss Blake. We missed her when she went abroadwhich she always did the day a fresh agreement was signedand we welcomed her return to England and our offices with effusion. Safely I can say no millionaire ever received such an ovation as fell to the lot of Miss Blake when, after a foreign tour, she returned to those lodgings near Brunswick Square, which her residence ought, I think, to have rendered classic. She never lost an hour in coming to us. With the dust of travel upon her, with the heat and burden of quarrels with railway porters, and encounters with cabmen, visible to anyone who chose to read the signs of the times, Miss Blake came pounding up our stairs, wanting to see Mr. Craven. If that gentleman was engaged, she would sit down in the general office, and relate her latest grievance to a posse of sympathising clerks. "And he says he won't pay the rent," was always the refrain of these lamentations. "It is in Ireland he thinks he is, poor soul!" she was wont to declare. "We'll teach him different, Miss Blake," the spokesman of the party would declare; whilst another ostentatiously mended a pen, and a third brought down a ream of foolscap and laid it with a thump before him on the desk. "And, indeed, you're all decent lads, though full of your tricks," Miss Blake would sometimes remark, in a tone of gentle reproof. "But if you had a niece just dying with grief, and a house nobody will live in on your hands, you would not have as much heart for fun, I can tell you that." Hearing which, the young rascals tried to look sorrowful, and failed. In the way of my profession I have met with many singular persons, but I can safely declare I never met with any person so singular as Miss Blake. She wasI speak of her in the past tense, not because she is dead, but because times and circumstances have changed since the period when we both had to do with the Uninhabited House, and she has altered in consequenceone of the most original people who ever crossed my path. Born in the north of Ireland, the child of a ScottishUlster mother and a Connaught father, she had ingeniously contrived to combine in her own person the vices of two distinct races, and exclude the virtues of both. Her accent was the most fearful which could be imagined. She had the brogue of the West grafted on the accent of the North. And yet there was a variety about her even in this respect. One never could tell, from visit to visit, whether she proposed to pronounce "written" as "wrutten" or "wretten";[Footnote The wife of a celebrated Indian officer stated that she once, in the north of Ireland, heard Job's utterance thus rendered"Oh! that my words were wrutten, that they were prented in a buke."] whether she would elect to style her parents, to whom she made frequent reference, her "pawpaw and mawmaw," or her "pepai and memai." It all depended with whom Miss Blake had lately been most intimate. If she had been "hand and glove" with a "nob" from her own countryshe was in no way reticent about thus styling her grander acquaintances, only she wrote the word "knob"who thought to conceal his nationality by "awing" and "hawing," she spoke about people being "morried" and wearing "sockcloth and oshes." If, on the contrary, she had been thrown into the society of a lady who so far honoured England as to talk as some people do in England, we had every A turned into E, and every U into O, while she minced her words as if she had been saying "niminy piminy" since she first began to talk, and honestly believed no human being could ever have told she had been born west of St. George's Channel. But not merely in accent did Miss Blake evidence the fact that her birth had been the result of an injudicious cross; the more one knew of her, the more clearly one saw the wrong points she threw out. Extravagant to a fault, like her Connaught father, she was in no respect generous, either from impulse or calculation. Mean about minor details, a turn of character probably inherited from the Ulster mother, she was utterly destitute of that careful and honest economy which is an admirable trait in the natives of the north of Ireland, and which enables them so frequently, after being strictly just, to be much more than liberal. Honest, Miss Blake was notor, for that matter, honourable either. Her indebtedness to our firm could not be considered other than a matter of honour, and yet she never dreamt of paying her debt to Mr. Craven. Indeed, to do Miss Blake strict justice, she never thought of paying the debts she owed to anyone, unless she was obliged to do so. Nowadays, I fear it would fare hard with her were she to try her old tactics with the British tradesman; but, in the time of which I am writing, cooperative societies were not, and then the British tradesman had no objection, I fancy, to be gulled. Perhaps, like the lawyer and the unprofitable client, he setoff being gulled on one side his ledger against being fleeced on the other. Be this as it may, we were always compounding some liability for Miss Blake, as well as letting her house and fighting with the tenants. At first, as I have said, we found Miss Blake an awful bore, but we generally ended by deciding we could better spare a better man. Indeed, the months when she did not come to our office seemed to want flavour. Of gratitudepopularly supposed to be essentially characteristic of the IrishMiss Blake was utterly destitute. I never did knowI have never known since, so ungrateful a woman. Not merely did she take everything Mr. Craven did for her as a right, but she absolutely turned the tables, and brought him in her debtor. Once, only once, that I can remember, he ventured to ask when it would be convenient for her to repay some of the money he had from time to time advanced. Miss Blake was taken by surprise, but she rose equal to the occasion. "You are joking, Mr. Craven," she said. "You mean, when will I want to ask you to give me a share of the profits you have made out of the estate of my poor sister's husband. Why, that house has been as good as an annuity to you. For six long years it has stood empty, or next to empty, and never been out of law all the time." "But, you know, Miss Blake, that not a shilling of profit has accrued to me from the house being in law," he pleaded. "I have always been too glad to get the rent for you, to insist upon my costs, and, really." "Now, do not try to impose upon me," she interrupted, "because it is of no use. Didn't you make thousands of the dead man, and now haven't you got the house? Why, if you never had a penny of costs, instead of all you have pocketed, that house and the name it has brought to you, and the fame which has spread abroad in consequence, can't be reckoned as less than hundreds a year to your firm. And yet you ask me for the return of a trumpery four or five sovereignsI am ashamed of you! But I won't imitate your bad example. Let me have five more today, and you can stop ten out of the Colonel's first payment." "I am very sorry," said my employer, "but I really have not five pounds to spare." "Hear him," remarked Miss Blake, turning towards me. "Young man"Miss Blake steadily refused to recognise the possibility of any clerk being even by accident a gentleman"will you hand me over the newspaper?" I had not the faintest idea what she wanted with the newspaper, and neither had Mr. Craven, till she sat down again deliberatelythe latter part of this conversation having taken place after she rose, preparatory to saying farewellopened the sheet out to its full width, and commenced to read the debates. "My dear Miss Blake," began Mr. Craven, after a minute's pause, "you know my time, when it is mine, is always at your disposal, but at the present moment several clients are waiting to see me, and" "Let them wait," said Miss Blake, as he hesitated a little. "Your time and their time is no more valuable than mine, and I mean to stay here," emphasising the word, "till you let me have that five pounds. Why, look, now, that house is taken on a two years' agreement, and you won't see me again for that timelikely as not, never; for who can tell what may happen to anybody in foreign parts? Only one charge I lay upon you, Mr. Craven don't let me be buried in a strange country. It is bad enough to be so far as this from my father and my mother's remains, but I daresay I'll manage to rest in the same grave as my sister, though Robert Elmsdale lies between. He separated us in lifenot that she ever cared for him; but it won't matter much when we are all bones and dust together" "If I let you have that five pounds," here broke in Mr. Craven, "do I clearly understand that I am to recoup myself out of Colonel Morris' first payment?" "I said so as plain as I could speak," agreed Miss Blake; and her speech was very plain indeed. Mr. Craven lifted his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders, while he drew his chequebook towards him. "How is Helena?" he asked, as he wrote the final legendary flourish after Craven and Son. "Helena is but middling, poor dear," answered Miss Blakeon that occasion she called her niece Hallana. "She frets, the creature, as is natural; but she will get better when we leave England. England is a hard country for anyone who is all nairves like Halana." "Why do you never bring her to see me?" asked Mr. Craven, folding up the cheque. "Bring her to be stared at by a parcel of clerks!" exclaimed Miss Blake, in a tone which really caused my hair to bristle. "Wellmannered, decent young fellows in their own rank, no doubt, but not fit to look at my sister's child. Now, now, Mr. Craven, ought Kathleen Blake'sor, rather, Kathleen Elmsdale's daughter to serve as a fifth of November guy for London lads? You know she is handsome enough to be a duchess, like her mother." "Yes, yes, I know," agreed Mr. Craven, and handed over the cheque. After I had held the door open for Miss Blake to pass out, and closed it securely and resumed my seat, Miss Blake turned the handle and treated us to another sight of her bonnet. "Goodbye, William Craven, for two years at any rate; and if I never see you again, God bless you, for you've been a true friend to me and that poor child who has nobody else to look to," and then, before Mr. Craven could cross the room, she was gone. "I wonder," said I, "if it will be two years before we see her again?" "No, nor the fourth of two years," answered my employer. "There is something queer about that house." "You don't think it is haunted, sir, do you?" I ventured. "Of course not," said Mr. Craven, irritably; "but I do think some one wants to keep the place vacant, and is succeeding admirably." The question I next put seemed irrelevant, but really resulted from a long train of thought. This was it "Is Miss Elmsdale very handsome, sir?" "She is very beautiful," was the answer; "but not so beautiful as her mother was." Ah me! two old, old stories in a sentence. He had loved the mother, and he did not love the daughter. He had seen the mother in his bright, hopeful youth, and there was no light of morning left for him in which he could behold the child. To other eyes she might, in her bright springtime, seem lovely as an angel from heaven, but to him no more such visions were to be vouchsafed. If beauty really went on decaying, as the ancients say, by this time there could be no beauty left. But oh! greybeard, the beauty remains, though our eyes may be too dim to see it; the beauty, the grace, the rippling laughter, and the saucy smiles, which once had power to stir to their very depths our hearts, friendour hearts, yours and mine, comrade, feeble, and cold, and pulseless now. 2. THE CORONER'S INQUEST The story was told to me afterwards, but I may as well weave it in with mine at this juncture. From the maternal ancestress, the Demoiselles Blake inherited a certain amount of money. It was through no fault of the paternal Blakethrough no want of endeavours on his part to make ducks and drakes of all fortune which came in his way, that their small inheritance remained intact; but the fortune was so willed that neither the girls nor he could divert the peaceful tenure of its halfyearly dividends. The mother died first, and the father followed her ere long, and then the young ladies found themselves orphans, and the possessors of a fixed income of one hundred and thirty pounds a year. A modest income, and yet, as I have been given to understand, they might have married well for the money. In those days, particularly in Ireland, men went very cheap, and the Misses Blake, one and both, could, before they left off mourning, have wedded, respectively, a curate, a doctor, a constabulary officer, and the captain of a government schooner. The Misses Blake looked higher, however, and came to England, where rich husbands are presumably procurable. Came, but missed their market. Miss Kathleen found only one lover, William Craven, whose honest affection she flouted; and Miss Susannah found no lover at all. Miss Kathleen wanted a duke, or an earla prince of the blood royal being about that time unprocurable; and an attorney, to her Irish ideas, seemed a very poor sort of substitute. For which reason she rejected the attorney with scorn, and remained single, the while dukes and earls were marrying and intermarrying with their peers or their inferiors. Then suddenly there came a frightful day when Kathleen and Susannah learned they were penniless, when they understood their trustee had robbed them, as he had robbed others, and had been paying their interest out of what was left of their principal. They tried teaching, but they really had nothing to teach. They tried letting lodgings. Even lodgers rebelled against their untidiness and want of punctuality. The eldest was very energetic and very determined, and the youngest very pretty and very conciliatory. Nevertheless, business is business, and lodgings are lodgings, and the Misses Blake were on the verge of beggary, when Mr. Elmsdale proposed for Miss Kathleen and was accepted. Mr. Craven, by that time a family man, gave the bride away, and secured Mr. Elmsdale's business. Possibly, had Mrs. Elmsdale's marriage proved happy, Mr. Craven might have soon lost sight of his former love. In matrimony, as in other matters, we are rarely so sympathetic with fulfilment as with disappointment. The pretty Miss Blake was a disappointed woman after she had secured Mr. Elmsdale. She then understood that the best life could offer her was something very different indeed from the ideal duke her beauty should have won, and she did not take much trouble to conceal her dissatisfaction with the arrangements of Providence. Mr. Craven, seeing what Mr. Elmsdale was towards men, pitied her. Perhaps, had he seen what Mrs. Elmsdale was towards her husband, he might have pitied him; but, then, he did not see, for women are wonderful dissemblers. There was Elmsdale, bluff in manner, short in person, red in the face, cumbersome in figure, addicted to naughty words, not nice about driving fearfully hard bargains, a man whom men hated, not undeservedly; and yet, nevertheless, a man capable of loving a woman with all the veins of his heart, and who might, had any woman been found to love him, have compassed earthly salvation. There were those who said he never could compass eternal; but they chanced to be his debtorsand, after all, that question lay between himself and God. The other lay between himself and his wife, and it must be confessed, except so far as his passionate, disinterested love for an utterly selfish woman tended to redeem and humanise his nature, she never helped him one step along the better path. But, then, the world could not know this, and Mr. Craven, of whom I am speaking at the moment, was likely, naturally, to think Mr. Elmsdale all in the wrong. On the one hand he saw the man as he appeared to men on the other he saw the woman as she appeared to men, beautiful to the last; fragile, with the low voice, so beautiful in any woman, so more especially beautiful in an Irish woman; with a languid face which insured compassion while never asking for it; with the appearance of a martyr, and the tone and the manner of a suffering saint. Everyone who beheld the pair together, remarked, "What a pity it was such a sweet creature should be married to such a bear!" but Mr. Elmsdale was no bear to his wife he adored her. The selfishness, the discontent, the illhealth, as much the consequence of a peevish, petted temper, as of disease, which might well have exhausted the patience and tired out the love of a different man, only endeared her the more to him. She made him feel how inferior he was to her in all respects; how tremendously she had condescended, when she agreed to become his wife; and he quietly accepted her estimation of him, and said with a humility which was touching from its simplicity "I know I am not worthy of you, Kathleen, but I do my best to make you happy." For her sake, not being a liberal man, he spent money freely; for her sake he endured Miss Blake; for her sake he bought the place which afterwards caused us so much trouble; for her sake, he, who had always scoffed at the folly of people turning their houses into stores for "useless timber," as he styled the upholsterer's greatest triumphs, furnished his rooms with a lavish disregard of cost; for her sake, he, who hated society, smiled on visitors, and entertained the guests she invited, with no grudging hospitality. For her sake he dressed well, and did many other things which were equally antagonistic to his original nature; and he might just as well have gone his own way, and pleased himself only, for all the pleasure he gave her, or all the thanks she gave him. If Mr. Elmsdale had come home drunk five evenings a week, and beaten his wife, and denied her the necessaries of life, and kept her purse in a chronic state of emptiness, she might very possibly have been extremely grateful for an occasional kind word or smile; but, as matters stood, Mrs. Elmsdale was not in the least grateful for a devotion, as beautiful as it was extraordinary, and posed herself on the domestic sofa in the character of a martyr. Most people accepted the representation as true, and pitied her. Miss Blake, blissfully forgetful of that state of impecuniosity from which Mr. Elmsdale's proposal had extricated herself and her sister, never wearied of stating that "Katty had thrown herself away, and that Mr. Elmsdale was not fit to tie her shoestring." She generously admitted the poor creature did his best; but, according to Blake, the poor creature's best was very bad indeed. "It's not his fault, but his misfortune," the lady was wont to remark, "that he's like dirt beside her. He can't help his birth, and his draggingup, and his disreputable trade, or business, or whatever he likes to call it; he can't help never having had a father nor mother to speak of, and not a lady or gentleman belonging to the family since it came into existence. I'm not blaming him, but it is hard for Kathleen, and she reared as she was, and accustomed to the best society in Ireland,which is very different, let me tell you, from the best anybody ever saw in England." There were some who thought, if Mrs. Elmsdale could tolerate her sister's company, she might without difficulty have condoned her husband's want of acquaintance with some points of grammar and etiquette; and who said, amongst themselves, that whereas he only maltreated, Miss Blake mangled every letter in the alphabet; but these carping critics were in the minority. Mrs. Elmsdale was a beauty, and a martyr; Mr. Elmsdale a rough beast, who had no capacity of ever developing into a prince. Miss Blake was a model of sisterly affection, and if eccentric in her manner, and bewildering in the vagaries of her accent, well, most Irish people, the highest in rank not excepted, were the same. Why, there was Lord Soandso, who stated at a public meeting that "roight and moight were not always convartible tarms"; and accepted the cheers and laughter which greeted his utterance as evidence that he had said something rather neat. Miss Blake's accent was a very different affair indeed from those wrestles with his foe in which her brotherinlaw always came off worsted. He endured agonies in trying to call himself Elmsdale, and rarely succeeded in styling his wife anything except Mrs. HE. I am told Miss Blake's mimicry of this peculiarity was delicious but I never was privileged to hear her delineation, for, long before the period when this story opens, Mr. Elmsdale had departed to that land where no confusion of tongues can much signify, and where Helmsdale no doubt served his purpose just as well as Miss Blake's more refined pronunciation of his name. Further, Miss Helena Elmsdale would not allow a word in depreciation of her father to be uttered when she was near, and as Miss Helena could on occasion develop a very pretty little temper, as well as considerable power of satire, Miss Blake dropped out of the habit of ridiculing Mr. Elmsdale's sins of omission and commission, and contented herself by generally asserting that, as his manner of living had broken her poor sister's heart, so his manner of dying had broken herMiss Blake'sheart. "It is only for the sake of the orphan child I am able to hold up at all," she would tell us. "I would not have blamed him so much for leaving us poor, but it was hard and cruel to leave us disgraced into the bargain"; and then Miss Blake would weep, and the wag of the office would take out his handkerchief and ostentatiously wipe his eyes. She often threatened to complain of that boya merry, mischievous young impto Mr. Craven; but she never did so. Perhaps because the clerks always gave her rapt attention; and an interested audience was very pleasant to Miss Blake. Considering the nature of Mr. Elmsdale's profession, Miss Blake had possibly some reason to complain of the extremely unprofitable manner in which he cut up. He was what the lady described as "a dirty moneylender." Heaven only knows how he drifted into his occupation; few men, I imagine, select such a trade, though it is one which seems to exercise an enormous fascination for those who have adopted it. The only son of a very small builder who managed to leave a few hundred pounds behind him for the benefit of Elmsdale, then clerk in a contractor's office, he had seen enough of the anxieties connected with his father's business to wash his hands of bricks and mortar. Experience, perhaps, had taught him also that people who advanced money to builders made a very nice little income out of the capital so employed; and it is quite possible that some of his father's acquaintances, always in want of ready cash, as speculative folks usually are, offered such terms for temporary accommodation as tempted him to enter into the business of which Miss Blake spoke so contemptuously. Be this as it may, one thing is certainby the time Elmsdale was thirty he had established a very nice little connection amongst needy men whole streets were mortgaged to him; terraces, nominally the property of some welltodo builder, were virtually his, since he only waited the welltodo builder's inevitable bankruptcy to enter into possession. He was not a sixty per cent man, always requiring some very much better security than "a name" before parting with his money; but still even twenty per cent, usually means ruin, and, as a matter of course, most of Mr. Elmsdale's clients reached that pleasant goal. They could have managed to do so, no doubt, had Mr. Elmsdale never existed; but as he was in existence, he served the purpose for which it seemed his mother had borne him; and sooner or lateras a rule, sooner than laterassumed the shape of Nemesis to most of those who "did business" with him. There were exceptions, of course. Some men, by the help of exceptional good fortune, roguery, or genius, managed to get out of Mr. Elmsdale's hands by other paths than those leading through Basinghall or Portugal Streets; but they merely proved the rule. Notably amongst these fortunate persons may be mentioned a Mr. Harrison and a Mr. Harringford'Arrison and 'Arringford, as Mr. Elmsdale called them, when he did not refer to them as the two Haitches. Of these, the firstnamed, after a few transactions, shook the dust of Mr. Elmsdale's office off his shoes, sent him the money he owed by his lawyer, and ever after referred to Mr. Elmsdale as "that thief," "that scoundrel," that "swindling old vagabond," and so forth; but, then, hard words break no bones, and Mr. Harrison was not very well thought of himself. His remarks, therefore, did Mr. Elmsdale very little harma moneylender is not usually spoken of in much pleasanter terms by those who once have been thankful enough for his cheque; and the world in general does not attach a vast amount of importance to the opinions of a former borrower. Mr. Harrison did not, therefore, hurt or benefit his quondam friend to any appreciable extent; but with Mr. Harringford the case was different.

He and Elmsdale had been doing business together for years, "everything he possessed in the world," he stated to an admiring coroner's jury summoned to sit on Mr. Elmsdale's body and inquire into the cause of that gentleman's death"everything he possessed in the world, he owed to the deceased. Some people spoke hardly of him, but his experience of Mr. Elmsdale enabled him to say that a kinderhearted, juster, honester, or betterprincipled man never existed. He charged high interest, certainly, and he expected to be paid his rate; but, then, there was no deception about the matter if it was worth a borrower's while to take money at twenty per cent, why, there was an end of the matter. Business men are not children," remarked Mr. Harringford, "and ought not to borrow money at twenty per cent, unless they can make thirty per cent, out of it." Personally, he had never paid Mr. Elmsdale more than twelve and a half or fifteen per cent.; but, then, their transactions were on a large scale. Only the day before Mr. Elmsdale's deathhe hesitated a little over that word, and became, as the reporters said, "affected"he had paid him twenty thousand pounds. The deceased told him he had urgent need of the money, and at considerable inconvenience he raised the amount. If the question were pressed as to whether he guessed for what purpose that sum was so urgently needed, he would answer it, of course; but he suggested that it should not be pressed, as likely to give pain to those who were already in terrible affliction. Hearing which, the jury pricked up their ears, and the coroner's curiosity became so intense that he experienced some difficulty in saying, calmly, that, "as the object of his sitting there was to elicit the truth, however much he should regret causing distress to anyone, he must request that Mr. Harringford, whose scruples did him honour, would keep back no fact tending to throw light upon so sad an affair." Having no alternative after this but to unburden himself of his secret, Mr. Harringford stated that he feared the deceased had been a heavy loser at Ascot. Mr. Harringford, having gone to that place with some friends, met Mr. Elmsdale on the racecourse. Expressing astonishment at meeting him there, Mr. Elmsdale stated he had run down to look after a client of his who he feared was going wrong. He said he did not much care to do business with a betting man. In the course of subsequent conversation, however, he told the witness he had some money on the favourite. As frequently proves the case, the favourite failed to come in first that was all Mr. Harringford knew about the matter. Mr. Elmsdale never mentioned how much he had lostin fact, he never referred again, except in general terms, to their meeting. He stated, however, that he must have money, and that immediately; if not the whole amount, half, at all events. The witness found, however, he could more easily raise the larger than the smaller sum. There had been a little unpleasantness between him and Mr. Elmsdale with reference to the demand for money made so suddenly and so peremptorily, and he bitterly regretted having even for a moment forgotten what was due to so kind a friend. He knew of no reason in the world why Mr. Elmsdale should have committed suicide. He was, in business, eminently a cautious man, and Mr. Harringford had always supposed him to be wealthy; in fact, he believed him to be a man of large property. Since the death of his wife, he had, however, noticed a change in him; but still it never crossed the witness's mind that his brain was in any way affected. Miss Blake, who had to this point postponed giving her evidence, on account of the "way she was upset," was now able to tell a sympathetic jury and a polite coroner all she knew of the matter. "Indeed," she began, "Robert Elmsdale had never been the same man since her poor sister's death; he mooned about, and would sit for half an hour at a time, doing nothing but looking at a faded bit of the diningroom carpet." He took no interest in anything; if he was asked any questions about the garden, he would say, "What does it matter? she cannot see it now." "Indeed, my lord," said Miss Blake, in her agitation probably confounding the coroner with the chief justice, "it was just pitiful to see the creature; I am sure his ways got to be heartbreaking." "After my sister's death," Miss Blake resumed, after a pause, devoted by herself, the jury, and the coroner to sentiment, "Robert Elmsdale gave up his office in London, and brought his business home. I do not know why he did this. He would not, had she been living, because he always kept his trade well out of her sight, poor man. Being what she was, she could not endure the name of it, naturally. It was not my place to say he shouldn't do what he liked in his own house, and I thought the excitement of building a new room, and quarrelling with the builder, and swearing at the men, was good for him. He made a fireproof place for his papers, and he fitted up the office like a library, and bought a beautiful large table, covered with leather; and nobody to have gone in would have thought the room was used for business. He had a Turkey carpet on the floor, and chairs that slipped about on castors; and he planned a covered way out into the road, with a separate entrance for itself, so that none of us ever knew who went out or who came in. He kept his affairs secret as the grave." "No," in answer to the coroner, who began to think Miss Blake's narrative would never come to an end. "I heard no shot none of us did we all slept away from that part of the house; but I was restless that night, and could not sleep, and I got up and looked out at the river, and saw a flare of light on it. I thought it odd he was not gone to bed, but took little notice of the matter for a couple of hours more, when it was just getting gray in the morning, and I looked out again, and still seeing the light, slipped on a dressingwrapper and my slippers, and ran downstairs to tell him he would ruin his health if he did not go to his bed. "When I opened the door I could see nothing; the table stood between me and him; but the gas was flaring away, and as I went round to put it out, I came across him lying on the floor. It never occurred to me he was dead; I thought he was in a fit, and knelt down to unloose his cravat, then I found he had gone. "The pistol lay on the carpet beside himand that," finished Miss Blake, "is all I have to tell." When asked if she had ever known of his losing money by betting, she answered it was not likely he would tell her anything of that kind. "He always kept his business to himself," she affirmed, "as is the way of most men." In answer to other questions, she stated she never heard of any losses in business; there was plenty of money always to be had for the asking. He was liberal enough, though perhaps not so liberal latterly, as before his wife's death; she didn't know anything of the state of his affairs. Likely, Mr. Craven could tell them all about that. Mr. Craven, however, proved unable to do so. To the best of his belief, Mr. Elmsdale was in very easy circumstances. He had transacted a large amount of business for him, but never any involving pecuniary loss or anxiety; he should have thought him the last man in the world to run into such folly as betting; he had no doubt Mrs. Elmsdale's death had affected him disastrously. He said more than once to witness, if it were not for the sake of his child, he should not care if he died that night. All of which, justifying the jury in returning a verdict of "suicide while of unsound mind," they expressed their unanimous opinion to that effectthus "saving the family the condemnation of felo de se" remarked Miss Blake. The dead man was buried, the church service read over his remains, the household was put into mourning, the blinds were drawn up, the windows flung open, and the business of life taken up once more by the survivors. 3. OUR LAST TENANT It is quite competent for a person so to manage his affairs, that, whilst understanding all about them himself, another finds it next to impossible to make head or tail of his position. Mr. Craven found that Mr. Elmsdale had effected this feat; entries there were in his books, intelligible enough, perhaps, to the man who made them, but as so much Hebrew to a stranger. He had never kept a business banking account; he had no regular journal or ledger; he seemed to have depended on memoranda, and vague and uncertain writings in his diary, both for memory and accuracy; and as most of his business had been conducted viva voce, there were few letters to assist in throwing the slightest light on his transactions. Even from the receipts, however, one thing was clear, viz., that he had, since his marriage, spent a very large sum of money; spent it lavishly, not to say foolishly. Indeed, the more closely Mr. Craven looked into affairs, the more satisfied he felt that Mr. Elmsdale had committed suicide simply because he was wellnigh ruined. Mortgagedeeds Mr. Craven himself had drawn up, were nowhere to be found; neither could one sovereign of the money Mr. Harringford paid be discovered. Miss Blake said she believed "that Harringford had never paid at all"; but this was clearly proved to be an error of judgment on the part of that impulsive lady. Not merely did Harringford hold the receipt for the money and the mortgagedeeds cancelled, but the cheque he had given to the mortgagee bore the endorsement"Robert Elmsdale"; while the clerk who cashed it stated that Mr. Elmsdale presented the order in person, and that to him he handed the notes. Whatever he had done with the money, no notes were to be found; a diligent search of the strong room produced nothing more important than the discovery of a cashbox containing three hundred pounds; the titledeeds of River Hallsuch being the modest name by which Mr. Elmsdale had elected to have his residence distinguished; the leases relating to some small cottages near Barnes; all the letters his wife had ever written to him; two locks of her hair, one given before marriage, the other cut after her death; a curl severed from the head of my "baby daughter"; quantities of receiptsand nothing more. "I wonder he can rest in his grave," said Miss Blake, when at last she began to realize, in a dim sort of way, the position of affairs. According to the River Hall servants' version, Mr. Elmsdale did anything rather than rest in his grave. About the time the new mourning had been altered to fit perfectly, a nervous housemaid, who began perhaps to find the house dull, mooted the question as to whether "master walked." Within a fortnight it was decided in solemn conclave that master did; and further, that the place was not what it had been; and moreover, that in the future it was likely to be still less like what it had been. There is a wonderful instinct in the lower classes, which enables them to comprehend, without actual knowledge, when misfortune is coming upon a house and in this instance that instinct was not at fault. Long before Mr. Craven had satisfied himself that his client's estate was a very poor one, the River Hall servants, one after another, had given notice to leaveindeed, to speak more accurately, they did not give notice, for they left; and before they left they took care to baptize the house with such an exceedingly bad name, that neither for love nor money could Miss Blake get a fresh "help" to stay in it for more than twentyfour hours. First one housemaid was taken with "the shivers"; then the cook had "the trembles"; then the coachman was prepared to take his solemn affidavit, that, one night long after everyone in the house to his knowledge was in bed, he "see from his room above the stables, a light ashining on the Thames, and the figures of one or more a passing and a repassing across the blind." More than this, a new pageboy declared that, on a certain evening, before he had been told there was anything strange about the house, he heard the door of the passage leading from the library into the sideroad slam violently, and looking to see who had gone out by that unused entrance, failed to perceive sign of man, woman, or child, by the bright moonlight. Moved by some feeling which he professed himself unable to "put a name on," he proceeded to the door in question, and found it barred, chained, and bolted. While he was standing wondering what it meant, he noticed the light as of gas shining from underneath the library door; but when he softly turned the handle and peeped in, the room was dark as the grave, and "like cold water seemed running down his back." Further, he averred, as he stole away into the hall, there was a sound followed him as between a groan and a cry. Hearing which statement, an impressionable charwoman went into hysterics, and had to be recalled to her senses by a dose of gin, suggested and taken strictly as a medicine. But no supply of spirituous liquors, even had Miss Blake been disposed to distribute anything of the sort, could induce servants after a time to remain in, or charwomen to come to, the house. It had received a bad name, and that goes even further in disfavour of a residence than it does against a man or woman. Finally, Miss Blake's establishment was limited to an old creature almost doting and totally deaf, the advantages of whose presence might have been considered problematical; but, then, as Miss Blake remarked, "she was somebody." "And now she has taken fright," proceeded the lady. "How anyone could make her hear their story, the Lord in heaven alone knows; and if there was anything to see, I am sure she is far too blind to see it; but she says she daren't stay. She does not want to see poor master again till she is dead herself." "I have got a tenant for the house the moment you like to say you will leave it," said Mr. Craven, in reply. "He cares for no ghost that ever was manufactured. He has a wife with a splendid digestion, and several grownup sons and daughters. They will soon clear out the shadows; and their father is willing to pay two hundred and fifty pounds a year." "And you think there is really nothing more of any use amongst the papers?" "I am afraid notI am afraid you must face the worst." "And my sister's child left no better off than a street beggar," suggested Miss Blake. "Come, come," remonstrated Mr. Craven; "matters are not so bad as all that comes to. Upon three hundred a year, you can live very comfortable on the Continent; and" "We'll go," interrupted Miss Blake; "but it is hard linesnot that anything better could have been expected from Robert Elmsdale." "Ah! dear Miss Blake, the poor fellow is dead. Remember only his virtues, and let his faults rest." "I sha'n't have much to burden my memory with, then," retorted Miss Blake, and departed. Her next letter to my principal was dated from Rouen; but before that reached Buckingham Street, our troubles had begun. For some reason best known to himself, Mr. Treseby, the goodnatured country squire possessed of a wife with an excellent digestion, at the end of two months handed us half a year's rent, and requested we should try to let the house for the remainder of his term, he, in case of our failure, continuing amenable for the rent. In the course of the three years we secured eight tenants, and as from each a profit in the way of forfeit accrued, we had not to trouble Mr. Treseby for any more money, and were also enabled to remit some small bonuseswhich came to her, Miss Blake assured us, as godsendsto the Continent. After that the place stood vacant for a time. Various caretakers were eager to obtain the charge of it, but I only remember one who was not eager to leave. That was a nightwatchman, who never went home except in the daytime, and then to sleep, and he failed to understand why his wife, who was a pretty, delicate little creature, and the mother of four small children, should quarrel with her bread and butter, and want to leave so fine a place. He argued the matter with her in so practical a fashion, that the nearest magistrate had to be elected umpire between them. The whole story of the place was repeated in court, and the nightwatchman's wife, who sobbed during the entire time she stood in the witnessbox, made light of her black eye and numerous bruises, but said, "Not if Tim murdered her, could she stay alone in the house another night." To prevent him murdering her, he was sent to gaol for two months, and Mr. Craven allowed her eight shillings a week till Tim was once more a free man, when he absconded, leaving wife and children chargeable to the parish. "A poor, nervous creature," said Mr. Craven, who would not believe that where gas was, any house could be ghostridden. "We must really try to let the house in earnest." And we did try, and we did let, over, and over, and over again, always with a like result, till at length Mr. Craven said to me "Do you know, Patterson, I really am growing very uneasy about that house on the Thames. I am afraid some evildisposed person is trying to keep it vacant." "It certainly is very strange," was the only remark I felt capable of making. We had joked so much about the house amongst ourselves, and ridiculed Miss Blake and her troubles to such an extent, that the matter bore no serious aspect for any of us juniors. "If we are not soon able to let it," went on Mr. Craven, "I shall advise Miss Blake to auction off the furniture and sell the place. We must not always have an uninhabited house haunting our offices, Patterson." I shook my head in grave assent, but all the time I was thinking the day when that house ceased to haunt our offices, would be a very dreary one for the wags amongst our clerks. "Yes, I certainly shall advise Miss Blake to sell," repeated Mr. Craven, slowly. Although a hardworking man, he was eminently slow in his ideas and actions. There was nothing express about our dear governor; upon no special mental train did he go careering through life. Eminently he preferred the parliamentary pace and I am bound to say the lifejourney so performed was beautiful exceedingly, with waits not devoid of interest at little stations utterly outside his profession, with kindly talk to little children, and timid women, and feeble men; with a pleasant smile for most with whom he came in contact, and time for words of kindly advice which did not fall perpetually on stony ground, but which sometimes grew to maturity, and produced rich grain of which himself beheld the garnering. Nevertheless, to my younger and quicker nature, he did seem often very tardy. "Why not advise her now?" I asked. "Ah! my boy," he answered, "life is very short, yet it is long enough to have no need in it for hurry." The same day, Colonel Morris appeared in our office. Within a fortnight, that gallant officer was our tenant; within a month, Mrs. Morris, an exceedingly fine lady, with grownup children, with very young children also, with ayahs, with native servants, with English servants, with a list of acquaintances such as one may read of in the papers the day after a Queen's drawingroom, took possession of the Uninhabited House, and, for about three months, peace reigned in our dominions. Buckingham Street, as represented by us, stank in the nostrils of no human being. So far we were innocent of offence, we were simply ordinary solicitors and clerks, doing as fully and truly as we knew how, an extremely good business at rates which yielded a very fair return to our principal. The Colonel was delighted with the place, he kindly called to say; so was Mrs. Morris; so were the grownup sons and daughters of Colonel and Mrs. Morris; and so, it is to be presumed, were the infant branches of the family. The native servants liked the place because Mr. Elmsdale, in view of his wife's delicate health, had made the house "like an oven," to quote Miss Blake. "It was bad for her, I know," proceeded that lady, "but she would have her own way, poor soul, and hewell, he'd have had the top brick of the chimney of a tenstory house off, if she had taken a fancy for that article." Those stoves and pipes were a great bait to Colonel Morris, as well as a source of physical enjoyment to his servants. He, too, had married a woman who was not always easy to please; but River Hall did please her, as was natural, with its luxuries of heat, ease, convenience, large rooms opening one out of another, wide verandahs overlooking the Thames, staircases easy of ascent; baths, hot, cold, and shower; a sweet, pretty garden, conservatory with a door leading into it from the spacious hall, all exceedingly cheap at two hundred pounds a year. Accordingly, at first, the Colonel was delighted with the place, and not the less so because Mrs. Morris was delighted with it, and because it was also so far from town, that he had a remarkably good excuse for frequently visiting his club. Before the newcomers, local tradesmen bowed down and did worship. Visitors came and visitors went, carriages appeared in shoals, and doubleknocks were plentiful as blackberries. A fresh leaf had evidently been turned over at River Hall, and the place meant to give no more trouble for ever to Miss Blake, or Mr. Craven, or anybody. So, as I have said, three months passed. We had got well into the dogdays by that time; there was very little to do in the office. Mr. Craven had left for his annual holiday, which he always took in the company of his wife and daughtersa correct, but possibly a depressing, way of spending a vacation which must have been intended to furnish some social variety in a man's life; and we were all very idle, and all very much inclined to grumble at the heat, and length, and general slowness of the days, when one morning, as I was going out in order to send a parcel off to Mrs. Craven, who should I meet coming panting up the stairs but Miss Blake! "Is that you, Patterson?" she gasped. I assured her it was I in the flesh, and intimated my astonishment at seeing her in hers. "Why, I thought you were in France, Miss Blake," I suggested. "That's where I have just come from," she said. "Is Mr. Craven in?" I told her he was out of town. "Aythat's where everybody can be but me," she remarked, plaintively. "They can go out and stay out, while I am at the beck and call of all the scum of the earth. Well, well, I suppose there will be quiet for me sometime, if only in my coffin." As I failed to see that any consolatory answer was possible, I made no reply. I only asked "Won't you walk into Mr. Craven's office, Miss Blake?" "Now, I wonder," she said, "what good you think walking into his office will do me!" Nevertheless, she accepted the invitation. I have, in the course of years, seen many persons suffering from heat, but I never did see any human being in such a state as Miss Blake was that day. Her face was a pure, rich red, from temple to chin; it resembled nothing so much as a brick which had been out for a long time, first in the sun and the wind, and then in a succession of heavy showers of rain. She looked weatherbeaten, and sunburnt, and sprayed with saltwater, all at once. Her eyes were a lighter blue than I previously thought eyes could be. Her cheekbones stood out more prominently than I had thought cheekbones capable of doing. Her mouthnot quite a bad one, by the wayopened wider than any within my experience; and her teeth, white and exposed, were suggestive of a set of tombstones planted outside a stonemason's shop, or an upper and lower set exhibited at the entrance to a dentist's operatingroom. Poor dear Miss Blake, she and those pronounced teeth parted company long ago, and a much more becoming setwhich she got exceedingly cheap, by agreeing with the maker to "send the whole of the city of London to her, if he liked"now occupy their place. But on that especial morning they were very prominent. Everything, in fact, about the lady, or belonging to her, seemed exaggerated, as if the heat of the weather had induced a tropical growth of her mental and bodily peculiarities. Her bonnet was crooked beyond even the ordinary capacity of Miss Blake's headgear; the strings were rolled up till they looked like ropes which had been knotted under her chin. A veil, as large and black as a pirate's flag, floated down her back; her shawl was at sixes and sevens; one side of her dress had got torn from the bodice, and trailed on the ground leaving a broadlymarked line of dust on the carpet. She looked as if she had no petticoats on; and her bootsthose were the days ere sidesprings and buttons obtainedwere one laced unevenly, and the other tied on with a piece of ribbon. As for her gloves, they were in the state we always beheld them; if she ever bought a new pair (which I do not believe), she never treated us to a sight of them till they had been long past decent service. They never were buttoned, to begin with; they had a wrinkled and haggard appearance, as if from extreme old age. If their colour had originally been lavender, they were always black with dirt; if black, they were white with wear. As a bad job, she had, apparently, years before, given up putting a stitch in the ends of the fingers, when a stitch gave way; and the consequence was that we were perfectly familiar with Miss Blake's nailsand those nails looked as if, at an early period of her life, a hammer had been brought heavily down upon them. Mrs. Elmsdale might well be a beauty, for she had taken not only her own share of the good looks of the family, but her sister's also. We used often, at the office, to marvel why Miss Blake ever wore a collar, or a tucker, or a frill, or a pair of cuffs. So far as clean linen was concerned, she would have appeared infinitely brighter and fresher had she and female frippery at once parted company. Her laces were always in tatters, her collars soiled, her cuffs torn, and her frills limp. I wonder what the natives thought of her in France! In London, we decidedand accurately, I believethat Miss Blake, in the solitude of her own chamber, washed and gotup her cambrics and fine linenand it was a "getup" and a "puton" as well. Had any other woman, dressed like Miss Blake, come to our office, I fear the clerks would not have been overcivil to her. But Miss Blake was our own, our very own. She had grown to be as our very flesh and blood. We did not love her, but she was associated with us by the closest ties that can subsist between lawyer and client. Had anything happened to Miss Blake, we should, in the event of her death, have gone in a body to her funeral, and felt a want in our lives for ever after. But Miss Blake had not the slightest intention of dying we were not afraid of that calamity. The only thing we really did dread was that some day she might insist upon laying the blame of River Hall remaining uninhabited on our shoulders, and demand that Mr. Craven should pay her the rent out of his own pocket. We knew if she took that, or any other pecuniary matter, seriously in hand, she would carry it through; and, between jest and earnest, we were wont to speculate whether, in the end, it might not prove cheaper to our firm if Mr. Craven were to farm that place, and pay Miss Blake's niece an annuity of say one hundred a year. Ultimately we decided that it would, but that such a scheme was impracticable, because Miss Blake would always think we were making a fortune out of River Hall, and give us no peace till she had a share of the profit. For a time, Miss Blakeafter unfastening her bonnetstrings, and taking out her brooch and throwing back her shawlsat fanning herself with a dilapidated glove, and saying, "Oh dear! oh dear! what is to become of me I cannot imagine." But, at length, finding I was not to be betrayed into questioning, she observed "If William Craven knew the distress I am in, he would not be out of town enjoying himself, I'll be bound." "I am quite certain he would not," I answered, boldly. "But as he is away, is there nothing we can do for you?" She shook her head mournfully. "You're all a parcel of boys and children together," was her comprehensive answer. "But there is our manager, Mr. Taylor," I suggested. "Him!" she exclaimed. "Now, if you don't want me to walk out of the office and never set foot in it again, don't talk to me about Taylor." "Has Mr. Taylor offended you?" I ventured to inquire. "Lads of your age should not ask too many questions," she replied. "What I have against Taylor is nothing to you; only don't make me desperate by mentioning his name." I hastened to assure her that it should never be uttered by me again in her presence, and there ensued a pause, which she filled by looking round the office and taking a mental inventory of everything it contained. Eventually, her survey ended in this remark, "And he can go out of town as well, and keep a brougham for his wife, and draw them daughters of his out like figures in a fashionbook, and my poor sister's child living in a twopair lodging." "I fear, Miss Blake," I ventured, "that something is the matter at River Hall." "You fear, do you, young man?" she returned. "You ought to get a first prize for guessing. As if anything else could ever bring me back to London." "Can I be of no service to you in the matter?" "I don't think you can, but you may as well see his letter." And diving into the depths of her pocket, she produced Colonel Morris' communication, which was very short, but very much to the purpose. "Not wishing," he said, "to behave in any unhandsome manner, I send you herewith" (herewith meant the keys of River Hall and his letter) "a cheque for one halfyear's rent. You must know that, had I been aware of the antecedents of the place, I should never have become your tenant; and I must say, considering I have a wife in delicate health, and young children, the deception practised by your lawyers in concealing the fact that no previous occupant has been able to remain in the house, seems most unpardonable. I am a soldier, and, to me, these trade tricks appear dishonourable. Still, as I understand your position is an exceptional one, I am willing to forgive the wrong which has been done, and to pay six months' rent for a house I shall no longer occupy. In the event of these concessions appearing insufficient, I beg to enclose the names of my solicitors, and have the honour, madam, to remain "Your most obedient servant, "HERCULES MORRIS." In order to gain time, I read this letter twice over; then, diplomatically, as I thought, I said "What are you going to do, Miss Blake?" "What are you going to do, is much nearer the point, I am thinking!" retorted that lady. "Do you imagine there is so much pleasure or profit in keeping a lawyer, that people want to do lawyer's work for themselves?" Which really was hard upon us all, considering that so long as she could do her work for herself, Miss Blake ignored both Mr. Craven and his clerks. Not a shilling of money would she ever, if she could help it, permit to pass through our handsnot the slightest chance did she ever voluntarily give Mr. Craven of recouping himself those costs or loans in which her acquaintance involved her sister's former suitor. Had he felt any inclinationwhich I am quite certain he never didto deduct Miss Helena's indebtedness, as represented by her aunt, out of Miss Helena's income, he could not have done it. The tenant's money usually went straight into Miss Blake's hands. What she did with it, Heaven only knows. I know she did not buy herself gloves! Twirling the Colonel's letter about, I thought the position over. "What, then," I asked, "do you wish us to do?" Habited as I have attempted to describe, Miss Blake sat at one side of a librarytable. In, I flatter myself, a decent suit of clothes, washed, brushed, shaved, I sat on the other. To ordinary observers, I know I must have seemed much the best man of the twoyet Miss Blake got the better of me.

She, that dilapidated, redhot, crumpledcollared, fingerlessgloved woman, looked me over from head to foot, as I conceived, though my boots were hidden away under the table, and I declareI swearshe put me out of countenance. I felt small under the stare of a person with whom I would not then have walked through Hyde Park in the afternoon for almost any amount of money which could have been offered to me. "Though you are only a clerk," she said at length, apparently quite unconscious of the effect she had produced, "you seem a very decent sort of young man. As Mr. Craven is out of the way, suppose you go and see that Morris man, and ask him what he means by his impudent letter." I rose to the bait. Being in Mr. Craven's employment, it is unnecessary to say I, in common with every other person about the place, thought I could manage his business for him very much better than he could manage it for himself; and it had always been my own personal conviction that if the letting of the Uninhabited House were entrusted to me, the place would not stand long empty. Miss Blake's proposition was, therefore, most agreeable; but still, I did not at once swallow her hook. Mr. Craven, I felt, might scarcely approve of my taking it upon myself to call upon Colonel Morris while Mr. Taylor was able and willing to venture upon such a step, and I therefore suggested to our client the advisability of first asking Mr. Craven's opinion about the affair. "And keep me in suspense while you are writing and answering and running up a bill as long as Midsummer Day," she retorted. "No, thank you. If you don't think my business worth your attention, I'll go to somebody that may be glad of it." And she began tying her strings and feeling after her shawl in a manner which looked very much indeed like carrying out her threat. At that moment I made up my mind to consult Taylor as to what ought to be done. So I appeased Miss Blake by assuring her, in a diplomatic manner, that Colonel Morris should be visited, and promising to communicate the result of the interview by letter. "That you won't," she answered. "I'll be here tomorrow to know what he has to say for himself. He is just tired of the house, like the rest of them, and wants to be rid of his bargain." "I am not quite sure of that," I said, remembering my principal's suggestion. "It is strange, if there really is nothing objectionable about the house, that no one can be found to stay in it. Mr. Craven has hinted that he fancies some evildisposed person must be playing tricks, in order to frighten tenants away." "It is likely enough," she agreed. "Robert Elmsdale had plenty of enemies and few friends; but that is no reason why we should starve, is it?" I failed to see the logical sequence of Miss Blake's remark, nevertheless I did not dare to tell her so; and agreed it was no reason why she and her niece should be driven into that workhouse which she frequently declared they "must come to." "Remember," were her parting words, "I shall be here tomorrow morning early, and expect you to have good news for me." Inwardly resolving not to be in the way, I said I hoped there would be good news for her, and went in search of Taylor. "Miss Blake has been here," I began. "THE HOUSE is empty again. Colonel Morris has sent her half a year's rent, the keys, and the address of his solicitors. He says we have acted disgracefully in the matter, and she wants me to go and see him, and declares she will be back here first thing tomorrow morning to know what he has to say for himself. What ought I to do?" Before Mr. Taylor answered my question, he delivered himself of a comprehensive anathema which included Miss Blake, River Hall, the late owner, and ourselves. He further wished he might be essentially etceteraed if he believed there was another solicitor, besides Mr. Craven, in London who would allow such a hag to haunt his offices. "Talk about River Hall being haunted," he finished; "it is we who are witchridden, I call it, by that old Irishwoman. She ought to be burnt at Smithfield. I'd be at the expense of the faggots!" "What have you and Miss Blake quarrelled about?" I inquired. "You say she is a witch, and she has made me take a solemn oath never to mention your name again in her presence." "I'd keep her presence out of these offices, if I was Mr. Craven," he answered. "She has cost us more than the whole freehold of River Hall is worth." Something in his manner, more than in his words, made me comprehend that Miss Blake had borrowed money from him, and not repaid it, so I did not press for further explanation, but only asked him once again what I ought to do about calling upon Colonel Morris. "Call, and be hanged, if you like!" was the reply; and as Mr. Taylor was not usually a man given to violent language, I understood that Miss Blake's name acted upon his temper with the same magical effect as a red rag does upon that of a turkeycock. 4. MYSELF AND MISS BLAKE Colonel Morris, after leaving River Hall, had migrated temporarily to a fashionable West End hotel, and was, when I called to see him, partaking of tiffin in the bosom of his family, instead of at his club. As it was notorious that he and Mrs. Morris failed to lead the most harmonious of lives, I did not feel surprised to find him in an extremely bad temper. In person, short, dapper, wiry, thin, and precise, his manner matched his appearance. He had martinet written on every square foot of his figure. His moustache was fiercely waxed, his shirtcollar inflexible, his backbone stiff, while his shoulderblades met flat and even behind. He held his chin a little up in the air, and his walk was less a march than a strut. He came into the room where I had been waiting for him, as I fancied he might have come on a wet, cold morning to meet an awkwardsquad. He held the card I sent for his inspection in his hand, and referred to it, after he had looked me over with a supercilious glance. "Mr. Patterson, from Messrs. Craven and Son," he read slowly out loud, and then added "May I inquire what Mr. Patterson from Messrs. Craven and Son wants with me?" "I come from Miss Blake, sir," I remarked. "It is here written that you come from Messrs. Craven and Son," he said. "So I do, sirupon Miss Blake's business. She is a client of ours, as you may remember." "I do remember. Go on." He would not sit down himself or ask me to be seated, so we stood throughout the interview. I with my hat in my hand, he twirling his moustache or scrutinising his nails while he talked. "Miss Blake has received a letter from you, sir, and has requested me to ask you for an explanation of it." "I have no further explanation to give," he replied. "But as you took the house for two years, we cannot advise Miss Blake to allow you to relinquish possession in consideration of your having paid her six months' rent." "Very well. Then you can advise her to fight the matter, as I suppose you will. I am prepared to fight it." "We never like fighting, if a matter can be arranged amicably," I answered. "Mr. Craven is at present out of town; but I know I am only speaking his words, when I say we shall be glad to advise Miss Blake to accept any reasonable proposition which you may feel inclined to make." "I have sent her half a year's rent," was his reply; "and I have refrained from prosecuting you all for conspiracy, as I am told I might have done. Lawyers, I am aware, admit they have no consciences, and I can make some allowance for a person in Miss Blake's position, otherwise." "Yes, sir?" I said, interrogatively. "I should never have paid one penny. It has, I find, been a wellknown fact to Mr. Craven, as well as to Miss Blake, that no tenant can remain in River Hall. When my wife was first taken ill therein consequence of the frightful shock she receivedI sent for the nearest medical man, and he refused to come; absolutely sent me a note, saying, 'he was very sorry, but he must decline to attend Mrs. Morris. Doubtless, she had her own physician, who would be happy to devote himself to the case.'" "And what did you do?" I asked, my pulses tingling with awakened curiosity. "Do!" he repeated, pleased, perhaps, to find so appreciative a listener. "I sent, of course, for the best advice to be had in London, and I went to the local doctora man who keeps a surgery and dispenses medicinesmyself, to ask what he meant by returning such an insolent message in answer to my summons. And what do you suppose he said by way of apology?" "I cannot imagine," I replied. "He said he would not for ten times over the value of all the River Hall patients, attend a case in the house again. 'No person can live in it,' he went on, 'and keep his, her, or its health. Whether it is the river, or the drains, or the late owner, or the devil, I have not an idea. I can only tell you no one has been able to remain in it since Mr. Elmsdale's death, and if I attend a case there, of course I say, Get out of this at once. Then comes Miss Blake and threatens me with assault and batteryswears she will bring an action against me for libelling the place; declares I wish to drive her and her niece to the workhouse, and asserts I am in league with some one who wants to keep the house vacant, and I am sick of it. Get what doctor you choose, but don't send for me.'" "Well, sir?" I suggested. "Well! I don't consider it well at all. Here am I, a man returning to his native countryand a beastly country it is!after nearly thirty years' absence, and the first transaction upon which I engage proves a swindle. Yes, a swindle, Mr. Patterson. I went to you in all good faith, took that house at your own rent, thought I had got a desirable home, and believed I was dealing with respectable people, and now I find I was utterly deceived, both as regards the place and your probity. You knew the house was uninhabitable, and yet you let it to me." "I give you my word," I said, "that we really do not know yet in what way the house is uninhabitable. It is a good house, as you know; it is well furnished; the drainage is perfect; so far as we are concerned, we do not believe a fault can be found with the place. Still, it has been a fact that tenants will not stay in it, and we were therefore glad to let it to a gentleman like yourself, who would, we expected, prove above subscribing to that which can only be a vulgar prejudice." "What is a vulgar prejudice?" he asked. "The idea that River Hall is haunted," I replied. "River Hall is haunted, young man," he said, solemnly. "By what?" I asked. "By some one who cannot rest in his grave," was the answer. "Colonel Morris," I said, "some one must be playing tricks in the house." "If so, that some one does not belong to this world," he remarked. "Do you mean really and seriously to tell me you believe in ghosts?" I asked, perhaps a little scornfully. "I do, and if you had lived in River Hall, you would believe in them too," he replied. "I will tell you," he went on, "what I saw in the house myself. You know the library?" I nodded in assent. We did know the library. There our trouble seemed to have taken up its abode. "Are you aware lights have frequently been reflected from that room, when no light has actually been in it?" I could only admit this had occasionally proved a ground of what we considered unreasonable complaint. "One evening," went on the Colonel, "I determined to test the matter for myself. Long before dusk I entered the room and examined it thoroughlysaw to the fastenings of the windows, drew up the blinds, locked the door, and put the key in my pocket. After dinner I took a cigar and walked up and down the grass path beside the river, until dark. There was no lightnot a sign of light of any kind, as I turned once more and walked up the path again; but as I was retracing my steps I saw that the room was brilliantly illuminated. I rushed to the nearest window and looked in. The gas was all ablaze, the door of the strong room open, the table strewed with papers, while in an officechair drawn close up to the largest drawer, a man was seated counting over banknotes. He had a pile of them before him, and I distinctly saw that he wetted his fingers in order to separate them." "Most extraordinary!" I exclaimed. I could not decently have said anything less; but I confess that I had in my recollection the fact of Colonel Morris having dined. "The most extraordinary part of the story is still to come," he remarked. "I hurried at once into the house, unlocked the door, found the library in pitch darkness, and when I lit the gas the strong room was closed; there was no officechair in the room, no papers were on the tableeverything, in fact, was precisely in the same condition as I had left it a few hours before. Now, no person in the flesh could have performed such a feat as that." "I cannot agree with you there," I ventured. "It seems to me less difficult to believe the whole thing a trick, than to attribute the occurrence to supernatural agency. In fact, while I do not say it is impossible for ghosts to be, I cannot accept the fact of their existence." "Well, I can, then," retorted the Colonel. "Why, sir, once at the Cape of Good Hope" but there he paused. Apparently he recollected just in time that the Cape of Good Hope was a long way from River Hall. "And Mrs. Morris," I suggested, leading him back to the banks of the Thames. "You mentioned some shock" "Yes," he said, frankly. "She met the same person on the staircase I saw in the library. He carried in one hand a lighted candle, and in the other a bundle of banknotes. He never looked at her as he passednever turned his head to the spot where she stood gazing after him in a perfect access of terror, but walked quietly downstairs, crossed the hall, and went straight into the library without opening the door. She fainted dead away, and has never known an hour's good health since." "According to all accounts, she had not before, or good temper either," I thought; but I only said, "You had told Mrs. Morris, I presume, of your adventure in the library?" "No," he answered; "I had not; I did not mention it to anyone except a brother officer, who dined with me the next evening." "Your conversation with him might have been overheard, I suppose," I urged. "It is possible, but scarcely probable," he replied. "At all events, I am quite certain it never reached my wife's ears, or she would not have stayed another night in the house." I stood for a few moments irresolute, but then I spoke. I told him how much wemeaning Messrs. Craven and Sonhis manager and his cashier, and his clerks, regretted the inconvenience to which he had been put; delicately I touched upon the concern we felt at hearing of Mrs. Morris' illness. But, I added, I feared his explanation, courteous and ample as it had been, would not satisfy Miss Blake, and trusted he might, upon consideration, feel disposed to compromise the matter. "We," I added, "will be only too happy to recommend our client to accept any reasonable proposal you may think it well to make." Whereupon it suddenly dawned upon the Colonel that he had been showing me all his hand, and forthwith he adopted a very natural course. He ordered me to leave the room and the hotel, and not to show my face before him again at my peril. And I obeyed his instructions to the letter. On the same evening of that day I took a long walk round by the Uninhabited House. There it was, just as I had seen it last, with high brick walls dividing it from the road; with its belt of foresttrees separating it from the next residence, with its long frontage to the river, with its closed gates and shuttered posterndoor. The entrance to it was not from the main highway, but from a lane which led right down to the Thames; and I went to the very bottom of that lane and swung myself by means of a post right over the river, so that I might get a view of the windows of the room with which so ghostly a character was associated. The blinds were all down and the whole place looked innocent enough. The strong, sweet, subtle smell of mignonette came wafted to my senses, the odours of jessamine, roses, and myrtle floated to me on the evening breeze. I could just catch a glimpse of the flowergardens, radiant with colour, full of leaf and bloom. "No haunted look there," I thought. "The house is right enough, but some one must have determined to keep it empty." And then I swung myself back into the lane again, and the shadow of the high brick wall projected itself across my mind as it did across my body. "Is this place to let again, do you know?" said a voice in my ear, as I stood looking at the private door which gave a separate entrance to that evilreputed library. The question was a natural one, and the voice not unpleasant, yet I started, having noticed no one near me. "I beg your pardon," said the owner of the voice. "Nervous, I fear!" "No, not at all, only my thoughts were wandering. I beg your pardonI do not know whether the place is to let or not." "A good house?" This might have been interrogative, or uttered as an assertion, but I took it as the former, and answered accordingly. "Yes, a good housea very good house, indeed," I said. "It is often vacant, though," he said, with a light laugh. "Through no fault of the house," I added. "Oh! it is the fault of the tenants, is it?" he remarked, laughing once more. "The owners, I should think, must be rather tired of their property by this time." "I do not know that," I replied. "They live in hope of finding a good and sensible tenant willing to take it." "And equally willing to keep it, eh?" he remarked. "Well, I, perhaps, am not much of a judge in the matter, but I should say they will have to wait a long time first." "You know something about the house?" I said, interrogatively. "Yes," he answered, "most people about here do, I fancybut least said soonest mended"; and as by this time we had reached the top of the lane, he bade me a civil goodevening, and struck off in a westerly direction. Though the light of the setting sun shone full in my face, and I had to shade my eyes in order to enable me to see at all, moved by some feeling impossible to analyse, I stood watching that retreating figure. Afterwards I could have sworn to the man among ten thousand. A man of about fifty, well and plainly dressed, who did not appear to be in illhealth, yet whose complexion had a blanched look, like forced seakale; a man of under, rather than over middle height, not of slight make, but lean as if the flesh had been all worn off his bones; a man with sad, anxious, outlooking, abstracted eyes, with a nose slightly hooked, without a trace of whisker, with hair thin and straight and flaked with white, active and lithe in his movements, a swift walker, though he had a slight halt. While looking at him thrown up in relief against the glowing western sky, I noticed, what had previously escaped my attention, that he was a little deformed. His right shoulder was rather higher than the other. A man with a story in his memory, I imagined; a man who had been jilted by the girl he loved, or who had lost her by death, or whose wife had proved faithless; whose life, at all events, had been marred by a great trouble. So, in my folly, I decided; for I was young then, and romantic, and had experienced some sorrow myself connected with pecuniary matters. For the latter reason, it never perhaps occurred to me to associate the trouble of my new acquaintance, if he could be so called, with money annoyances. I knew, or thought I knew, at all events, the expression loss of fortune stamps on a man's face; and the look which haunted me for days after had nothing in it of discontent, or selfassertion, or struggling gentility, or vehement protest against the decrees of fortune. Still less was it submissive. As I have said, it haunted me for days, then the memory grew less vivid, then I forgot the man altogether. Indeed, we shortly became so absorbed in the fight between Miss Blake and Colonel Morris, that we had little time to devote to the consideration of other matters. True to her promise, Miss Blake appeared next morning in Buckingham Street. Without bestowing upon me even the courtesy of "good morning," she plunged into the subject next her heart. "Did you see him?" she asked. I told her I had. I repeated much of what he said; I assured her he was determined to fight the matter, and that although I did really not think any jury would give a verdict in his favour, still I believed, if the matter came into court, it would prevent our ever letting the house again. "I should strongly recommend you, Miss Blake," I finished, "to keep what he offers, and let us try and find another tenant." "And who asked you to recommend anything, you fast young man?" she demanded. "I am sure I did not, and I am very sure Mr. Craven would not be best pleased to know his clerks were setting themselves up higher than their master. You would never find William Craven giving himself airs such as you young whippersnappers think make you seem of some consequence. I just tell him what I want done, and he does it, and you will please to do the same, and serve a writ on that villain without an hour's delay." I asked on what grounds we were to serve the writ. I pointed out that Colonel Morris did not owe her a penny, and would not owe her a penny for some months to come; and in reply she said she would merely inquire if I meant that she and her poor niece were to go to the workhouse. To this I answered that the amount already remitted by Colonel Morris would prevent such a calamity, but she stopped my attempt at consolation by telling me not to talk about things I did not understand. "Give me William Craven's address," she added, "and I will write to him direct. I wonder what he means by leaving a parcel of ignorant boys to attend to his clients while he is away enjoying himself! Give me his address, and some paper and an envelope, and I can write my letter here." I handed her the paper and the envelope, and placed pen and ink conveniently before her, but I declined to give her Mr. Craven's address. We would forward the letter, I said; but when Mr. Craven went away for his holiday, he was naturally anxious to leave business behind as much as possible. Then Miss Blake took steady aim, and fired at me. Broadside after broadside did she pour into my unprotected ears; she opened the vials of her wrath and overwhelmed me with reproaches; she raked up all the grievances she had for years been cherishing against England, and by some sort of verbal legerdemain made me responsible for every evil she could recollect as ever having happened to her. Her sister's marriage, her death, Mr. Elmsdale's suicide, the unsatisfactory state of his affairs, the prejudice against River Hall, the defection of Colonel Morrisall these things she laid at my door, and insisted on making me responsible for them. "And now," she finished, pushing back her bonnet and pulling off her gloves, "I'll just write my opinion of you to Mr. Craven, and I'll wait till you direct the envelope, and I'll go with you to the post, and I'll see you put the letter in the box. If you and your fine Colonel Morris think you can frighten or flatter me, you are both much mistaken, I can tell you that!" I did not answer her. I was too greatly affronted to express what I felt in words. I sat on the other side of the tablefor I would not leave her alone in Mr. Craven's officesulking, while she wrote her letter, which she did in a great, fat, splashing sort of hand, with every other word underlined; and when she had done, and tossed the missive over to me, I directed it, took my hat, and prepared to accompany her to the Charing Cross office. We went down the staircase together in silence, up Buckingham Street, across the Strand, and so to Charing Cross, where she saw me drop the letter into the box. All this time we did not exchange a syllable, but when, after raising my hat, I was about to turn away, she seized hold of my arm, and said, "Don't let us part in bad blood. Though you are only a clerk, you have got your feelings, no doubt, and if in my temper I hurt them, I am sorry. Can I say more? You are a decent lad enough, as times go in England, and my bark is worse than my bite. I didn't write a word about you to William Craven. Shake hands, and don't bear malice to a poor lonely woman." Thus exhorted, I took her hand and shook it, and then, in token of entire amity, she told me she had forgotten to bring her purse with her and could I let her have a sovereign. She would pay me, she declared solemnly, the first day she came again to the office. This of course I did not believe in the least, nevertheless I gave her what she requiredand Heaven knows, sovereigns were scarce enough with me thenthankfully, and felt sincerely obliged to her for making herself my debtor. Miss Blake did sometimes ruffle one's feathers most confoundedly, and yet I knew it would have grieved me had we parted in enmity. Sometimes, now, when I look upon her quiet and utterly respectable old agewhen I contemplate her pathetic grey hair and conventional lace capwhen I view her clothed like other people and in her right mind, I am very glad indeed to remember I had no second thought about that sovereign, but gave it to herwith all the veins of my heart, as she would have emphasised the proceeding. "Though you have no name to speak of," observed Miss Blake as she pocketed the coin, "I think there must be some sort of blood in you. I knew Pattersons once who were connected by marriage with a great duke in the west of Ireland. Can you say if by chance you can trace relationship to any of them?" "I can say most certainly not, Miss Blake," I replied. "We are Pattersons of nowhere and relations of no one." "Well, well," remarked the lady, pityingly, "you can't help that, poor lad. And if you attend to your duties, you may yet be a rich City alderman." With which comfort she left me, and wended her homeward way through St. Martin's Lane and the Seven Dials. 5. THE TRIAL Next day but one Mr. Craven astonished us all by walking into the office about ten o'clock. He looked stout and well, sunburnt to a degree, and all the better physically for his trip to the seaside. We were unfeignedly glad to see him. Given a good employer, and it must be an extremely bad employ who rejoices in his absence. If we were not saints, we were none of us very black sheep, and accordingly, from the porter to the managing clerk, our faces brightened at sight of our principal. But after the first genial "how are you" and "good morning," Mr. Craven's face told tales he had come back out of sorts. He was vexed about Miss Blake's letter, and, astonishing to relate, he was angry with me for having called upon Colonel Morris. "You take too much upon you, Patterson," he remarked. "It is a growing habit with you, and you must try to check it." I did not answer him by a word; my heart seemed in my mouth; I felt as if I was choking. I only inclined my head in token that I heard and understood, and assented; then, having, fortunately, work to attend to out of doors, I seized an early opportunity of slipping down the staircase and walking off to Chancery Lane. When I returned, after hours, to Buckingham Street, one of the small boys in the outer office told me I was to go to Mr. Craven's room directly. "You'll catch it," remarked the young fiend. "He has asked for you a dozen times, at least." "What can be wrong now?" I thought, as I walked straight along the passage to Mr. Craven's office. "Patterson," he said, as I announced my return. "Yes, sir?" "I spoke hastily to you this morning, and I regret having done so." "Oh! sir," I cried. And that was all. We were better friends than ever. Do you wonder that I liked my principal? If so, it is only because I am unable to portray him as he really was. The age of chivalry is past; but still it is no exaggeration to say I would have died cheerfully if my dying could have served Mr. Craven. Life holds me now by many and many a nearer and dearer tie than was the case in those days so far and far away; nevertheless, I would run any risk, encounter any peril, if by so doing I could serve the man who in my youth treated me with a kindness far beyond my deserts. He did not, when he came suddenly to town in this manner, stop at his own house, which was, on such occasions, given over to charwomen and tradespeople of all descriptions; but he put up at an oldfashioned family hotel where, on that especial evening, he asked me to dine with him. Over dessert he opened his mind to me on the subject of the "Uninhabited House." He said the evil was becoming one of serious magnitude. He declared he could not imagine what the result might prove. "With all the will in the world," he said, "to assist Miss Blake and that poor child, I cannot undertake to provide for them. Something must be done in the affair, and I am sure I cannot see what that something is to be. Since Mr. Elmsdale bought the place, the neighbourhood has gone down. If we sold the freehold as it stands, I fear we should not get more than a thousand pounds for it, and a thousand pounds would not last Miss Blake three years; as for supposing she could live on the interest, that is out of the question. The ground might be cut up and let for business purposes, of course, but that would be a work of time. I confess, I do not know what to think about the matter or how to act in it." "Do you suppose the place really is haunted?" I ventured to inquire. "Haunted?pooh! nonsense," answered Mr. Craven, pettishly. "Do I suppose this room is haunted; do I believe my offices are haunted? No sane man has faith in any folly of the kind; but the place has got a bad name; I suspect it is unhealthy, and the tenants, when they find that out, seize on the first excuse which offers. It is known we have compromised a good many tenancies, and I am afraid we shall have to fight this case, if only to show we do not intend being patient for ever. Besides, we shall exhaust the matter we shall hear what the ghostseers have to say for themselves on oath. There is little doubt of our getting a verdict, for the British juryman is, as a rule, not imaginative." "I think we shall get a verdict," I agreed; "but I fancy we shall never get another tenant." "There are surely as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it," he answered, with a smile; "and we shall come across some worthy country squire, possessed of pretty daughters, who will be delighted to find so cheap and sweet a nest for his birds, when they want to be near London." "I wish sir," I said, "you would see Colonel Morris yourself. I am quite certain that every statement he made to me is true in his belief. I do not say, I believe him; I only say, what he told me justifies the inference that some one is playing a clever game in River Hall," and then I repeated in detail all the circumstances Colonel Morris had communicated to me, not excepting the wonderful phenomenon witnessed by Mr. Morris, of a man walking through a closed door. Mr. Craven listened to me in silence, then he said, "I will not see Colonel Morris. What you tell me only confirms my opinion that we must fight this question. If he and his witnesses adhere to the story you repeat, on oath, I shall then have some tangible ground upon which to stand with Miss Blake. If they do notand, personally, I feel satisfied no one who told such a tale could stand the test of crossexaminationwe shall then have defeated the hidden enemy who, as I believe, lurks behind all this. Miss Blake is right in what she said to you Robert Elmsdale must have had many a good hater. Whether he ever inspired that different sort of dislike which leads a man to carry on a war in secret, and try to injure this opponent's family after death, I have no means of knowing.

But we must test the matter now, Patterson, and I think you had better call upon Colonel Morris and tell him so." This service, however, to Mr. Craven's intense astonishment, I utterly declined. I told himrespectfully, of course under no possible conditions of life could I have spoken other than respectfully to a master I loved so wellthat if a message were to be delivered viva voce from our office, it could not be so delivered by me. I mentioned the fact that I felt no desire to be kicked downstairs. I declared that I should consider it an unseemly thing for me to engage in personal conflict with a gentleman of Colonel Morris's years and social position, and, as a final argument, I stated solemnly that I believed no number of interviews would change the opinions of our late tenant or induce him to alter his determination. "He says he will fight," I remarked, as a finish to my speech, "and I am confident he will till he drops." "Well, well," said Mr. Craven, "I suppose he must do so then; but meantime it is all very hard upon me." And, indeed, so it proved; what with Miss Blake, who, of course, required frequent advances to sustain her strength during the approaching ordeal; what with policemen, who could not "undertake to be always awatching River Hall"; what with watchmen, who kept their vigils in the nearest publichouse as long as it was open, and then peacefully returned home to sleep; what with possible tenants, who came to us imagining the place was to let, and whom we referred to Colonel Morris, who dismissed them, each and all, with a tale which disenchanted them with the "desirable residence"it was all exceeding hard upon Mr. Craven and his clerks till the quarter turned when we could take action about the matter. Before the new year was well commenced, we were in the heat of the battle. We had written to Colonel Morris, applying for one quarter's rent of River Hall. A disreputable blackguard of a solicitor would have served him with a writ; but we were eminently respectable not at the bidding of her most gracious Majesty, whose name we invoked on many and many of our papers, would Mr. Craven have dispensed with the preliminary letter; and I feel bound to say I follow in his footsteps in that respect. To this notice, Colonel Morris replied, referring us to his solicitors. We wrote to them, eliciting a reply to the effect that they would receive service of a writ. We served that writ, and then, as Colonel Morris intended to fight, instructed counsel. Meanwhile the "Uninhabited House," and the furniture it contained, was, as Mr. Taylor tersely expressed the matter, "Going to the devil." We could not help that, howeverwar was put upon us, and go to war we felt we must. Which was all extremely hard upon Mr. Craven. To my knowledge, he had already, in three months, advanced thirty pounds to Miss Blake, besides allowing her to get into his debt for counsel's fees, and costs out of pocket, and cab hire, and Heaven knows what besideswith a problematical result also. Colonel Morris' solicitors were sparing no expenses to crush us. Clearly they, in a blessed vision, beheld an enormous bill, paid without difficulty or question. Fifty guineas here or there did not signify to their client, whilst to uswell, really, let a lawyer be as kind and disinterested as he will, fifty guineas disbursed upon the suit of an utterly insolvent, or persistently insolvent, client means something eminently disagreeable to him. Nevertheless, we were all heartily glad to know the day of war was come. Body and soul, we all went in for Miss Blake, and Helena, and the "Uninhabited House." Even Mr. Taylor relented, and was to be seen rushing about with papers in hand relating to the impending suit of Blake v. Morris. "She is a blank, blank woman," he remarked to me; "but still the case is interesting. I don't think ghosts have ever before come into court in my experience." And we were all of the same mind. We girt up our loins for the fight. Each of us, I think, on the strength of her celebrity, lent Miss Blake a few shillings, and one or two of our number franked her to luncheon. She patronized us all, I know, and said she should like to tell our mothers they had reason to be proud of their sons. And then came a dreadfully solemn morning, when we went to Westminster and championed Miss Blake. Never in our memory of the lady had she appeared to such advantage as when we met her in Edward the Confessor's Hall. She looked a little paler than usual, and we felt her general getup was a credit to our establishment. She wore an immense fur tippet, which, though then of an obsolete fashion, made her look like a threepercent. annuitant going to receive her dividends. Her throat was covered with a fine white lawn handkerchief; her dress was mercifully long enough to conceal her boots; her bonnet was perfectly straight, and the strings tied by some one who understood that bows should be pulled out and otherwise fancifully manipulated. As she carried a muff as large as a big drum, she had conceived the happy idea of dispensing altogether with gloves, and I saw that one of the fingers she gave me to shake was adorned with a diamond ring. "Miss Elmsdale's," whispered Taylor to me. "It belonged to her mother." Hearing which, I understood Helena had superintended her aunt's toilet. "Did you ever see Miss Elmsdale?" I inquired of our manager. "Not for years," was the answer. "She bade fair to be pretty." "Why does not Miss Blake bring her out with her sometimes?" I asked. "I believe she is expecting the Queen to give her assent to her marrying the Prince of Wales," explained Taylor, "and she does not wish her to appear much in public until after the wedding." The court was crammed. Somehow it had got into the papersprobably through Colonel Morris' gossips at the clubthat ours was likely to prove a very interesting case, and though the morning was damp and wretched, ladies and gentlemen had turned out into the fog and drizzle, as ladies and gentlemen will when there seems the least chance of a new sensation being provided for them. Further, there were lots of reporters. "It will be in every paper throughout the kingdom," groaned Taylor. "We had better by far have left the Colonel alone." That had always been my opinion, but I only said, "Well, it is of no use looking back now." I glanced at Mr. Craven, and saw he was ill at ease. We had considerable faith in ourselves, our case, and our counsel; but, then, we could not be blind to the fact that Colonel Morris' counsel were men very much better known than our menthat a cloud of witnesses, thirsting to avenge themselves for the rent we had compelled them to pay for an uninhabitable house, were hovering about the court(had we not seen and recognized them in the Hall?)that, in fact, there were two very distinct sides to the question, one represented by Colonel Morris and his party, and the other by Miss Blake and ourselves. Of course our case lay in a nutshell. We had let the place, and Colonel Morris had agreed to take it. Colonel Morris now wanted to be rid of his bargain, and we were determined to keep him to it. Colonel Morris said the house was haunted, and that no one could live in it. We said the house was not haunted, and that anybody could live in it; that River Hall was "in every respect suited for the residence of a family of position"see advertisements in Times and Morning Post. Now, if the reader will kindly consider the matter, it must be an extremely difficult thing to prove, in a court of law, that a house, by reason solely of being haunted, is unsuitable for the residence of a gentleman of position. Smells, bad drainage, impure water, unhealthiness of situation, dampness, the absence of advantages mentioned, the presence of small gamemore odious to tenants of furnished houses than ground game to farmersall these things had, we knew, been made pretexts for repudiation of contracts, and often successfully, but we could find no precedent for ghosts being held as just pleas upon which to relinquish a tenancy; and we made sure of a favourable verdict accordingly. To this day, I believe that our hopes would have been justified by the result, had some demon of mischief not put it into the head of Taylorwho had the management of the casethat it would be a good thing to get Miss Blake into the witnessbox. "She will amuse the jury," he said, "and juries have always a kindly feeling for any person who can amuse them." Which was all very well, and might be very true in a general way, but Miss Blake proved the exception to his rule. Of course she amused the jury, in fact, she amused everyone. To get her to give a straightforward answer to any question was simply impossible. Over and over again the judge explained to her that "yes" or "no" would be amply sufficient; but all in vain. She launched out at large in reply to our counsel, who, nevertheless, when he sat down, had gained his point. Miss Blake declared upon oath she had never seen anything worse than herself at River Hall, and did not believe anybody else ever had. She had never been there during Colonel Morris' tenancy, or she must certainly have seen something worse than a ghost, a man ready and anxious to "rob the orphan," and she was going to add the "widow" when peals of laughter stopped her utterance. Miss Blake had no faith in ghosts resident at River Hall, and if anybody was playing tricks about the house, she should have thought a "fighting gentleman by profession" capable of getting rid of them. "Unless he was afraid," added Miss Blake, with withering irony. Then up rose the opposition counsel, who approached her in an easy, conversational manner. "And so you do not believe in ghosts, Miss Blake?" he began. "Indeed and I don't," she answered. "But if we have not ghosts, what is to become of the literature of your country?" he inquired. "I don't know what you mean, by talking about my country," said Miss Blake, who was always proclaiming her nationality, and quarrelling with those who discovered it without such proclamation. "I mean," he explained, "that all the fanciful legends and beautiful stories for which Ireland is celebrated have their origin in the supernatural. There are, for instance, several old families who have their traditional banshee." "For that matter, we have one ourselves," agreed Miss Blake, with conscious pride. At this junction our counsel interposed with a suggestion that there was no insinuation about any banshee residing at River Hall. "No, the question is about a ghost, and I am coming to that. Different countries have different usages. In Ireland, as Miss Blake admits, there exists a very ladylike spirit, who announces the coming death of any member of certain families. In England, we have ghosts, who appear after the death of some members of some families. Now, Miss Blake, I want you to exercise your memory. Do you remember a night in the November after Mr. Elmsdale's death?" "I remember many nights in many months that I passed brokenhearted in that house," she answered, composedly; but she grew very pale; and feeling there was something unexpected behind both question and answer, our counsel looked at us, and we looked back at him, dismayed. "Your niece, being nervous, slept in the same room as that occupied by you?" continued the learned gentleman. "She did," said Miss Blake. Her answer was short enough, and direct enough, at last. "Now, on the particular November night to which I refer, do you recollect being awakened by Miss Elmsdale?" "She wakened me many a time," answered Miss Blake, and I noticed that she looked away from her questioner, and towards the gallery. "Exactly so; but on one especial night she woke you, saying, her father was walking along the passage; that she knew his step, and that she heard his keys strike against the wall?" "Yes, I remember that," said Miss Blake, with suspicious alacrity. "She kept me up till daybreak. She was always thinking about him, poor child." "Very natural indeed," commented our adversary. "And you told her not to be foolish, I daresay, and very probably tried to reassure her by saying one of the servants must have passed; and no doubt, being a lady possessed of energy and courage, you opened your bedroom door, and looked up and down the corridor?" "Certainly I did," agreed Miss Blake. "And saw nothingand no one?" "I saw nothing." "And then, possibly, in order to convince Miss Elmsdale of the full extent of her delusion, you lit a candle, and went downstairs." "Of coursewhy wouldn't I?" said Miss Blake, defiantly. "Why not, indeed?" repeated the learned gentleman, pensively. "Why not?Miss Blake being brave as she is witty. Well, you went downstairs, and, as was the admirable custom of the housea custom worthy of all commendationyou found the doors opening from the hall bolted and locked?" "I did." "And no sign of a human being about?" "Except myself," supplemented Miss Blake. "And rather wishing to find that some human being besides yourself was about, you retraced your steps, and visited the servants' apartments?" "You might have been with me," said Miss Blake, with an angry sneer. "I wish I had," he answered. "I can never sufficiently deplore the fact of my absence. And you found the servants asleep?" "Well, they seemed asleep," said the lady; "but that does not prove that they were so." "Doubtless," he agreed. "Nevertheless, so far as you could judge, none of them looked as if they had been wandering up and down the corridors?" "I could not judge one way or another," said Miss Blake "for the tricks of English servants, it is impossible for anyone to be up to." "Still, it did not occur to you at the time that any of them was feigning slumber?" "I can't say it did. You see, I am naturally unsuspicious," explained Miss Blake, naively. "Precisely so. And thus it happened that you were unable to confute Miss Elmsdale's fancy?" "I told her she must have been dreaming," retorted Miss Blake. "People who wake all of a sudden often confound dreams with realities." "And people who are not in the habit of awaking suddenly often do the same thing," agreed her questioner; "and so, Miss Blake, we will pass out of dreamland, and into daylightor rather foglight. Do you recollect a particularly foggy day, when your niece, hearing a favourite dog moaning piteously, opened the door of the room where her father died, in order to let it out?" Miss Blake set her lips tight, and looked up at the gallery. There was a little stir in that part of the court, a shuffling of feet, and suppressed whispering. In vain the crier shouted, "Silence! silence, there!" The bustle continued for about a minute, and then all became quiet again. A policeman stated "a female had fainted," and our curiosity being satisfied, we all with one accord turned towards our learned friend, who, one hand under his gown, holding it back, and the other raised to emphasise his question, had stood in this picturesque attitude during the time occupied in carrying the female out, as if done in stone. "Miss Blake, will you kindly answer my question?" he said, when order once again reigned in court. "You're worse than a heathen," remarked the lady, irrelevantly. "I am sorry you do not like me," he replied, "for I admire you very much; but my imperfections are beside the matter in point. What I want you to tell us is, did Miss Elmsdale open that door?" "She didthe creature, she did," was the answer; "her heart was always tender to dumb brutes." "I have no doubt the young lady's heart was everything it ought to be," was the reply; "and for that reason, though she had an intense repugnance to enter the room, she opened the door to let the dog out." "She said so I was not there," answered Miss Blake. Whereupon ensued a brisk skirmish between counsel as to whether Miss Blake could give evidence about a matter of mere hearsay. And after they had fought for ten minutes over the legal bone, our adversary said he would put the question differently, which he did, thus "You were sitting in the diningroom, when you were startled by hearing a piercing shriek." "I heard a screechyou can call it what you like," said Miss Blake, feeling an utter contempt for English phraseology. "I stand corrected; thank you, Miss Blake. You heard a screech, in short, and you hurried across the hall, and found Miss Elmsdale in a fainting condition, on the floor of the library. Was that so?" "She often fainted she is all nairves," explained poor Miss Blake. "No doubt. And when she regained consciousness, she entreated to be taken out of that dreadful room." "She never liked the room after her father's death it was natural, poor child." "Quite natural. And so you took her into the diningroom, and there, curled upon the hearthrug, fast asleep, was the little dog she fancied she heard whining in the library." "Yes, he had been away for two or three days, and came home hungry and sleepy." "Exactly. And you have, therefore, no reason to believe he was shamming slumber." "I believe I am getting very tired of your questions and crossquestions," she said, irritably. "Now, what a pity!" remarked her tormentor; "for I could never tire of your answers. At all events, Miss Elmsdale could not have heard him whining in the libraryso called." "She might have heard some other dog," said Miss Blake. "As a matter of fact, however, she stated to you there was no dog in the room." "She did. But I don't think she knew whether there was or not." "In any case, she did not see a dog; you did not see one; and the servants did not." "I did not," replied Miss Blake; "as to the servants, I would not believe them on their oath." "Hush! hush! Miss Blake," entreated our opponent. "I am afraid you must not be quite so frank. Now to return to business. When Miss Elmsdale recovered consciousness, which she did in that very comfortable easychair in the diningroomwhat did she tell you?" "Do you think I am going to repeat her halfsilly words?" demanded Miss Blake, angrily. "Poor dear, she was out of her mind half the time, after her father's death." "No doubt; but still, I must just ask you to tell us what passed. Was it anything like this? Did she say, 'I have seen my father. He was coming out of the strongroom when I lifted my head after looking for Juan, and he was wringing his hands, and seemed in some terrible distress'?" "God forgive them that told you her words," remarked Miss Blake; "but she did say just those, and I hope they'll do you and her as played eavesdropper all the good I wish." "Really, Miss Blake," interposed the judge. "I have no more questions to ask, my lord," said Colonel Morris' counsel, serenely triumphant. "Miss Blake can go down now." And Miss Blake did go down; and Taylor whispered in my ear "She had done for us." 6. WE AGREE TO COMPROMISE Colonel Morris' side of the case was now to be heard, and heads were bending eagerly forward to catch each word of wisdom that should fall from the lips of Serjeant Playfire, when I felt a hand, cold as ice, laid on mine, and turning, beheld Miss Blake at my elbow. She was as white as the nature of her complexion would permit, and her voice shook as she whispered "Take me away from this place, will you?" I cleared a way for her out of the court, and when we reached Westminster Hall, seeing how upset she seemed, asked if I could get anything for her"a glass of water, or wine," I suggested, in my extremity. "Neither water nor wine will mend a broken heart," she answered, solemnly; "and mine has been broken in there"with a nod she indicated the court we had just left. Not remembering at the moment an approved recipe for the cure of such a fracture, I was cudgelling my brains to think of some form of reply not likely to give offence, when, to my unspeakable relief, Mr. Craven came up to where we stood. "I will take charge of Miss Blake now, Patterson," he said, gravelyvery gravely; and accepting this as an intimation that he desired my absence, I was turning away, when I heard Miss Blake say "Where is shethe creature? What have they done with her at all?" "I have sent her home," was Mr. Craven's reply. "How could you be so foolish as to mislead me as you have done?" "Come," thought I, smelling the battle afar off, "we shall soon have Craven v. Blake tried privately in our office." I knew Mr. Craven pretty well, and understood he would not readily forgive Miss Blake for having kept Miss Helena's experiences a secret from him. Over and over I had heard Miss Blake state there was not a thing really against the house, and that Helena, poor dear, only hated the place because she had there lost her father. "Not much of a loss either, if she could be brought to think so," finished Miss Blake, sometimes. Consequently, to Mr. Craven, as well as to all the rest of those connected with the firm, the facts elicited by Serjeant Playfire were new as unwelcome. If the daughter of the house dreamed dreams and beheld visions, why should strangers be denied a like privilege? If Miss Elmsdale believed her father could not rest in his grave, how were we to compel belief as to calm repose on the part of yearly tenants? "Playfire has been pitching into us pretty strong," remarked Taylor, when I at length elbowed my way back to where our manager sat. "Where is Mr. Craven?" "I left him with Miss Blake." "It is just as well he has not heard all the civil remarks Playfire made about our connection with the business. Hush! he is going to call his witnesses. No, the court is about to adjourn for luncheon." Once again I went out into Westminster Hall, and was sauntering idly up and down over its stones when Mr. Craven joined me. "A bad business this, Patterson," he remarked. "We shall never get another tenant for that house," I answered. "Certainly no tenant will ever again be got through me," he said, irritably; and then Taylor came to him, all in a hurry, and explaining he was wanted, carried him away. "They are going to compromise," I thought, and followed slowly in the direction taken by my principal. How I knew they were thinking of anything of the kind, I cannot say, but intuitively I understood the course events were taking. Our counsel had mentally decided that, although the jury might feel inclined to uphold contracts and to repudiate ghosts, still, it would be impossible for them to overlook the fact that Colonel Morris had rented the place in utter ignorance of its antecedents, and that we had, so far, taken a perhaps undue advantage of him; moreover, the gallant officer had witnesses in court able to prove, and desirous of proving, that we had over and over again compromised matters with dissatisfied tenants, and cancelled agreements, not once or twice, but many, times; further, on no single occasion had Miss Blake and her niece ever slept a single night in the uninhabited house from the day when they left it; no matter how scarce of money they chanced to be, they went into lodgings rather than reside at River Hall. This was beyond dispute and Miss Blake's evidence supplied the reason for conduct so extraordinary. For some reason the house was uninhabitable. The very owners could not live in it; and yetso in imagination we heard Serjeant Playfire declaim"The lady from whom the TRUTH had that day been reluctantly wrung had the audacity to insist that delicate women and tender children should continue to inhabit a dwelling over which a CURSE seemed broodinga dwelling where the dead were always striving for mastery with the living; or else pay Miss Blake a sum of money which should enable her and the daughter of the suicide to live in ease and luxury on the profits of DECEPTION." And looking at the matter candidly, our counsel did not believe the jury could return a verdict. He felt satisfied, he said, there was not a landlord in the box, that they were all tenants, who would consider the three months' rent paid over and above the actual occupation rent, ample, and more than ample, remuneration. On the other hand, Serjeant Playfire, whose experience of juries was large, and calculated to make him feel some contempt for the judgment of "twelve honest men" in any case from pocketpicking to manslaughter, had a prevision that, when the judge had explained to Mr. Foreman and gentlemen of the jury, the nature of a contract, and told them supernatural appearances, however disagreeable, were not recognized in law as a sufficient cause for breaking an agreement, a verdict would be found for Miss Blake. "There must be one landlord amongst them," he considered; "and if there is, he will wind the rest round his finger. Besides, they will take the side of the women, naturally; and Miss Blake made them laugh, and the way she spoke of her niece touched them; while, as for the Colonel, he won't like crossexamination, and I can see my learned friend means to make him appear ridiculous. Enough has been done for honourlet us think of safety." "For my part," said Colonel Morris, when the question was referred to him, "I am not a vindictive man, nor, I hope, an ungenerous foe; I do not like to be victimized, and I have vindicated my principles. The victory was mine in fact, if not in law, when that old Irishwoman's confession was wrung out of her. So, therefore, gentlemen, settle the matter as you pleaseI shall be satisfied." And all the time he was inwardly praying some arrangement might be come to. He was brave enough in his own way, but it is one thing to go into battle, and another to stand legal fire without the chance of sending a single bullet in return. Ridicule is the vulnerable spot in the heel of many a modern Achilles; and while the rest of the court was "convulsed with laughter" over Miss Blake's crossexamination, the gallant Colonel felt himself alternately turning hot and cold when he thought that through even such an ordeal he might have to pass. And, accordingly, to cut short this part of my story, amongst them the lawyers agreed to compromise the matter thus Colonel Morris to give Miss Blake a third quarter's rentin other words, fifty pounds more, and each side to pay its own costs. When this decision was finally arrived at, Mr. Craven's face was a study. Full well he knew on whom would fall the costs of one side. He saw in prophetic vision the fifty pounds passing out of his hands into those of Miss Blake, but no revelation was vouchsafed on the subject of loans unpaid, of costs out of pocket, or costs at all. After we left court he employed himself, I fancy, for the remainder of the afternoon in making mental calculations of how much poorer a man Mrs. Elmsdale's memory, and the Uninhabited House had left him; and, upon the whole, the arithmetical problem could not have proved satisfactory when solved. The judge complimented everyone upon the compromise effected. It was honourable in every way, and creditable to all parties concerned, but the jury evidently were somewhat dissatisfied at the turn affairs had taken, while the witnesses were like to rend Colonel Morris asunder. "They had come, at great inconvenience to themselves, to expose the tactics of that Blake woman and her solicitor," so they said; "and they thought the affair ought not to have been hushed up." As for the audience, they murmured openly. They received the statement that the case was over, with groans, hisses, and other marks of disapproval, and we heard comments on the matter uttered by disappointed spectators all the way up Parliament Street, till we arrived at that point where we left the main thoroughfare, in order to strike across to Buckingham Street. Therewhere Pepys once livedwe betook ourselves to our books and papers, with a sense of unusual depression in the atmosphere. It was a gray, dull, cheerless afternoon, and more than one of us, looking out at the mud bank, which, at low water, then occupied the space now laid out as gardens, wondered how River Hall, desolate, tenantless, uninhabited, looked under that sullen sky, with the murky river flowing onward, day and night, day and night, leaving, unheeding, an unsolved mystery on its banks. For a week we saw nothing of Miss Blake, but at the end of that time, in consequence of a somewhat imperative summons from Mr. Craven, she called at the office late one afternoon. We comprehended she had selected that, for her, unusual time of day for a visit, hoping our principal might have left ere she arrived; but in this hope she was disappointed Mr. Craven was in, at leisure, and anxious to see her. I shall never forget that interview. Miss Blake arrived about five o'clock, when it was quite dark out of doors, and when, in all our offices except Mr. Craven's, the gas was flaring away triumphantly. In his apartment he kept the light always subdued, but between the fire and the lamp there was plenty of light to see that Miss Blake looked ill and depressed, and that Mr. Craven had assumed a peculiar expression, which, to those who knew him best, implied he had made up his mind to pursue a particular course of action, and meant to adhere to his determination. "You wanted to see me," said our client, breaking the ice. "Yes; I wanted to tell you that our connection with the River Hall property must be considered at an end." "Well, well, that is the way of men, I supposein England." "I do not think any man, whether in England or Ireland, could have done more for a client than I have tried to do for you, Miss Blake," was the offended answer. "I am sure I have never found fault with you," remarked Miss Blake, deprecatingly. "And I do not think," continued Mr. Craven, unheeding her remark, "any lawyer ever met with a worse return for all his trouble than I have received from you." "Dear, dear," said Miss Blake, with comic disbelief in her tone, "that is very bad." "There are two classes of men who ought to be treated with entire confidence," persisted Mr. Craven, "lawyers and doctors. It is as foolish to keep back anything from one as from another." "I daresay," argued Miss Blake; "but we are not all wise alike, you know." "No," remarked my principal, who was indeed no match for the lady, "or you would never have allowed me to take your case into court in ignorance of Helena having seen her father." "Come, come," retorted Miss Blake; "you do not mean to say you believe she ever did see her father since he was buried, and had the stonework put all right and neat again, about him? And, indeed, it went to my heart to have a man who had fallen into such bad ways laid in the same grave with my dear sister, but I thought it would be unchristian" "We need not go over all that ground once more, surely," interrupted Mr. Craven. "I have heard your opinions concerning Mr. Elmsdale frequently expressed ere now. That which I never did hear, however, until it proved too late, was the fact of Helena having fancied she saw her father after his death." "And what good would it have done you, if I had repeated all the child's foolish notions?" "This, that I should not have tried to let a house believed by the owner herself to be uninhabitable." "And so you would have kept us without bread to put in our mouths, or a roof over our heads." "I should have asked you to do at first what I must ask you to do at last. If you decline to sell the place, or let it unfurnished, on a long lease, to some one willing to take it, spite of its bad character, I must say the house will never again be let through my instrumentality, and I must beg you to advertise River Hall yourself, or place it in the hands of an agent." "Do you mean to say, William Craven," asked Miss Blake, solemnly, "that you believe that house to be haunted?" "I do not," he answered. "I do not believe in ghosts, but I believe the place has somehow got a bad nameperhaps through Helena's fancies, and that people imagine it is haunted, and get frightened probably at sight of their own shadows.

Come, Miss Blake, I see a way out of this difficulty; you go and take up your abode at River Hall for six months, and at the end of that time the evil charm will be broken." "And Helena dead," she observed. "You need not take Helena with you." "Nor anybody else, I suppose you mean," she remarked. "Thank you, Mr. Craven; but though my life is none too happy, I should like to die a natural death, and God only knows whether those who have been peeping and spying about the place might not murder me in my bed, if I ever went to bed in the house; that is" "Then, in a word, you do believe the place is haunted." "I do nothing of the kind," she answered, angrily; "but though I have courage enough, thank Heaven, I should not like to stay all alone in any house, and I know there is not a servant in England would stay there with me, unless she meant to take my life. But I tell you what, William Craven, there are lots of poor creatures in the world even poorer than we aretutors and starved curates, and the like. Get one of them to stay at the Hall till he finds out where the trick is, and I won't mind saying he shall have fifty pounds down for his pains; that is, I mean, of course, when he has discovered the secret of all these strange lights, and suchlike." And feeling she had by this proposition struck Mr. Craven under the fifth rib, Miss Blake rose to depart. "You will kindly think over what I have said," observed Mr. Craven. "I'll do that if you will kindly think over what I have said," she retorted, with the utmost composure; and then, after a curt goodevening, she passed through the door I held open, nodding to me, as though she would have remarked, "I'm more than a match for your master still, young man." "What a woman that is!" exclaimed Mr. Craven, as I resumed my seat. "Do you think she really means what she says about the fifty pounds?" I inquired. "I do not know," he answered, "but I know I would cheerfully pay that sum to anyone who could unravel the mystery of River Hall." "Are you in earnest, sir?" I asked, in some surprise. "Certainly I am," he replied. "Then let me go and stay at River Hall," I said. "I will undertake to run the ghost to earth for half the money." 7. MY OWN STORY It is necessary now that I should tell the readers something about my own antecedents. Aware of how uninteresting the subject must prove, I shall make that something as short as possible. Already it will have been clearly understood, both from my own hints, and from Miss Blake's far from reticent remarks on my position, that I was a clerk at a salary in Mr. Craven's office. But this had not always been the case. When I went first to Buckingham Street, I was duly articled to Mr. Craven, and my mother and sister, who were of aspiring dispositions, lamented that my choice of a profession had fallen on law rather than soldiering. They would have been proud of a young fellow in uniform; but they did not feel at all elated at the idea of being so closely connected with a "musty attorney." As for my father, he told me to make my own choice, and found the money to enable me to do so. He was an easygoing soul, who was in the miserable position of having a sufficient income to live on without exerting either mind or body; and yet whose income was insufficient to enable him to have superior hobbies, or to gratify any particular taste. We resided in the country, and belonged to the middle class of comfortable, welltodo English people. In our way, we were somewhat exclusive as to our associatesand as the Hall and Castle residents were, in their way, exclusive also, we lived almost out of society. Indeed, we were very intimate with only one family in our neighbourhood; and I think it was the example of the son of that house which first induced me to think of leading a different existence from that in which my father had grown as green and mossy as a felled tree. Ned Munro, the eldest hope of a proud but reduced stock, elected to study for the medical profession. "The life here," he remarked, vaguely indicating the distant houses occupied by our respective sires, "may suit the old folks, but it does not suit me." And he went out into the wilderness of the world. After his departure I found that the life at home did not suit me either, and so I followed his lead, and went, duly articled, to Mr. Craven, of Buckingham Street, Strand. Mr. Craven and my father were old friends. To this hour I thank Heaven for giving my father such a friend. After I had been for a considerable time with Mr. Craven, there came a dreadful day, when tidings arrived that my father was ruined, and my immediate presence required at home. What followed was that which is usual enough in all such cases, with this differencethe loss of his fortune killed my father. From what I have seen since, I believe when he took to his bed and quietly gave up living altogether, he did the wisest and best thing possible under the circumstances. Dear, simple, kindly old man, I cannot fancy how his feeble nature might have endured the years which followed; filled by my mother and sister with lamentations, though we knew no actual wantthanks to Mr. Craven. My father had been dabbling in shares, and when the natural consequenceruin, utter ruin, came to our pretty country home, Mr. Craven returned me the money paid to him, and offered me a salary. Think of what this kindness was, and we penniless; while all the time relations stood aloof, holding out nor hand nor purse, till they saw whether we could weather the storm without their help. Amongst those relations chanced to be a certain Admiral Patterson, an uncle of my father. When we were welltodo he had not disdained to visit us in our quiet home, but when poverty came he tied up his pursestrings and ignored our existence, till at length, hearing by a mere chance that I was supporting my mother and sister by my own exertions (always helped by Mr. Craven's goodness), he said, audibly, that the "young jackanapes must have more in him than he thought," and wrote to beg that I would spend my next holiday at his house. I was anxious to accept the invitation, as a friend told me he felt certain the old gentleman would forward my views; but I did not choose to visit my relative in shabby clothes and with empty pockets; therefore, it fell out that I jumped at Miss Blake's suggestion, and closed with Mr. Craven's offer on the spot. Half fiftytwentyfivepounds would replenish my wardrobe, pay my travelling expenses, and leave me with money in my pocket, as well. I told Mr. Craven all this in a breath. When I had done so he laughed, and said "You have worked hard, Patterson. Here is ten pounds. Go and see your uncle; but leave River Hall alone." Then, almost with tears, I entreated him not to baulk my purpose. If I could rid River Hall of its ghost, I would take money from him, not otherwise. I told him I had set my heart on unravelling the mystery attached to that place, and I could have told him another mystery at the same time, had shame not tied my tongue. I was in lovefor the first time in my lifehopelessly, senselessly, with a face of which I thought all day and dreamed all night, that had made itself in a moment part and parcel of my story, thus I had been at Kentish Town to see one of our clients, and having finished my business, walked on as far as Camden Town, intending to take an omnibus which might set me down somewhere near Chancery Lane. Whilst standing at the top of College Street, under shelter of my umbrella, a drizzling rain falling and rendering the pavement dirty and slippery, I noticed a young lady waiting to cross the roada young lady with, to my mind, the sweetest, fairest, most lovable face on which my eyes had ever rested. I could look at her without causing annoyance, because she was so completely occupied in watching lumbering vans, fast carts, crawling cabs, and various other vehicles, which chanced at that moment to be crowding the thoroughfare, that she had no leisure to bestow even a glance on any pedestrian. A governess, I decided for her dress, though neat, and even elegant, was by no means costly; moreover, there was an expression of settled melancholy about her features, and further, she carried a roll, which looked like music, in her hand. In less time than it has taken me to write this paragraph, I had settled all about her to my own satisfaction. Father bankrupt. Mother delicate. Young brothers and sisters, probably, all crying aloud for the pittance she was able to earn by giving lessons at so much an hour. She had not been long at her present occupation, I felt satisfied, for she was evidently unaccustomed to being out in the streets alone on a wet day. I would have offered to see her across the road, but for two reasons one, because I felt shy about proffering my services; the other, because I was exceedingly doubtful whether I might not give offence by speaking. After the fashion of so many of her sex, she made about half a dozen false starts, advancing as some friendly cabby made signs for her to venture the passage, retreating as she caught sight of some coming vehicle still yards distant. At last, imagining the way clear, she made a sudden rush, and had just got well off the curb, when a mail phaeton turned the corner, and in one second she was down in the middle of the road, and I struggling with the horses and swearing at the driver, who, in his turn, very heartily anathematized me. I do not remember all I said to the portly, wellfed, swaggering cockney upstart; but there was so much in it uncomplimentary to himself and his driving, that the crowd already assembled cheered, as all crowds will cheer profane and personal language; and he was glad enough to gather up his reins and touch his horses, and trot off, without having first gone through the ceremony of asking whether the girl he had so nearly driven over was living or dead. Meantime she had been carried into the nearest shop, whither I followed her. I do not know why all the people standing about imagined me to be her brother, but they certainly did so, and, under that impression, made way for me to enter the parlour behind the shop, where I found my poor beauty sitting, faint and frightened and draggled, whilst the woman of the house was trying to wipe the mud off her dress, and endeavouring to persuade her to swallow some wineandwater. As I entered, she lifted her eyes to mine, and said, "Thank you, sir. I trust you have not got hurt yourself," so frankly and so sweetly that the small amount of heart her face had left me passed into her keeping at once. "Are you much hurt?" I replied by asking. "My arm is, a little," she answered. "If I could only get home! Oh! I wish I were at home." I went out and fetched a cab, and assisted her into it. Then I asked her where the man should drive, and she gave me the name of the street which Miss Blake, when in England, honoured by making her abode. Miss Blake's number was 110. My charmer's number was 15. Having obtained this information, I closed the cabdoor, and taking my seat beside the driver, we rattled off in the direction of Brunswick Square. Arrived at the house, I helped herwhen, in answer to my knock, an elderly woman appeared, to ask my businessinto the narrow hall of a dreary house. Oh! how my heart ached when I beheld her surroundings! She did not bid me goodbye; but asking me into the parlour, went, as I understood, to get money to pay the cabman. Seizing my opportunity, I told the woman, who still stood near the door, that I was in a hurry, and leaving the house, bade the driver take me to the top of Chancery Lane. On the next Sunday I watched No. 15, till I beheld my ladyfair come forth, veiled, furred, dressed all in her dainty best, prayerbook in hand, going alone to St. Pancras Churchnot the old, but the newwhither I followed her. By some freak of fortune, the verger put me into the same pew as that in which he had just placed her. When she saw me her face flushed crimson, and then she gave a little smile of recognition. I fear I did not much heed the service on that particular Sunday; but I still felt shy, so shy that, after I had held the door open for her to pass out, I allowed others to come between us, and did not dare to follow and ask how she was. During the course of the next week came Miss Blake and Mr. Craven's remark about the fifty pounds; and within fourandtwenty hours something still more astounding occurreda visit from Miss Blake and her niece, who wanted "a good talkingto"so Miss Blake stated. It was a dull, foggy day, and when my eyes rested on the younger lady, I drew back closer into my accustomed corner, frightened and amazed. "You were in such a passion yesterday," began Miss Blake, coming into the office, dragging her blushing niece after her, "that you put it out of my head to tell you three thingsone, that we have moved from our old lodgings; the next, that I have not a penny to go on with; and the third, that Helena here has gone out of her mind. She won't have River Hall let again, if you please. She intends to go out as a governesswhat do you think of that?and nothing I can say makes any impression upon her. I should have thought she had had enough of governessing the first day she went out to give a lesson she got herself run over and nearly killed; was brought back in a cab by some gentleman, who had the decency to take the cab away again for how we should have paid the fare, I don't know, I am sure. So I have just brought her to you to know if her mother's old friend thinks it is a right thing for Kathleen Elmsdale's daughter to put herself under the feet of a parcel of ignorant, purseproud snobs?" Mr. Craven looked at the girl kindly. "My dear," he said, "I think, I believe, there will be no necessity for you to do anything of that kind. We have found a personhave we not, Patterson?willing to devote himself to solving the River Hall mystery. So, for the present at all events, Helena" He paused, for Helena had risen from her seat and crossed the room to where I sat. "Aunt, aunt," she said, "this is the gentleman who stopped the horses," and before I could speak a word she held my hand in hers, and was thanking me once again with her beautiful eyes. Miss Blake turned and glared upon me. "Oh! it was you, was it?" she said, ungraciously. "Well, it is just what I might have expected, and me hoping all the time it was a lord or a baronet, at the least." We all laughedeven Miss Elmsdale laughed at this frank confession; but when the ladies were gone, Mr. Craven, looking at me pityingly, remarked "This is a most unfortunate business, Patterson. I hopeI do hope, you will not be so foolish as to fall in love with Miss Elmsdale." To which I made no reply. The evil, if evil it were, was done. I had fallen in love with Miss Blake's niece ere those words of wisdom dropped from my employer's lips. 8. MY FIRST NIGHT AT RIVER HALL It was with a feeling of depression for which I could in no way account that, one cold evening, towards the end of February, I left Buckingham Street and wended my way to the Uninhabited House. I had been eager to engage in the enterprise; first, for the sake of the fifty pounds reward; and secondly, and much more, for the sake of Helena Elmsdale. I had tormented Mr. Craven until he gave a reluctant consent to my desire. I had brooded over the matter until I became eager to commence my investigations, as a young soldier may be to face the enemy; and yet, when the evening came, and darkness with it; when I set my back to the more crowded thoroughfares, and found myself plodding along a lonely suburban road, with a keen wind lashing my face, and a suspicion of rain at intervals wetting my cheeks, I confess I had no feeling of enjoyment in my selfimposed task. After all, talking about a haunted house in broad daylight to one's fellowclerks, in a large London office, is a very different thing from taking up one's residence in the same house, all alone, on a bleak winter's night, with never a soul within shouting distance. I had made up my mind to go through with the matter, and no amount of mental depression, no wintry blasts, no cheerless roads, no desolate goal, should daunt me; but still I did not like the adventure, and at every step I felt I liked it less. Before leaving town I had fortified my inner man with a good dinner and some excellent wine, but by the time I reached River Hall I might have fasted for a week, so faint and spiritless did I feel. "Come, this will never do," I thought, as I turned the key in the door, and crossed the threshold of the Uninhabited House. "I must not begin with being chickenhearted, or I may as well give up the investigation at once." The fires I had caused to be kindled in the morning, though almost out by the time I reached River Hall, had diffused a grateful warmth throughout the house; and when I put a match to the paper and wood laid ready in the grate of the room I meant to occupy, and lit the gas, in the hall, on the landing, and in my sleepingapartment, I began to think things did not look so cheerless, after all. The seals which, for precaution's sake, I had placed on the various locks, remained intact. I looked to the fastenings of the halldoor, examined the screws by which the bolts were attached to the wood, and having satisfied myself that everything of that kind was secure, went up to my room, where the fire was now crackling and blazing famously, put the kettle on the hob, drew a chair up close to the hearth, exchanged my boots for slippers, lit a pipe, pulled out my lawbooks, and began to read. How long I had read, I cannot say; the kettle on the hob was boiling, at any rate, and the coals had burned themselves into a redhot mass of glowing cinders, when my attention was attractedor rather, I should say, distractedby the sound of tapping outside the windowpane. First I listened, and read on, then I laid down my book and listened more attentively. It was exactly the noise which a person would make tapping upon glass with one finger. The wind had risen almost to a tempest, but, in the interval between each blast, I could hear the tapping as distinctly as if it had been inside my own skulltap, tap, imperatively; tap, tap, tap, impatiently; and when I rose to approach the casement, it seemed as if three more fingers had joined in the summons, and were rapping for bare life. "They have begun betimes," I thought; and taking my revolver in one hand, with the other I opened the shutters, and put aside the blind. As I did so, it seemed as if some dark body occupied one side of the sash, while the tapping continued as madly as before. It is as well to confess at once that I was for the moment frightened. Subsequently I saw many wonderful sights, and had some terrible experiences in the Uninhabited House; but I can honestly say, no sight or experience so completely cowed me for the time being, as that dull blackness to which I could assign no shape, that spiritlike rapping of fleshless fingers, which seemed to increase in vehemence as I obeyed its summons. Doctors say it is not possible for the heart to stand still and a human being live, and, as I am not a doctor, I do not like to contradict their dogma, otherwise I could positively declare my heart did cease beating as I listened, looking out into the night with the shadow of that darkness projecting itself upon my mind, to the impatient tapping, which was now distinctly audible even above the raging of the storm. How I gathered sufficient courage to do it, I cannot tell; but I put my face close to the glass, thus shutting out the gas and firelight, and saw that the dark object which alarmed me was a mass of ivy the wind had detached from the wall, and that the invisible fingers were young branches straying from the main body of the plant, which, tossed by the airking, kept striking the window incessantly, now one, now two, now three, tap, tap, tap; tap, tap; tap, tap; and sometimes, after a long silence, all together, tappp, like the sound of clamming bells. I stood for a minute or two, listening to the noise, so as to satisfy myself as to its cause, then I laid down the revolver, took out my pocketknife, and opened the window. As I did so, a tremendous blast swept into the room, extinguishing the gas, causing the glowing coals to turn, for a moment, black on one side and to fiercest blaze on the other, scattering the dust lying on the hearth over the carpet, and dashing the ivysprays against my face with a force which caused my cheeks to smart and tingle long afterwards. Taking my revenge, I cut them as far back as I could, and then, without closing the window, and keeping my breath as well as I could, I looked out across the garden over the Thames, away to the opposite bank, where a few lights glimmered at long intervals. "An eerie, lonely place for a fellow to be in all by himself," I continued; "and yet, if the rest of the ghosts, bodiless or clothed with flesh, which frequent this house prove to be as readily laid as those ivytwigs, I shall earn my moneyandmythanks, easily enough." So considering, I relit the gas, replenished the fire, refilled my pipe, reseated myself by the hearth, and with feet stretched out towards the genial blaze, attempted to resume my reading. All in vain I could not fix my attention on the page; I could not connect one sentence with another. When my mind ought to have concentrated its energies upon Justice That, and ViceChancellor This, and Lord Somebody Else, I felt it wandering away, trying to fit together all the odds and ends of evidence worthy or unworthy concerning the Uninhabited House. Which really was, as we had always stated, a good house, a remarkably good house, well furnished, suitable in every respect, c. Had I been a "family of respectability," or a gentleman of position, with a large number of servants, a nice wife, and a few children sprinkled about the domestic picture, I doubt not I should have enjoyed the contemplation of that glowing fire, and rejoiced in the idea of finding myself located in so desirable a residence, within an easy distance of the West End; but, as matters stood, I felt anything rather than elated. In that large house there was no human inmate save myself, and I had an attack of nervousness upon me for which I found it impossible to account. Here was I, at length, under the very roof where my mistress had passed all her childish days, bound to solve the mystery which was making such havoc with her young life, permitted to essay a task, the accomplishment of which should cover me with glory, and perhaps restore peace and happiness to her heart; and yet I was afraid. I did not hesitate to utter that word to my own soul then, any more than I hesitate to write it now for those who list to read for I can truly say I think there are few men whose courage such an adventure would not try were they to attempt it; and I am sure, had any one of those to whom I tell this story been half as much afraid as I, he would have left River Hall there and then, and allowed the ghosts said to be resident, to haunt it undisturbed for evermore. If I could only have kept memory from running here and there in quest of evidence pro and con the house being haunted, I should have fared better but I could not do this. Let me try as I would to give my attention to those legal studies that ought to have engrossed my attention, I could not succeed in doing so my thoughts, without any volition on my part, kept continually on the move; now with Miss Blake in Buckingham Street, again with Colonel Morris on the river walk, once more with Miss Elmsdale in the library; and went constantly flitting hither and thither, recalling the experiences of a frightened lad, or the terror of an ignorant woman; yet withal I had a feeling that in some way memory was playing me false, as if, when ostentatiously bringing out all her stores for me to make or mar as I could, she had really hidden away, in one of her remotest corners, some link, great or little as the case might be, but still, whether great or little, necessary to connect the unsatisfactory narratives together. Till late in the night I sat trying to piece my puzzle together, but without success. There was a flaw in the story, a missing point in it, somewhere, I felt certain. I often imagined I was about to touch it, when, heigh! presto! it eluded my grasp. "The whole affair will resolve itself into ivyboughs," I finally, if not truthfully, decided. "I am satisfied it is allivy," and I went to bed. Now, whether it was that I had thought too much of the ghostly narratives associated with River Hall, the storminess of the night, the fact of sleeping in a strange room, or the strength of a tumbler of brandyandwater, in which brandy took an undue lead, I cannot tell; but during the morning hours I dreamed a dream which filled me with an unspeakable horror, from which I awoke struggling for breath, bathed in a cold perspiration, and with a dread upon me such as I never felt in any waking moment of my life. I dreamt I was lying asleep in the room I actually occupied, when I was aroused from a profound slumber by the noise produced by some one tapping at the windowpane. On rising to ascertain the cause of this summons, I saw Colonel Morris standing outside and beckoning me to join him. With that disregard of space, time, distance, and attire which obtains in dreams, I at once stepped out into the garden. It was a pitchdark night, and bitterly cold, and I shivered, I know, as I heard the sullen flow of the river, and listened to the moaning of the wind among the trees. We walked on for some minutes in silence, then my companion asked me if I felt afraid, or if I would go on with him. "I will go where you go," I answered. Then suddenly he disappeared, and Playfire, who had been his counsel at the time of the trial, took my hand and led me onwards. We passed through a doorway, and, still in darkness, utter darkness, began to descend some steps. We went downdownhundreds of steps as it seemed to me, and in my sleep, I still remembered the old idea of its being unlucky to dream of going downstairs. But at length we came to the bottom, and then began winding along interminable passages, now so narrow only one could walk abreast, and again so low that we had to stoop our heads in order to avoid striking the roof. After we had been walking along these for hours, as time reckons in such cases, we commenced ascending flight after flight of steep stonesteps. I laboured after Playfire till my limbs ached and grew weary, till, scarcely able to drag my feet from stair to stair, I entreated him to stop; but he only laughed and held on his course the more rapidly, while I, hurrying after, often stumbled and recovered myself, then stumbled again and lay prone. The night air blew cold and chill upon me as I crawled out into an unaccustomed place and felt my way over heaps of uneven earth and stones that obstructed my progress in every direction. I called out for Playfire, but the wind alone answered me; I shouted for Colonel Morris; I entreated some one to tell me where I was; and in answer there was a dead and terrible silence. The wind died away; not a breath of air disturbed the heavy stillness which had fallen so suddenly around me. Instead of the veil of merciful blackness which had hidden everything hitherto from view, a gray light spread slowly over the objects around, revealing a burialground, with an old church standing in the midsta burialground where grew rank nettles and coarse, tall grass; where brambles trailed over the graves, and weeds and decay consorted with the dead. Moved by some impulse which I could not resist, I still held on my course, over mounds of earth, between rows of headstones, till I reached the other side of the church, under the shadow of which yawned an open pit. To the bottom of it I peered, and there beheld an empty coffin; the lid was laid against the side of the grave, and on a headstone, displaced from its upright position, sat the late occupant of the grave, looking at me with wistful, eager eyes. A stream of light from within the church fell across that one empty grave, that one dead watcher. "So you have come at last," he said; and then the spell was broken, and I would have fled, but that, holding me with his left hand, he pointed with his right away to a shadowy distance, where the gray sky merged into deepest black. I strained my eyes to discover the object he strove to indicate, but I failed to do so. I could just discern something flitting away into the darkness, but I could give it no shape or substance. "Looklook!" the dead man said, rising, in his excitement, and clutching me more firmly with his claycold fingers. I tried to fly, but I could not; my feet were chained to the spot. I fought to rid myself of the clasp of the skeleton hand, and then we fell together over the edge of the pit, and I awoke. 9. A TEMPORARY PEACE It was scarcely light when I jumped out of bed, and murmuring, "Thank God it was only a dream," dressed myself with all speed, and flinging open the window, looked out on a calm morning after the previous night's storm. Muddily and angrily the Thames rolled onward to the sea. On the opposite side of the river I could see stretches of green, with here and there a house dotting the banks. A fleet of barges lay waiting the turn of the tide to proceed to their destination. The voices of the men shouting to each other, and blaspheming for no particular reason, came quite clear and distinct over the water. The garden was strewed with twigs and branches blown off the trees during the night; amongst them the sprigs of ivy I had myself cut off. An hour and a scene not calculated to encourage superstitious fancies, it may be, but still not likely to enliven any man's spiritsa quiet, dull, gray, listless, dispiriting morning, and, being countrybred, I felt its influence. "I will walk into town, and ask Ned Munro to give me some breakfast," I thought, and found comfort in the idea. Ned Munro was a doctor, but not a struggling doctor. He was not rich, but he "made enough for a beginner" so he said. He worked hard for little pay; "but I mean some day to have high pay, and take the world easy," he explained. He was blessed with great hopes and good courage; he had high spirits, and a splendid constitution. He neither starved himself nor his friends; his landlady "loved him as her son"; and there were several goodlooking girls who were very fond of him, not as a brother. But Ned had no notion of marrying, yet awhile. "Time enough for that," he told me once, "when I can furnish a good house, and set up a brougham, and choose my patients, and have a few hundreds lying idle in the bank." Meantime, as no one of these items had yet been realized, he lived in lodgings, ate toasted haddocks with his morning coffee, and smoked and read novels far into the night. Yes, I could go and breakfast with Munro. Just then it occurred to me that the gas I had left lighted when I went to bed was out; that the door I had left locked was open. Straight downstairs I went. The gas in the hall was out, and every door I had myself closed and locked the previous morning stood ajar, with the seal, however, remaining intact. I had borne as much as I could my nerves were utterly unhinged. Snatching my hat and coat, I left the house, and fled, rather than walked, towards London. With every step I took towards town came renewed courage; and when I reached Ned's lodgings, I felt ashamed of my pusillanimity. "I have been sleepwalking, that is what it is," I decided. "I have opened the doors and turned off the gas myself, and been frightened at the work of my own hands. I will ask Munro what is the best thing to insure a quiet night." Which I did accordingly, receiving for answer "Keep a quiet mind.

" "Yes, but if one cannot keep a quiet mind; if one is anxious and excited, and" "In love," he finished, as I hesitated. "Well, no; I did not mean that," I said; "though, of course, that might enter into the case also. Suppose one is uneasy about a certain amount of money, for instance?" "Are you?" he asked, ignoring the general suggestiveness of my remark. "Well, yes; I want to make some if I can." "Don't want, then," he advised. "Take my word for it, no amount of money is worth the loss of a night's rest; and you have been tossing about all night, I can see. Come, Patterson, if it's forgery or embezzlement, out with it, man, and I will help you if I am able." "If it were either one or the other, I should go to Mr. Craven," I answered, laughing. "Then it must be love," remarked my host; "and you will want to take me into your confidence some day. The old story, I suppose beautiful girl, stern parents, wealthy suitor, poor lover. I wonder if we could interest her in a case of smallpox. If she took it badly, you might have a chance; but I have a presentiment that she has been vaccinated." "Ned," was my protest, "I shall certainly fling a plate at your head." "All right, if you think the exertion would do you good," he answered. "Give me your hand, Patterson"; and before I knew what he wanted with it, he had his fingers on my wrist. "Look here, old fellow," he said; "you will be laid up, if you don't take care of yourself. I thought so when you came in, and I am sure of it now. What have you been doing?" "Nothing wrong, Munro," I answered, smiling in spite of myself. "I have not been picking, or stealing, or abducting any young woman, or courting my neighbour's wife; but I am worried and perplexed. When I sleep I have dreadful dreamshorrible dreams," I added, shuddering. "Can you tell me what is worrying and perplexing you?" he asked, kindly, after a moment's thought. "Not yet, Ned," I answered; "though I expect I shall have to tell you soon. Give me something to make me sleep quietly that is all I want now." "Can't you go out of town?" he inquired. "I do not want to go out of town," I answered. "I will make you up something to strengthen your nerves," he said, after a pause; "but if you are not betterwell, before the end of the week, take my advice, and run down to Brighton over Sunday. Now, you ought to give me a guinea for that," he added, laughing. "I assure you, all the goldheaded cane, all the wonderful chronometer doctors who pocket thousands per annum at the West End, could make no more of your case than I have done." "I am sure they could not," I said, gratefully; "and when I have the guinea to spare, be sure I shall not forget your fee." Whether it was owing to his medicine, or his advice, or his cheery, healthgiving manner, I have no idea; but that night, when I walked towards the Uninhabited House, I felt a different being. On my way I called at a small cornchandler's, and bought a quartern of flour done up in a thin and utterly insufficient bag. I told the man the wrapper would not bear its contents, and he said he could not help that. I asked him if he had no stronger bags. He answered that he had, but he could not afford to give them away. I laid down twopence extra, and inquired if that would cover the expense of a sheet of brown paper. Ashamed, he turned aside and produced a substantial bag, into which he put the flour in its envelope of curlingtissue. I thanked him, and pushed the twopence across the counter. With a grunt, he thrust the money back. I said goodnight, leaving current coin of the realm to the amount indicated behind me. Through the night be shouted, "Hi! sir, you've forgotten your change." Through the night I shouted back, "Give your next customer its value in civility." All of which did me good. Squabbling with flesh and blood is not a bad preliminary to entering a ghosthaunted house. Once again I was at River Hall. Looking up at its cheerless portal, I was amazed at first to see the outside lamp flaring away in the darkness. Then I remembered that all the other gas being out, of course this, which I had not turned off, would blaze more brightly. Purposely I had left my return till rather late. I had gone to one of the theatres, and remained until a third through the principal piece. Then I called at a supperroom, had half a dozen oysters and some stout; after which, like a giant refreshed, I wended my way westward. Utterly false would it be for me to say I liked the idea of entering the Uninhabited House; but still, I meant to do it, and I did. No lawbooks for me that night; no seductive fire; no shining lights all over the house. Like a householder of twenty years' standing, I struck a match, and turned the gas on to a single halllamp. I did not trouble myself even about shutting the doors opening into the hall; I only strewed flour copiously over the marble pavement, and on the first flight of stairs, and then, by the servant's passages, crept into the upper story, and so to bed. That night I slept dreamlessly. I awoke in broad daylight, wondering why I had not been called sooner, and then remembered there was no one to call, and that if I required hot water, I must boil it for myself. With that light heart which comes after a good night's rest, I put on some part of my clothing, and was commencing to descend the principal staircase, when my proceedings of the previous night flashed across my mind; and pausing, I looked down into the hall. No sign of a foot on the flour. The white powder lay there innocent of human pressure as the untrodden snow; and yet, and yet, was I dreamingcould I have been drunk without my own knowledge, before I went to bed? The gas was ablaze in the hall and on the staircase, and every door left open overnight was close shut. Curiously enough, at that moment fear fell from me like a garment which has served its turn, and in the strength of my manhood, I felt able to face anything the Uninhabited House might have to show. Over the latter part of that week, as being utterly unimportant in its events or consequences, I pass rapidly, only saying that, when Saturday came, I followed Munro's advice, and ran down to Brighton, under the idea that by so doing I should thoroughly strengthen myself for the next five days' ordeal. But the idea was a mistaken one. The Uninhabited House took its ticket for Brighton by the same express; it got into the compartment with me; it sat beside me at dinner; it hobnobbed to me over my own wine; uninvited it came out to walk with me; and when I stood still, listening to the band, it stood still too. It went with me to the pier, and when the wind blew, as the wind did, it said, "We were quite as well off on the Thames." When I woke, through the night, it seemed to shout, "Are you any better off here?" And when I went to church the next day it crept close up to me in the pew, and said, "Come, now, it is all very well to say you are a Christian; but if you were really one you would not be afraid of the place you and I wot of." Finally, I was so goaded and maddened that I shook my fist at the sea, and started off by the evening train for the Uninhabited House. This time I travelled alone. The Uninhabited House preceded me. There, in its old position, looking gloomy and mysterious in the shadows of night, I found it on my return to town; and, as if tired of playing tricks with one who had become indifferent to their vagaries, all the doors remained precisely as I had left them; and if there were ghosts in the house that night, they did not interfere with me or the chamber I occupied. Next morning, while I was dressing, a most remarkable thing occurred; a thing for which I was in no wise prepared. Spirits, and sights and sounds supposed appropriate to spirithood, I had expected; but for a modest knock at the front door I was not prepared. When, after hurriedly completing my toilet, I undrew the bolts and undid the chain, and opened the door wide, there came rushing into the house a keen easterly wind, behind which I beheld a sadfaced woman, dressed in black, who dropped me a curtsey, and said "If you please, sirI suppose you are the gentleman?" Now, I could make nothing out of this, so I asked her to be good enough to explain. Then it all came out "Did I want a person to char?" This was remarkablevery. Her question amazed me to such an extent that I had to ask her in, and request her to seat herself on one of the hall chairs, and go upstairs myself, and think the matter over before I answered her. It had been so impressed upon me that no one in the neighbourhood would come near River Hall, that I should as soon have thought of Victoria by the grace of God paying me a friendly visit, as of being waited on by a charwoman. I went downstairs again. At sight of me my new acquaintance rose from her seat, and began curling up the corner of her apron. "Do you know," I said, "that this house bears the reputation of being haunted?" "I have heard people say it is, sir," she answered. "And do you know that servants will not stay in itthat tenants will not occupy it?" "I have heard so, sir," she answered once again. "Then what do you mean by offering to come?" I inquired. She looked up into my face, and I saw the tears come softly stealing into her eyes, and her mouth began to pucker, ere, drooping her head, she replied "Sir, just three months ago, come the twentieth, I was a happy woman. I had a good husband and a tidy home. There was not a lady in the land I would have changed places with. But that night, my man, coming home in a fog, fell into the river and was drowned. It was a week before they found him, and all the timewhile I had been hoping to hear his step every minute in the dayI was a widow." "Poor soul!" I said, involuntarily. "Well, sir, when a man goes, all goes. I have done my best, but still I have not been able to feed my childrenhis childrenproperly, and the sight of their poor pinched faces breaks my heart, it do, sir," and she burst out sobbing. "And so, I suppose," I remarked, "you thought you would face this house rather than poverty?" "Yes, sir. I heard the neighbours talking about this place, and you, sir, and I made up my mind to come and ask if I mightn't tidy up things a bit for you, sir. I was a servant, sir, before I married, and I'd be so thankful." Well, to cut the affair shorter for the reader than I was able to do for myself, I gave her half a crown, and told her I would think over her proposal, and let her hear from mewhich I did. I told her she might come for a couple of hours each morning, and a couple each evening, and she could bring one of the children with her if she thought she was likely to find the place lonely. I would not let her come in the daytime, because, in the quest I had set myself, it was needful I should feel assured no person could have an opportunity of elaborating any scheme for frightening me, on the premises. "Real ghosts," said I to Mr. Craven, "I do not mind; but the physical agencies which may produce ghosts, I would rather avoid." Acting on which principle I always remained in the house while Mrs. Stottmy charwoman was so namedcleaned, and cooked, and boiled, and put things straight. No one can imagine what a revolution this woman effected in my ways and habits, and in the ways and habits of the Uninhabited House. Tradesmen called for orders. The butcher's boy came whistling down the lane to deliver the rumpsteak or muttonchop I had decided on for dinner; the greengrocer delivered his vegetables; the cheesemonger took solemn affidavit concerning the freshness of his stale eggs and the superior quality of a curious article which he called country butter, and declared came from a particular dairy famed for the excellence of its produce; the milkman's yahoo sounded cheerfully in the morning hours; and the letterbox was filled with cards from all sorts and descriptions of peoplefrom laundresses to wine merchants, from gardeners to undertakers. The doors now never shut nor opened of their own accord. A great peace seemed to have settled over River Hall. It was all too peaceful, in fact. I had gone to the place to hunt a ghost, and not even the ghost of a ghost seemed inclined to reveal itself to me. 10. THE WATCHER IS WATCHED I have never been able exactly to satisfy my own mind as to the precise period during my occupation of the Uninhabited House when it occurred to me that I was being watched. Hazily I must have had some consciousness of the fact long before I began seriously to entertain the idea. I felt, even when I was walking through London, that I was being often kept in sight by some person. I had that vague notion of a stranger being interested in my movements which it is so impossible to define to a friend, and which one is chary of seriously discussing with oneself. Frequently, when the corner of a street was reached, I found myself involuntarily turning to look back; and, prompted by instinct, I suppose, for there was no reason about the matter, I varied my route to and from the Uninhabited House, as much as the nature of the roads permitted. Further, I ceased to be punctual as to my hours of business, sometimes arriving at the office late, and, if Mr. Craven had anything for me to do Cityward, returning direct from thence to River Hall without touching Buckingham Street. By this time February had drawn to a close, and better weather might therefore have been expected; instead of which, one evening as I paced westward, snow began to fall, and continued coming down till somewhere about midnight. Next morning Mrs. Stott drew my attention to certain footmarks on the walks, and beneath the library and drawingroom windowsthe footmarks, evidently, of a man whose feet were not a pair. With the keenest interest, I examined these traces of a human pursuer. Clearly the footprints had been made by only one person, and that person deformed in some way. Not merely was the right foottrack different from that of the left, but the way in which its owner put it to the ground must have been different also. The one mark was clear and distinct, cut out in the snow with a firm tread, while the other left a little broken bank at its right edge, and scarcely any impression of the heel. "Slightly lame," I decided. "Eases his right foot, and has his boots made to order." "It is very odd," I remarked aloud to Mrs. Stott. "That it is, sir," she answered; adding, "I hope to gracious none of them mobsmen are going to come burglaring here!" "Pooh!" I replied; "there is nothing for them to steal, except chairs and tables, and I don't think one man could carry many of them away." The whole of that day I found my thoughts reverting to those footmarks in the snow. What purpose anyone proposed to serve by prowling about River Hall I could not imagine. Before taking up my residence in the Uninhabited House, I had a theory that some malicious person or persons was trying to keep the place unoccupiednay, further, imagination suggested the idea that, owing to its proximity to the river, Mr. Elmsdale's Hall might have taken the fancy of a gang of smugglers, who had provided for themselves means of ingress and egress unknown to the outside world. But all notions of this kind now seemed preposterous. Slowly, but surely, the conviction had been gaining upon me that, let the mystery of River Hall be what it would, no ordinary explanation could account for the phenomena which it had presented to tenant after tenant; and my own experiences in the house, slight though they were, tended to satisfy me there was something beyond malice or interest at work about the place. The very peace vouchsafed to me seemed another element of mystery, since it would certainly have been natural for any evildisposed person to inaugurate a series of ghostly spectacles for the benefit of an investigator like myself; and yet, somehow, the absence of supernatural appearances, and the presence of that shadowy human being who thought it worth while to track my movements, and who had at last left tangible proof of his reality behind him in the snow, linked themselves together in my mind. "If there is really anyone watching me," I finally decided, "there must be a deeper mystery attached to River Hall than has yet been suspected. Now, the first thing is to make sure that some one is watching me, and the next to guard against danger from him." In the course of the day, I made a, for me, curious purchase. In a little shop, situated in a back street, I bought half a dozen reels of black sewingcotton. This cotton, on my return home, I attached to the trelliswork outside the drawingroom window, and wound across the walk and round such trees and shrubs as grew in positions convenient for my purpose. "If these threads are broken tomorrow morning, I shall know I have a fleshandblood foe to encounter," I thought. Next morning I found all the threads fastened across the walks leading round by the library and drawingroom snapped in two. It was, then, flesh and blood I had come out to fight, and I decided that night to keep watch. As usual, I went up to my bedroom, and, after keeping the gas burning for about the time I ordinarily spent in undressing, put out the light, softly turned the handle of the door, stole, still silently, along the passage, and so into a large apartment with windows which overlooked both the library and drawingroom. It was here, I knew, that Miss Elmsdale must have heard her father walking past the door, and I am obliged to confess that, as I stepped across the room, a nervous chill seemed for the moment to take my courage captive. If any reader will consider the matter, mine was not an enviable position. Alone in a desolate house, reputed to be haunted, watching for some one who had sufficient interest in the place to watch it and me closely. It was still earlynot later than halfpast ten. I had concluded to keep my vigil until after midnight, and tried to while away the time with thoughts foreign to the matter in hand. All in vain, however. Let me force what subject I pleased upon my mind, it reverted persistently to Mr. Elmsdale and the circumstances of his death. "Why did he commit suicide?" I speculated. "If he had lost money, was that any reason why he should shoot himself?" People had done so, I was aware; and people, probably, would continue to do so; but not hardheaded, hardhearted men, such as Robert Elmsdale was reputed to have been. He was not so old that the achievement of a second success should have seemed impossible. His credit was good, his actual position unsuspected. River Hall, unhaunted, was not a bad property, and in those days he could have sold it advantageously. I could not understand the motive of his suicide, unless, indeed, he was mad or drunk at the time. And then I began to wonder whether anything about his life had come out on the inquestanything concerning habits, associates, and connections. Had there been any other undercurrent, besides betting, in his life brought out in evidence, which might help me to a solution of the mystery? "I will ask Mr. Craven tomorrow," I thought, "whether he has a copy of the Times, containing a report of the inquest. Perhaps" What possibility I was about to suggest to my own mind I shall never now know, for at that moment there flamed out upon the garden a broad, strong flame of lighta flame which came so swiftly and suddenly, that a man, creeping along the River Walk, had not time to step out of its influence before I had caught full sight of him. There was not much to see, however. A man about the middle height, muffled in a cloak, wearing a cap, the peak of which was drawn down over his forehead that was all I could discern, ere, cowering back from the light, he stole away into the darkness. Had I yielded to my first impulse, I should have rushed after him in pursuit; but an instant's reflection told me how worse than futile such a wildgoose chase must prove. Cunning must be met with cunning, watching with watching. If I could discover who he was, I should have taken the first step towards solving the mystery of River Hall; but I should never do so by putting him on his guard. The immediate business lying at that moment to my hand was to discover whence came the flare of light which, streaming across the walk, had revealed the intruder's presence to me. For that business I can truthfully say I felt little inclination. Nevertheless, it had to be undertaken. So, walking downstairs, I unlocked and opened the librarydoor, and found, as I anticipated, the room in utter darkness. I examined the fastenings of the shuttersthey were secure as I had left them; I looked into the strongroomnot even a rat lay concealed there; I turned the cocks of the gas lightsbut no gas whistled through the pipes, for the service to the library was separate from that of the rest of the house, and capable of being shut off at pleasure. I, mindful of the lights said to have been seen emanating from that room, had taken away the key from the internal tap, so that gas could not be used without my knowledge or the possession of a second key. Therefore, as I have said, it was no surprise to me to find the library in darkness. Nor could I say the fact of the light flaring, apparently, from a closelyshutup room surprised me either. For a long time I had been expecting to see this phenomenon now, when I did see it, I involuntarily connected the light, the apartment, and the stranger together. For he was no ghost. Ghosts do not leave footmarks behind them in the snow. Ghosts do not break threads of cotton. It was a man I had seen in the garden, and it was my business to trace out the connection between him and the appearances at River Hall. Thinking thus, I left the library, extinguished the candle by the aid of which I had made the investigations stated above, and after lowering the gaslight I always kept burning in the hall, began ascending the broad, handsome staircase, when I was met by the figure of a man descending the steps. I say advisedly, the figure; because, to all external appearance, he was as much a living man as myself. And yet I knew the thing which came towards me was not flesh and blood. Knew it when I stood still, too much stupefied to feel afraid. Knew it, as the figure descended swiftly, noiselessly. Knew it, as, for one instant, we were side by side. Knew it, when I put out my hand to stop its progress, and my hand, encountering nothing, passed through the phantom as through air. Knew, it, when I saw the figure pass through the door I had just locked, and which opened to admit the ghostly visitoropened wide, and then closed again, without the help of mortal hand. After that I knew nothing more till I came to my senses again and found myself half lying, half sitting on the staircase, with my head resting against the banisters. I had fainted; but if any man thinks I saw in a vision what I have described, let him wait till he reaches the end of this story before expressing too positive an opinion about the matter. How I passed the remainder of that night, I could scarcely tell. Towards morning, however, I fell asleep, and it was quite late when I awoke so late, in fact, that Mrs. Stott had rung for admittance before I was out of bed. That morning two curious things occurred one, the postman brought a letter for the late owner of River Hall, and dropped it in the box; another, Mrs. Stott asked me if I would allow her and two of the children to take up their residence at the Uninhabited House. She could not manage to pay her rent, she explained, and some kind friends had offered to maintain the elder children if she could keep the two youngest. "And I thought, sir, seeing how many spare rooms there are here, and the furniture wanting cleaning, and the windows opening when the sun is out, that perhaps you would not object to my staying here altogether. I should not want any more wages, sir, and I would do my best to give satisfaction." For about five minutes I considered this proposition, made to me whilst sitting at breakfast, and decided in favour of granting her request. I felt satisfied she was not in league with the person or persons engaged in watching my movements; it would be well to have some one in care of the premises during my absence, and it would clearly be to her interest to keep her place at River Hall, if possible. Accordingly, when she brought in my boots, I told her she could remove at once if she liked. "Only remember one thing, Mrs. Stott," I said. "If you find any ghosts in the dark corners, you must not come to me with any complaints." "I sleep sound, sir," she answered, "and I don't think any ghosts will trouble me in the daytime. So thank you, sir; I will bring over a few things and stay here, if you please." "Very good; here is the key of the back door," I answered; and in five minutes more I was trudging Londonward. As I walked along I decided not to say anything to Mr. Craven concerning the previous night's adventures; first, because I felt reluctant to mention the apparition, and secondly, because instinct told me I should do better to keep my own counsel, and confide in no one, till I had obtained some clue to the mystery of that midnight watcher. "Now here's a very curious thing!" said Mr. Craven, after he had opened and read the letter left at River Hall that morning. "This is from a man who has evidently not heard of Mr. Elmsdale's death, and who writes to say how much he regrets having been obliged to leave England without paying his I O U held by my client. To show that, though he may have seemed dishonest, he never meant to cheat Mr. Elmsdale, he encloses a draft on London for the principal and interest of the amount due." "Very creditable to him," I remarked. "What is the amount, sir?" "Oh! the total is under a hundred pounds," answered Mr. Craven; "but what I meant by saying the affair seemed curious is this amongst Mr. Elmsdale's papers there was not an I O U of any description." "Well, that is singular," I observed; then asked, "Do you think Mr. Elmsdale had any other office besides the library at River Hall?" "No," was the reply, "none whatever. When he gave up his offices in town, he moved every one of his papers to River Hall. He was a reserved, but not a secret man; not a man, for instance, at all likely to lead a double life of any sort." "And yet he betted," I suggested. "Certainly that does puzzle me," said Mr. Craven. "And it is all against my statement, for I am certain no human being, unless it might be Mr. Harringford, who knew him in business, was aware of the fact." "And what is your theory about the absence of allimportant documents?" I inquired. "I think he must have raised money on them," answered Mr. Craven. "Are you aware whether anyone else ever produced them?" I asked. "I am not; I never heard of their being produced but, then, I should not have been likely to hear." Which was very true, but very unsatisfactory. Could we succeed in tracing even one of those papers, a clue might be found to the mystery of Mr. Elmsdale's suicide. That afternoon I repaired to the house of one of our clients, who had, I knew, a file of the Times newspapers, and asked him to allow me to look at it. I could, of course, have seen a file at many places in the city, but I preferred pursuing my investigations where no one was likely to watch the proceeding. "Times! bless my soul, yes; only too happy to be able to oblige Mr. Craven. Walk into the study, there is a good fire, make yourself quite at home, I beg, and let me send you a glass of wine." All of which I did, greatly to the satisfaction of the dear old gentleman. Turning over the file for the especial year in which Mr. Elmsdale had elected to put a pistol to his head, I found at last the account of the inquest, which I copied out in shorthand, to be able to digest it more fully at leisure; and as it was growing dusk, wended my way back to Buckingham Street. As I was walking slowly down one side of the street, I noticed a man standing within the open door of a house near Buckingham Gate. At any other time I should not have given the fact a second thought, but life at River Hall seemed to have endowed me with the power of making mountains out of molehills, of regarding the commonest actions of my fellows with distrust and suspicion; and I was determined to know more of the gentleman who stood back in the shadow, peering out into the darkening twilight. With this object I ran upstairs to the clerk's office, and then passed into Mr. Craven's room. He had gone, but his lamp was still burning, and I took care to move between it and the window, so as to show myself to any person who might be watching outside; then, without removing hat or topcoat, I left the room, and proceeded to Taylor's office, which I found in utter darkness. This was what I wanted; I wished to see without being seen; and across the way, standing now on the pavement, was the man I had noticed, looking up at our offices. "All right," thought I, and running downstairs, I went out again, and walked steadily up Buckingham Street, along John Street, up Adam Street, as though en route to the Strand. Before, however, I reached that thoroughfare, I paused, hesitated, and then immediately and suddenly wheeled round and retraced my steps, meeting, as I did so, a man walking a few yards behind me and at about the same pace. I did not slacken my speed for a moment as we came face to face; I did not turn to look back after him; I retraced my steps to the office; affected to look out some paper, and once again pursued my former route, this time without meeting or being followed by anyone, and made my way into the City, where I really had business to transact. I could have wished for a longer and a better look at the man who honoured me so far as to feel interested in my movements; but I did not wish to arouse his suspicions. I had scored one trick; I had met him full, and seen his face distinctlyso distinctly that I was able to feel certain I had seen it before, but where, at the moment, I could not remember. "Never mind," I continued "that memory will come in due time; meanwhile the ground of inquiry narrows, and the plot begins to thicken." 11. MISS BLAKE ONCE MORE Upon my return to River Hall I found in the letterbox an envelope addressed to Patterson, Esq. Thinking it probably contained some circular, I did not break the seal until after dinner; whereas, had I only known from whom the note came, should I not have devoured its contents before satisfying the pangs of physical hunger! Thus ran the epistle "DEAR SIR, "Until half an hour ago I was ignorant that you were the person who had undertaken to reside at River Hall. If you would add another obligation to that already conferred upon me, leave that terrible house at once. What I have seen in it, you know; what may happen to you, if you persist in remaining there, I tremble to think. For the sake of your widowed mother and only sister, you ought not to expose yourself to a risk which is worse than useless. I never wish to hear of River Hall being let again. Immediately I come of age, I shall sell the place; and if anything could give me happiness in this world, it would be to hear the house was razed to the ground. Pray! pray! listen to a warning, which, believe me, is not idly given, and leave a place which has already been the cause of so much misery to yours, gratefully and sincerely, "HELENA ELMSDALE." It is no part of this story to tell the rapture with which I gazed upon the writing of my "ladylove." Once I had heard Miss Blake remark, when Mr. Craven was remonstrating with her on her hieroglyphics, that "Halana wrote an 'unmaning hand,' like all the rest of the English," and, to tell the truth, there was nothing particularly original or characteristic about Miss Elmsdale's calligraphy.

But what did that signify to me? If she had strung pearls together, I should not have valued them onehalf so much as I did the dear words which revealed her interest in me. Over and over I read the note, at first rapturously, afterwards with a second feeling mingling with my joy. How did she know it was I who had taken up my residence at River Hall? Not a soul I knew in London, besides Mr. Craven, was aware of the fact, and he had promised faithfully to keep my secret. Where, then, had Miss Elmsdale obtained her information? from whom had she learned that I was bent on solving the mystery of the "Uninhabited House"? I puzzled myself over these questions till my brain grew uneasy with vain conjectures. Let me imagine what I wouldlet me force my thoughts into what grooves I mightthe moment the mental pressure was removed, my suspicions fluttered back to the man whose face seemed not unfamiliar. "I am confident he wants to keep that house vacant," I decided. "Once let me discover who he is, and the mystery of the 'Uninhabited House' shall not long remain a mystery." But then the trouble chanced to be how to find out who he was. I could not watch and be watched at the same time, and I did not wish to take anyone into my confidence, least of all a professional detective. So far fortune had stood my friend; I had learnt something suspected by no one else, and I made up my mind to trust to the chapter of accidents for further information on the subject of my unknown friend. When Mr. Craven and I were seated at our respective tables, I said to him "Could you make any excuse to send me to Miss Blake's today, sir?" Mr. Craven looked up in utter amazement. "To Miss Blake's!" he repeated. "Why do you want to go there?" "I want to see Miss Elmsdale," I answered, quietly enough, though I felt the colour rising in my face as I spoke. "You had better put all that nonsense on one side, Patterson," he remarked. "What you have to do is to make your way in the world, and you will not do that so long as your head is running upon pretty girls. Helena Elmsdale is a good girl; but she would no more be a suitable wife for you, than you would be a suitable husband for her. Stick to law, my lad, for the present, and leave love for those who have nothing more important to think of." "I did not want to see Miss Elmsdale for the purpose you imply," I said, smiling at the vehemence of Mr. Craven's advice. "I only wish to ask her one question." "What is the question?" "From whom she learned that I was in residence at River Hall," I answered, after a moment's hesitation. "What makes you think she is aware of that fact?" he inquired. "I received a note from her last night, entreating me to leave the place, and intimating that some vague peril menaced me if I persisted in remaining there." "Poor child! poor Helena!" said Mr. Craven, thoughtfully; then spreading a sheet of notepaper on his blottingpad, and drawing his chequebook towards him, he proceeded "Now remember, Patterson, I trust to your honour implicitly. You must not make love to that girl; I think a man can scarcely act more dishonourably towards a woman, than to induce her to enter into what must be, under the best circumstances, a very long engagement." "You may trust me, sir," I answered, earnestly. "Not," I added, "that I think it would be a very easy matter to make love to anyone with Miss Blake sitting by." Mr. Craven laughed; he could not help doing so at the idea I had suggested. Then he said, "I had a letter from Miss Blake this morning asking me for money." "And you are going to let her have some of that hundred pounds you intended yesterday to place against her indebtedness to you," I suggested. "That is so," he replied. "Of course, when Miss Helena comes of age, we must turn over a new leafwe really must." To this I made no reply. It would be a most extraordinary leaf, I considered, in which Miss Blake did not appear as debtor to my employer but it scarcely fell within my province to influence Mr. Craven's actions. "You had better ask Miss Blake to acknowledge receipt of this," said my principal, holding up a cheque for ten pounds as he spoke. "I am afraid I have not kept the account as I ought to have done." Which was undeniably true, seeing we had never taken a receipt from her at all, and that loans had been debited to his private account instead of to that of Miss Blake. But true as it was, I only answered that I would get her acknowledgment; and taking my hat, I walked off to Hunter Street. Arrived there, I found, to my unspeakable joy, that Miss Blake was out, and Miss Elmsdale at home. When I entered the shabby sittingroom where her beauty was so grievously lodged, she rose and greeted me with kindly words, and sweet smiles, and vivid blushes. "You have come to tell me you are not going ever again to that dreadful house," she said, after the first greeting and inquiries for Miss Blake were over. "You cannot tell the horror with which the mere mention of River Hall now fills me." "I hope it will never be mentioned to you again till I have solved the mystery attached to it," I answered. "Then you will not do what I ask," she cried, almost despairingly. "I cannot," was my reply. "Miss Elmsdale, you would not have a soldier turn back from the battle. I have undertaken to find out the secret attached to your old home, and, please God, I shall succeed in my endeavours." "But you are exposing yourself to danger, to" "I must take my chance of that. I cannot, if I would, turn back now, and I would not if I could. But I have come to you for information. How did you know it was I who had gone to River Hall?" The colour flamed up in her face as I put the question. "II was told so," she stammered out. "May I ask by whom?" "No, Mr. Patterson, you may not," she replied. "Aa frienda kind friend, informed me of the fact, and spoke of the perils to which you were exposing yourselfliving there all aloneall alone," she repeated. "I would not pass a night in the house again if the whole parish were there to keep me company, and what must it be to stay in that terrible, terrible place alone! You are here, perhaps, because you do not believebecause you have not seen." "I do believe," I interrupted, "because I have seen; and yet I mean to go through with the matter to the end. Have you a likeness of your father in your possession, Miss Elmsdale?" I asked. "I have a miniature copied from his portrait, which was of course too large to carry from place to place," she answered. "Why do you wish to know?" "If you let me see it, I will reply to your question," I said. Round her dear throat she wore a thin gold chain. Unfastening this, she handed to me the necklet, to which was attached a locket enamelled in black. It is no exaggeration to say, as I took this piece of personal property, my hand trembled so much that I could not open the case. True love is always bashful, and I loved the girl, whose slender neck the chain had caressed, so madly and senselessly, if you will, that I felt as if the trinket were a living thing, a part and parcel of herself. "Let me unfasten it," she said, unconscious that aught save awkwardness affected my manipulation of the spring. And she took the locket and handed it back to me open, wet with tearsher tears. Judge how hard it was for me then to keep my promise to Mr. Craven and myselfhow hard it was to refrain from telling her all my reasons for having ever undertaken to fight the dragon installed at River Hall. I thank God I did refrain. Had I spoken then, had I presumed upon her sorrow and her simplicity, I should have lost something which constitutes the sweetest memory of my life. But that is in the future of this story, and meantime I was looking at the face of her father. I looked at it long and earnestly; then I closed the locket, softly pressing down the spring as I did so, and gave back miniature and chain into her hand. "Well, Mr. Patterson?" she said, inquiringly. "Can you bear what I have to tell?" I asked. "I can, whatever it may be," she answered. "I have seen that face at River Hall." She threw up her arms with a gesture of despair. "And," I went on, "I may be wrong, but I think I am destined to solve the mystery of its appearance." She covered her eyes, and there was silence between us for a minute, when I said "Can you give me the name of the person who told you I was at River Hall?" "I cannot," she repeated. "I promised not to mention it." "He said I was in danger." "Yes, living there all alone." "And he wished you to warn me." "No; he asked my aunt to do so, and she refused; and so II thought I would write to you without mentioning the matter to her." "You have done me an incalculable service," I remarked, "and in return I will tell you something." "What is that?" she asked. "From tonight I shall not be alone in the house." "Oh! how thankful I am!" she exclaimed; then instantly added, "Here is my aunt." I rose as Miss Blake entered, and bowed. "Oh! it is you, is it?" said the lady. "The girl told me some one was waiting." Hot and swift ran the colour to my adored one's cheeks. "Aunt," she observed, "I think you forget this gentleman comes from Mr. Craven." "Oh, no! my dear, I don't forget Mr. Craven, or his clerks either," responded Miss Blake, as, still cloaked and bonneted, she tore open Mr. Craven's envelope. "I am to take back an answer, I think," said I. "You are, I see," she answered. "He's getting mighty particular, is William Craven. I suppose he thinks I am going to cheat him out of his paltry ten pounds. Ten pounds, indeed! and what is that, I should like to know, to us in our present straits! Why, I had more than twice ten yesterday from a man on whom we have no claimnone whateverwho, without asking, offered it in our need." "Aunt," said Miss Elmsdale, warningly. "If you will kindly give me your acknowledgment, Miss Blake, I should like to be getting back to Buckingham Street," I said. "Mr. Craven will wonder at my absence." "Not a bit of it," retorted Miss Blake. "You and Mr. Craven understand each other, or I am very much mistaken; but here is the receipt, and good day to you." I should have merely bowed my farewell, but that Miss Elmsdale stood up valiantly. "Goodbye, Mr. Patterson," she said, holding out her dainty hand, and letting it lie in mine while she spoke. "I am very much obliged to you. I can never forget what you have done and dared in our interests." And I went out of the room, and descended the stairs, and opened the front door, she looking graciously over the balusters the while, happy, ay, and more than happy. What would I not have done and dared at that moment for Helena Elmsdale? Ah! ye lovers, answer! 12. HELP "There has been a gentleman to look at the house, sir, this afternoon," said Mrs. Stott to me, when, wet and tired, I arrived, a few evenings after my interview with Miss Elmsdale, at River Hall. "To look at the house!" I repeated. "Why, it is not to let." "I know that, sir, but he brought an order from Mr. Craven's office to allow him to see over the place, and to show him all about. For a widow lady from the country, he said he wanted it. A very nice gentleman, sir; only he did ask a lot of questions, surely" "What sort of questions?" I inquired. "Oh! as to why the tenants did not stop here, and if I thought there was anything queer about the place; and he asked how you liked it, and how long you were going to stay; and if you had ever seen aught strange in the house. "He spoke about you, sir, as if he knew you quite well, and said you must be stouthearted to come and fight the ghosts all by yourself. A mighty civil, talkative gentlemanasked me if I felt afraid of living here, and whether I had ever met any spirits walking about the stairs and passages by themselves." "Did he leave the order you spoke of just now behind him?" "Yes, sir. He wanted me to give it back to him; but I said I must keep it for you to see. So then he laughed, and made the remark that he supposed, if he brought the lady to see the place, I would let him in again. A pleasantspoken gentleman, sirgave me a shilling, though I told him I did not require it." Meantime I was reading the order, written by Taylor, and dated two years back. "What sort of looking man was he?" I asked. "Well, sir, there was not anything particular about him in any way. Not a tall gentleman, not near so tall as you, sir; getting into years, but still very active and lightfooted, though with something of a halt in his way of walking. I could not rightly make out what it was; nor what it was that caused him to look a little crooked when you saw him from behind. "Very lean, sir; looked as if the dinners he had eaten done him no good. Seemed as if, for all his pleasant ways, he must have seen trouble, his face was so wornlike." "Did he say if he thought the house would suit?" I inquired. "He said it was a very nice house, sir, and that he imagined anybody not afraid of ghosts might spend two thousand a year in it very comfortably. He said he should bring the lady to see the place, and asked me particularly if I was always at hand, in case he should come tolerably early in the morning." "Oh!" was my comment, and I walked into the diningroom, wondering what the meaning of this new move might be; for Mrs. Stott had described, to the best of her ability, the man who stood watching our offices in London; andgood heavens!yes, the man I had encountered in the lane leading to River Hall, when I went to the Uninhabited House, after Colonel Morris' departure. "That is the man," thought I, "and he has some close, and deep, and secret interest in the mystery associated with this place, the origin of which I must discover." Having arrived at this conclusion, I went to bed, for I had caught a bad cold, and was aching from head to foot, and had been sleeping ill, and hoped to secure a good night's rest. I slept, it is true, but as for rest, I might as well, or better, have been awake. I fell from one dream into another; found myself wandering through impossible places; started in an agony of fear, and then dozed again, only to plunge into some deeper quagmire of trouble; and through all there was a vague feeling I was pursuing a person who eluded all my efforts to find him; playing a terrible game of hideandseek with a man who always slipped away from my touch, panting up mountains and running down declivities after one who had better wind and faster legs than I; peering out into the darkness, to catch a sight of a vague figure standing somewhere in the shadow, and looking, with the sun streaming into my eyes and blinding me, adown long white roads filled with a multitude of people, straining my sight to catch a sight of the coming traveller, who yet never came. When I awoke thoroughly, as I did long and long before daybreak, I knew I was ill. I had a bad sore throat and an oppression at my chest which made me feel as if I was breathing through a sponge. My limbs ached more than had been the case on the previous evening whilst my head felt heavier than a log of teak. "What should I do if I were to have a bad illness in that house?" I wondered to myself, and for a few minutes I pondered over the expediency of returning home; but this idea was soon set aside. Where could I go that the Uninhabited House would not be a haunting presence? I had tried running away from it once before, and found it more real to me in the King's Road, Brighton, than on the banks of the Thames. No!ill or well, I would stay on; the very first night of my absence might be the night of possible explanation. Having so decided, I dressed and proceeded to the office, remaining there, however, only long enough to write a note to Mr. Craven, saying I had a very bad cold, and begging him to excuse my attendance. After that I turned my steps to Munro's lodgings. If it were possible to avert an illness, I had no desire to become invalided in Mr. Elmsdale's Hall. Fortunately, Munro was at home and at dinner. "Just come in time, old fellow," he said, cheerily. "It is not one day in a dozen you would have found me here at this hour. Sit down, and have some steak. Can't eatwhy, what's the matter, man? You don't mean to say you have got another nervous attack. If you have, I declare I shall lodge a complaint against you with Mr. Craven." "I am not nervous," I answered; "but I have caught cold, and I want you to put me to rights." "Wait till I have finished my dinner," he replied; and then he proceeded to cut himself another piece of steakhaving demolished which, and seen cheese placed on the table, he said "Now, Harry, we'll get to business, if you please. Where is this cold you were talking about?" I explained as well as I could, and he listened to me without interruption. When I had quite finished, he said "Hal Patterson, you are either becoming a hypochondriac, or you are treating me to half confidences. Your cold is not worth speaking about. Go home, and get to bed, and take a basin of gruel, or a glass of something hot, after you are in bed, and your cold will be well in the morning. But there is something more than a cold the matter with you. What has come to you, to make a few rheumatic pains and a slight sore throat seem of consequence in your eyes?" "I am afraid of being ill," I answered. "Why are you afraid of being ill? why do you imagine you are going to be ill? why should you fall ill any more than anybody else?" I sat silent for a minute, then I said, "Ned, if I tell you, will you promise upon your honour not to laugh at me?" "I won't, if I can help it. I don't fancy I shall feel inclined to laugh," he replied. "And unless I give you permission, you will not repeat what I am going to tell you to anyone?" "That I can safely promise," he said. "Go on." And I went on. I began at the beginning and recited all the events chronicled in the preceding pages; and he listened, asking no questions, interposing no remark. When I ceased speaking, he rose and said he must think over the statements I had made. "I will come and look you up tonight, Patterson," he observed. "Go home to River Hall, and keep yourself quiet. Don't mention that you feel ill. Let matters go on as usual. I will be with you about nine. I have an appointment now that I must keep." Before nine Munro appeared, hearty, healthy, vigorous as usual. "If this place were in Russell Square," he said, after a hasty glance round the drawingroom, "I should not mind taking a twentyone years' lease of it at forty pounds a year, even if ghosts were included in the fixtures." "I see you place no credence in my story," I said, a little stiffly. "I place every credence in your story," was the reply. "I believe you believe it, and that is saying more than most people could say nowadays about their friends' stories if they spoke the truth." It was of no use for me to express any further opinion upon the matter. I felt if I talked for a thousand years I should still fail to convince my listener there was anything supernatural in the appearances beheld at River Hall. It is so easy to poohpooh another man's tale; it is pleasant to explain every phenomenon that the speaker has never witnessed; it is so hard to credit that anything absolutely unaccountable on natural grounds has been witnessed by your dearest friend, that, knowing my only chance of keeping my temper and preventing Munro gaining a victory over me was to maintain a discreet silence, I let him talk on and strive to account for the appearances I had witnessed in his own way. "Your acquaintance of the halting gait and high shoulder may or might have some hand in the affair," he finished. "My own opinion is he has not. The notion that you are being watched, is, if my view of the matter be correct, only a further development of the nervous excitement which has played you all sort of fantastic tricks since you came to this house. If anyone does wander through the gardens, I should set him down as a monomaniac or an intending burglar, and in any case the very best thing you can do is to pack up your traps and leave River Hall to its fate." I did not answer; indeed, I felt too sick at heart to do so. What he said was what other people would say. If I could not evolve some clearer theory than I had yet been able to hit on, I should be compelled to leave the mystery of River Hall just as I had found it. Miss Blake had, I knew, written to Mr. Craven that the house had better be let again, as there "was no use in his keeping a clerk there in free lodgings for ever" and now came Ned Munro, with his worldly wisdom, to assure me mine was a wildgoose chase, and that the only sensible course for me to pursue was to abandon it altogether. For the first time, I felt disheartened about the business, and I suppose I showed my disappointment, for Munro, drawing his chair nearer to me, laid a friendly hand on my shoulder and said "Cheer up, Harry! never look so downhearted because your nervous system has been playing you false. It was a plucky thing to do, and to carry out; but you have suffered enough for honour, and I should not continue the experiment of trying how much you can suffer, were I in your shoes." "You are very kind, Munro," I answered; "but I cannot give up. If I had all the wish in the world to leave here tonight, a will stronger than my own would bring me back here tomorrow. The place haunts me. Believe me, I suffer less from its influence, seated in this room, than when I am in the office or walking along the Strand." "Upon the same principle, I suppose, that a murderer always carries the memory of his victim's face about with him; though he may have felt callously indifferent whilst the body was an actual presence." "Precisely," I agreed. "But then, my dear fellow, you are not a murderer in any sense of the word. You did not create the ghosts supposed to be resident here." "No; but I feel bound to find out who did," I answered. "That is, if you can, I suppose?" he suggested. "I feel certain I shall," was the answer. "I have an idea in my mind, but it wants shape. There is a mystery, I am convinced, to solve which, only the merest hint is needed." "There are a good many things in this world in the same position, I should say," answered Munro. "However, Patterson, we won't argue about the matter; only there is one thing upon which I am determinedafter this evening, I will come and stay here every night. I can say I am going to sleep out of town. Then, if there are ghosts, we can hunt them together; if there are none, we shall rest all the better. Do you agree to that?" and he held out his hand, which I clasped in mine, with a feeling of gratitude and relief impossible to describe. As he said, I had done enough for honour; but still I could not give up, and here was the support and help I required so urgently, ready for my need. "I am so much obliged," I said at last. "Pooh! nonsense!" he answered. "You would do as much or more for me any day. There, don't let us get sentimental. You must not come out, but, following the example of your gallant Colonel Morris, I will, if you please, smoke a cigar in the garden. The moon must be up by this time." I drew back the curtains and unfastened the shutter, which offered egress to the grounds, then, having rung for Mrs. Stott to remove the suppertray, I sat down by the fire to await Munro's return, and began musing concerning the hopelessness of my position, the gulf of poverty and prejudice and struggle that lay between Helena and myself. I was determined to win her; but the prize seemed unattainable as the Lord Mayor's robes must have appeared to Whittington, when he stood at the foot of Highgate Hill; and, prostrated as I was by that subtle malady to which as yet Munro had given no name, the difficulties grew into mountains, the chances of success dwarfed themselves into molehills. Whilst thus thinking vaguely, purposelessly, but still most miserably, I was aroused from reverie by the noise of a door being shut cautiously and carefullyan outer door, and yet one with the sound of which I was unacquainted. Hurrying across the hall, I flung the halldoor wide, and looked out into the night. There was sufficient moonlight to have enabled me to discern any object moving up or down the lane, but not a creature was in sight, not a cat or dog even traversed the weird whiteness of that lonely thoroughfare. Despite Munro's dictum, I passed out into the night air, and went down to the very banks of the Thames. There was not a boat within hail. The nearest barge lay a couple of hundred yards from the shore. As I retraced my steps, I paused involuntarily beside the door, which led by a separate entrance to the library. "That is the door which shut," I said to myself, pressing my hand gently along the lintel, and sweeping the hitherto unbroken cobwebs away as I did so. "If my nerves are playing me false this time, the sooner their tricks are stopped the better, for no human being opened this door, no living creature has passed through it." Having made up my mind on which points, I reentered the house, and walked into the drawingroom, where Munro, pale as death, stood draining a glass of neat brandy. "What is the matter?" I cried, hurriedly. "What have you seen, what" "Let me alone for awhile," he interrupted, speaking in a thick, hoarse whisper; then immediately asked, "Is that the library with the windows nearest the river?" "Yes," I answered. "I want to go into that room," he said, still in the same tone. "Not now," I entreated. "Sit down and compose yourself; we will go into it, if you like, before you leave." "Now, nowthis minute," he persisted. "I tell you, Patterson, I must see what is in it." Attempting no further opposition, I lit a couple of candles, and giving one into his hand, led the way to the door of the library, which I unlocked and flung wide open. To one particular part Munro directed his steps, casting the light from his candle on the carpet, peering around in search of something he hoped, and yet still feared, to see. Then he went to the shutters and examined the fastenings, and finding all well secured, made a sign for me to precede him out of the room. At the door he paused, and took one more look into the darkness of the apartment, after which he waited while I turned the key in the lock, accompanying me back across the hall. When we were once more in the drawingroom, I renewed my inquiry as to what he had seen; but he bade me let him alone, and sat mopping great beads of perspiration off his forehead, till, unable to endure the mystery any longer, I said "Munro, whatever it may be that you have seen, tell me all, I entreat. Any certainty will be better than the possibilities I shall be conjuring up for myself." He looked at me wearily, and then drawing his hand across his eyes, as if trying to clear his vision, he answered, with an uneasy laugh "It was nonsense, of course. I did not think I was so imaginative, but I declare I fancied I saw, looking through the windows of that now utterly dark room, a man lying dead on the floor." "Did you hear a door shut?" I inquired. "Distinctly," he answered; "and what is more, I saw a shadow flitting through the other door leading out of the library, which we found, if you remember, bolted on the inside." "And what inference do you draw from all this?" "Either that some one is, in a to me unintelligible way, playing a very clever game at River Hall, or else that I am mad." "You are no more mad than other people who have lived in this house," I answered. "I don't know how you have done it, Patterson," he went on, unheeding my remark. "I don't, upon my soul, know how you managed to stay on here. It would have driven many a fellow out of his mind. I do not like leaving you. I wish I had told my landlady I should not be back. I will, after this time; but tonight I am afraid some patient may be wanting me." "My dear fellow," I answered, "the affair is new to you, but it is not new to me. I would rather sleep alone in the haunted house, than in a mansion filled from basement to garret, with the unsolved mystery of this place haunting me." "I wish you had never heard of, nor seen, nor come near it," he exclaimed, bitterly; "but, however, let matters turn out as they will, I mean to stick to you, Patterson. There's my hand on it." And he gave me his hand, which was cold as icecold as that of one dead. "I am going to have some punch, Ned," I remarked. "That is, if you will stop and have some." "All right," he answered. "Something 'hot and strong' will hurt neither of us, but you ought to have yours in bed. May I give it to you there?" "Nonsense!" I exclaimed, and we drew our chairs close to the fire, and, under the influence of a decoction which Ned insisted upon making himself, and at making which, indeed, he was much more of an adept than I, we talked valiantly about ghosts and their doings, and about how our credit and happiness were bound up in finding out the reason why the Uninhabited House was haunted. "Depend upon it, Hal," said Munro, putting on his coat and hat, preparatory to taking his departure, "depend upon it that unfortunate Robert Elmsdale must have been badly cheated by some one, and sorely exercised in spirit, before he blew out his brains." To this remark, which, remembering what he had said in the middle of the day, showed the wonderful difference that exists between theory and practice, I made no reply. Unconsciously, almost, a theory had been forming in my own mind, but I felt much corroboration of its possibility must be obtained before I dare give it expression. Nevertheless, it had taken such hold of me that I could not shake off the impression, which was surely, though slowly, gaining ground, even against the dictates of my better judgment. "I will just read over the account of the inquest once again," I decided, as I bolted and barred the chain after Munro's departure; and so, by way of ending the night pleasantly, I took out the report, and studied it till two, chiming from a neighbouring church, reminded me that the fire was out, that I had a bad cold, and that I ought to have been between the blankets and asleep hours previously. 13. LIGHT AT LAST Now, whether it was owing to having gone out the evening before from a very warm room into the night air, and, afterwards, into that chilly library, or to having sat reading the report given about Mr. Elmsdale's death till I grew chilled to my very marrow, I cannot say, all I know is, that when I awoke next morning I felt very ill, and welcomed, with rejoicing of spirit, Ned Munro, who arrived about midday, and at once declared he had come to spend a fortnight with me in the Uninhabited House. "I have arranged it all. Got a friend to take charge of my patients; stated that I am going to pay a visit in the country, and so forth. And now, how are you?" I told him, very truthfully, that I did not feel at all well. "Then you will have to get well, or else we shall never be able to fathom this business," he said. "The first thing, consequently, I shall do, is to write a prescription, and get it made up. After that, I mean to take a survey of the house and grounds." "Do precisely what you like," I answered. "This is Liberty Hall to the living as well as to the dead," and I laid my head on the back of the easychair, and went off to sleep. All that day Munro seemed to feel little need of my society. He examined every room in the house, and every square inch about the premises. He took short walks round the adjacent neighbourhood, and made, to his own satisfaction, a map of River Hall and the country and town thereunto adjoining. Then he had a great fire lighted in the library, and spent the afternoon tapping the walls, trying the floors, and trying to obtain enlightenment from the passage which led from the library direct to the door opening into the lane.

After dinner, he asked me to lend him the shorthand report I had made of the evidence given at the inquest. He made no comment upon it when he finished reading, but sat, for a few minutes, with one hand shading his eyes, and the other busily engaged in making some sort of a sketch on the back of an old letter. "What are you doing, Munro?" I asked, at last. "You shall see presently," he answered, without looking up, or pausing in his occupation. At the expiration of a few minutes, he handed me over the paper, saying "Do you know anyone that resembles?" I took the sketch, looked at it, and cried out incoherently in my surprise. "Well," he went on, "who is it?" "The man who follows me! The man I saw in this lane!" "And what is his name?" "That is precisely what I desire to find out," I answered. "When did you see him? How did you identify him? Why did" "I have something to tell you, if you will only be quiet, and let me speak," he interrupted. "It was, as you know, late last night before I left here, and for that reason, and also because I was perplexed and troubled, I walked fastfaster than even is my wont. The road was very lonely; I scarcely met a creature along the road, flooded with the moonlight. I never was out on a lovelier night; I had never, even in the country, felt I had it so entirely to myself. "Every here and there I came within sight of the river, and it seemed, on each occasion, as though a great mirror had been put up to make every object on landevery house, every tree, bush, fern, more clearly visible than it had been before. I am coming to my story, Hal, so don't look so impatient. "At last, as I came once again in view of the Thames, with the moon reflected in the water, and the dark arches of the bridge looking black and solemn contrasted against the silvery stream, I saw before me, a long way before me, a man whose figure stood out in relief against the white roada man walking wearily and with evident difficultya man, too, slightly deformed. "I walked on rapidly, till within about a score yards of him, then I slackened my speed, and taking care that my leisurely footsteps should be heard, overtook him by degrees, and then, when I was quite abreast, asked if he could oblige me with a light. "He looked up in my face, and said, with a forced, painful smile and studied courtesy of manner "'I am sorry, sir, to say that I do not smoke.' "I do not know exactly what reply I made. I know his countenance struck me so forcibly, it was with difficulty I could utter some commonplace remark concerning the beauty of the night. "'I do not like moonlight,' he said, and as he said it, something, a connection of ideas, or a momentary speculation, came upon me so suddenly, that once again I failed to reply coherently, but asked if he could tell me the shortest way to the Brompton Road. "'To which end?' he inquired. "'That nearest Hyde Park Corner,' I answered. "As it turned out, no question could have served my purpose better. "'I am going part of the way there,' he said, 'and will show you the nearest routethat is,' he added, 'if you can accommodate your pace to mine,' and he pointed, as he spoke, to his right foot, which evidently was causing him considerable pain. "Now, that was something quite in my way, and by degrees I got him to tell me about the accident which had caused his slight deformity. I told him I was a doctor, and had been to see a patient, and so led him on to talk about sickness and disease, till at length he touched upon diseases of a morbid character; asking me if it were true that in some special maladies the patient was haunted by an apparition which appeared at a particular hour. "I told him it was quite true, and that such cases were peculiarly distressing, and generally proved most difficult to curementioning several wellauthenticated instances, which I do not mean to detail to you, Patterson, as I know you have an aversion to anything savouring of medical shop. "'You doctors do not believe in the actual existence of any such apparitions, of course?' he remarked, after a pause. "I told him we did not; that we knew they had their rise and origin solely in the malady of the patient. "'And yet,' he said, 'some ghost storiesI am not now speaking of those associated with disease, are very extraordinary, unaccountable' "'Very extraordinary, no doubt,' I answered; 'but I should hesitate before saying unaccountable. Now, there is that River Hall place up the river. There must be some rational way of explaining the appearances in that house, though no one has yet found any clue to that enigma.' "'River Hallwhere is that?' he asked; then suddenly added, 'Oh! I remember now you mean the Uninhabited House, as it is called. Yes, there is a curious story, if you like. May I ask if you are interested in any way in that matter?' "'Not in any way, except that I have been spending the evening there with a friend of mine.' "'Has he seen anything of the reputed ghost?' asked my companion, eagerly. 'Is he able to throw any light on the dark subject?' "'I don't think he can,' I replied. 'He has seen the usual appearances which I believe it is correct to see at River Hall; but so far, they have added nothing to his previous knowledge.' "'He has seen, you say?' "'Yes; all the orthodox lions of that cheerful house.' "'And still he is not dauntedhe is not afraid?' "'He is not afraid. Honestly, putting ghosts entirely on one side, I should not care to be in his shoes, all alone in a lonely house.' "'And you would be right, sir,' was the answer. 'A man must be mad to run such a risk.' "'So I told him,' I agreed. "'Why, I would not stay in that house alone for any money which could be offered to me,' he went on, eagerly. "'I cannot go so far as that,' I said; 'but still it must be a very large sum which could induce me to do so.' "'It ought to be pulled down, sir,' he continued; 'the walls ought to be razed to the ground.' "'I suppose they will,' I answered, 'when Miss Elmsdale, the owner, comes of age; unless, indeed, our modern Don Quixote runs the ghost to earth before that time.' "'Did you say the young man was ill?' asked my companion. "'He has got a cold,' I answered. "'And colds are nasty things to get rid of,' he commented, 'particularly in those lowlying localities. That is a most unhealthy part; you ought to order your patient a thorough change of air.' "'I have, but he won't take advice,' was my reply. 'He has nailed his colours to the mast, and means, I believe, to stay in River Hall till he kills the ghost, or the ghost kills him.' "'What a foolish youth!' "'Undoubtedly; but, then, youth is generally foolish, and we have all our crotchets.' "We had reached the other side of the bridge by this time, and saying his road lay in an opposite direction to mine, the gentleman I have sketched told me the nearest way to take, and bade me a civil good night, adding, 'I suppose I ought to say good morning.'" "And is that all?" I asked, as Munro paused. "Bide a wee, as the Scotch say, my son. I strode off along the road he indicated, and then, instead of making the detour he had kindly sketched out for my benefit, chose the first turning to my left, and, quite convinced he would soon pass that way, took up my position in the portico of a house which lay well in shadow. It stood a little back from the sidepath, and a poor little Arab sleeping on the stone step proved to me the policeman was not over and above vigilant in that neighbourhood. "I waited, Heaven only knows how long, thinking all the time I must be mistaken, and that his home did lie in the direction he took; but at last, looking out between the pillars and the concealing shrubs, I saw him. He was looking eagerly into the distance, with such a drawn, worn, painful expression, that for a moment my heart relented, and I thought I would let the poor devil go in peace. "It was only for a moment, however; touching the sleeping boy, I bade him awake, if he wanted to earn a shilling. 'Keep that gentleman in sight, and get to know for me where he lives, and come back here, and I will give you a shilling, and perhaps two, for your pains.' "With his eyes still heavy with slumber, and his perceptions for the moment dulled, he sped after the figure, limping wearily on. I saw him ask my late companion for charity, and follow the gentleman for a few steps, when the latter, threatening him with his stick, the boy dodged to escape a blow, and then, by way of showing how lightly his bosom's load sat upon him, began turning wheels down the middle of the street. He passed the place where I stood, and spun a hundred feet further on, then he gathered himself together, and seeing no one in sight, stealthily crept back to his porch again. "'You young rascal,' I said, 'I told you to follow him home. I want to know his name and address particularly.' "'Come along, then,' he answered, 'and I'll show you. Bless you, we all knows himbetter than we do the police, or anybody hereabouts. He's a beak and a ward up at the church, whatever that is, and he has buildingyards as big, oh! as big as two workhouses, and'" "His name, Munrohis name?" I gasped. "Harringford." I expected it. I knew then that for days and weeks my suspicions had been vaguely connecting Mr. Harringford with the mystery of the Uninhabited House. This was the hiding figure in my dream, the link hitherto wanting in my reveries concerning River Hall. I had been looking for thiswaiting for it; I understood at last; and yet, when Munro mentioned the name of the man who had thought it worth his while to watch my movements, I shrunk from the conclusion which forced itself upon me. "Must we go on to the end with this affair?" I asked, after a pause, and my voice was so changed, it sounded like that of a stranger to me. "We do not yet know what the end will prove," Munro answered; "but whatever it may be, we must not turn back now." "How ought we to act, do you think?" I inquired. "We ought not to act at all," he answered. "We had better wait and see what his next move will be. He is certain to take some step. He will try to get you out of this house by hook or by crook. He has already striven to effect his purpose through Miss Elmsdale, and failed. It will therefore be necessary for him to attempt some other scheme. It is not for me to decide on the course he is likely to pursue; but, if I were in your place, I should stay within doors at night. I should not sit in the dark near windows still unshuttered. I should not allow any strangers to enter the house, and I should have a couple of good dogs running loose about the premises. I have brought Brenda with me as a beginning, and I think I know where to lay my hand on a good old collie, who will stay near any house I am in, and let no one trespass about it with impunity." "Good heavens! Munro, you don't mean to say you think the man would murder me!" I exclaimed. "I don't know what he might, or might not do," he replied. "There is something about this house he is afraid may be found out, and he is afraid you will find it out. Unless I am greatly mistaken, a great deal depends upon the secret being preserved intact. At present we can only surmise its nature; but I mean, in the course of a few days, to know more of Mr. Harringford's antecedents than he might be willing to communicate to anyone. What is the matter with you, Hal? You look as white as a corpse." "I was only thinking," I answered, "of one evening last week, when I fell asleep in the drawingroom, and woke in a fright, imagining I saw that horrid light streaming out from the library, and a face pressed up close to the glass of the window on my left hand peering into the room." "I have no doubt the face was there," he said, gravely; "but I do not think it will come again, so long as Brenda is alive. Nevertheless, I should be careful. Desperate men are capable of desperate deeds." The first post next morning brought me a letter from Mr. Craven, which proved Mr. Harringford entertained for the present no intention of proceeding to extremities with me. He had been in Buckingham Street, so said my principal, and offered to buy the freehold of River Hall for twelve hundred pounds. Mr. Craven thought he might be induced to increase his bid to fifteen hundred, and added "Miss Blake has half consented to the arrangement, and Miss Elmsdale is eager for the matter to be pushed on, so that the transfer may take place directly she comes of age. I confess, now an actual offer has been made, I feel reluctant to sacrifice the property for such a sum, and doubt whether it might not be better to offer it for sale by auctionthat is, if you think there is no chance of your discovering the reason why River Hall bears so bad a name. Have you obtained any clue to the mystery?" To this I replied in a note, which Munro himself conveyed to the office. "I have obtained an important clue; but that is all I can say for the present. Will you tell Mr. Harringford I am at River Hall, and that you think, being on the spot and knowing all about the place, I could negotiate the matter better than anyone else in the office? If he is desirous of purchasing, he will not object to calling some evening and discussing the matter with me. I have an idea that a large sum of money might be made out of this property by an enterprising man like Mr. Harringford; and it is just possible, after hearing what I have to say, he may find himself able to make a much better offer for the Uninhabited House than that mentioned in your note. At all events, the interview can do no harm. I am still suffering so much from cold that it would be imprudent for me to wait upon Mr. Harringford, which would otherwise be only courteous on my part." "Capital!" said Munro, reading over my shoulder. "That will bring my gentleman to River Hall. But what is wrong, Patterson? You are surely not going to turn chickenhearted now?" "No," I answered; "but I wish it was over. I dread something, and I do not know what it is. Though nothing shall induce me to waver, I am afraid, Munro. I am not ashamed to say it I am afraid, as I was the first night I stayed in this house. I am not a coward, but I am afraid." He did not reply for a moment. He walked to the window and looked out over the Thames; then he came back, and, wringing my hand, said, in tones that tried unsuccessfully to be cheerful "I know what it is, old fellow. Do you think I have not had the feeling myself, since I came here? But remember, it has to be done, and I will stand by you. I will see you through it." "It won't do for you to be in the room, though," I suggested. "No; but I will stay within earshot," he answered. We did not talk much more about the matter. Men rarely do talk much about anything which seems to them very serious, and I may candidly say that I had never felt anything in my life to be much more serious than that impending interview with Mr. Harringford. That he would come we never doubted for a moment, and we were right. As soon as it was possible for him to appoint an interview, Mr. Harringford did so. "Nine o'clock on tomorrow (Thursday) evening," was the hour he named, apologizing at the same time for being unable to call at an earlier period of the day. "Humph!" said Munro, turning the note over. "You will receive him in the library, of course, Hal?" I replied such was my intention. "And that will be a move for which he is in no way prepared," commented my friend. From the night when Munro walked and talked with Mr. Harringford, no person came spying round and about the Uninhabited House. Of this fact we were satisfied, for Brenda, who gave tongue at the slightest murmur wafted over the river from the barges lying waiting for the tide, never barked as though she were on the track of living being; whilst the colliea tawnyblack, unkempt, illconditioned, savagenatured, but yet most true and faithful brute, which Munro insisted on keeping within doors, never raised his voice from the day he arrived at River Hall, till the night Mr. Harringford rang the visitor'sbell, when the animal, who had been sleeping with his nose resting on his paws, lifted his head and indulged in a prolonged howl. Not a nice beginning to an interview which I dreaded. 14. A TERRIBLE INTERVIEW I was in the library, waiting to receive Mr. Harringford. A bright fire blazed on the hearth, the table was strewn with papers Munro had brought to me from the office, the gas was all ablaze, and the room looked bright and cheerfulas bright and as cheerful as if no ghost had been ever heard of in connection with it. At a few minutes past nine my visitor arrived. Mrs. Stott ushered him into the library, and he entered the room evidently intending to shake hands with me, which civility I affected not to notice. After the first words of greeting were exchanged, I asked if he would have tea, or coffee, or wine; and finding he rejected all offers of refreshment, I rang the bell and told Mrs. Stott I could dispense with her attendance for the night. "Do you mean to tell me you stay in this house entirely alone?" asked my visitor. "Until Mrs. Stott came I was quite alone," I answered. "I would not have done it for any consideration," he remarked. "Possibly not," I replied. "People are differently constituted." It was not long before we got to business. His offer of twelve hundred pounds I poohpoohed as ridiculous. "Well," he saidby this time I knew I had a keen man of business to deal with"put the place up to auction, and see whether you will get as much." "There are two, or rather, three ways of dealing with the property, which have occurred to me, Mr. Harringford," I explained. "One is letting or selling this house for a reformatory, or school. Ghosts in that case won't trouble the inmates, we may be quite certain; another is utilizing the buildings for a manufactory; and the third is laying the ground out for building purposes, thus" As I spoke, I laid before him a plan for a trisided square of building, the south side being formed by the river. I had taken great pains with the drawing of this plan the future houses, the future square, the future riverwalk with seats at intervals, were all to be found in the roll which I unfolded and laid before him, and the effect my sketch produced surprised me. "In Heaven's name, Mr. Patterson," he asked, "where did you get this? You never drew it out of your own head!" I hastened to assure him I had certainly not got it out of any other person's head; but he smiled incredulously. "Probably," he suggested, "Mr. Elmsdale left some such sketch behind himsomething, at all events, which suggested the idea to you." "If he did, I never saw nor heard of it," I answered. "You may have forgotten the circumstance," he persisted; "but I feel confident you must have seen something like this before. Perhaps amongst the papers in Mr. Craven's office." "May I inquire why you have formed such an opinion?" I said, a little stiffly. "Simply because this trisided square was a favourite project of the late owner of River Hall," he replied. "After the death of his wife, the place grew distasteful to him, and I have often heard him say he would convert the ground into one of the handsomest squares in the neighbourhood of London. All he wanted was a piece of additional land lying to the west, which piece is, I believe, now to be had at a price" I sat like one stricken dumb. By no mental process, for which I could ever account, had that idea been evolved. It sprang into life at a bound. It came to me in my sleep, and I wakened at once with the whole plan clear and distinct before my mind's eye, as it now lay clear and distinct before Mr. Harringford. "It is very extraordinary," I managed at last to stammer out; "for I can honestly say I never heard even a suggestion of Mr. Elmsdale's design; indeed, I did not know he had ever thought of building upon the ground." "Such was the fact, however," replied my visitor. "He was a speculative man in many ways. Yes, very speculative, and full of plans and projects. However, Mr. Patterson," he proceeded, "all this only proves the truth of the old remark, that 'great wits and little wits sometimes jump together.'" There was a ring of sarcasm in his voice, as in his words, but I did not give much heed to it. The design, then, was not mine. It had come to me in sleep, it had been forced upon me, it had been explained to me in a word, and as I asked myself, By whom? I was unable to repress a shudder. "You are not well, I fear," said Mr. Harringford; "this place seems to have affected your health. Surely you have acted imprudently in risking so much to gain so little." "I do not agree with you," I replied. "However, time will show whether I have been right or wrong in coming here. I have learned many things of which I was previously in ignorance, and I think I hold a clue in my hands which, properly followed, may lead me to the hidden mystery of River Hall." "Indeed!" he exclaimed. "May I ask the nature of that clue?" "It would be premature for me to say more than this, that I am inclined to doubt whether Mr. Elmsdale committed suicide." "Do you think his death was the result of accident, then?" he inquired, his face blanching to a ghastly whiteness. "No, I do not," I answered, bluntly. "But my thoughts can have little interest for anyone, at present. What we want to talk about is the sale and purchase of this place. The offer you made to Mr. Craven, I consider ridiculous. Let on building lease, the land alone would bring in a handsome income, and the house ought to sell for about as much as you offer for the whole property." "Perhaps it might, if you could find a purchaser," he answered; "and the land might return an income, if you could let it as you suggest; but, in the meantime, while the grass grows, the steed starves; and while you are waiting for your buyer and your speculative builder, Miss Blake and Miss Elmsdale will have to walk barefoot, waiting for shoes you may never be able to provide for them." There was truth in this, but only a halftruth, I felt, so I said "When examined at the inquest, Mr. Harringford, you stated, I think, that you were under considerable obligations to Mr. Elmsdale?" "Did I?" he remarked. "Possibly, he had given me a helpinghand once or twice, and probably I mentioned the fact. It is a long time ago, though." "Not so very long," I answered; "not long enough, I should imagine, to enable you to forget any benefits you may have received from Mr. Elmsdale." "Mr. Patterson," he interrupted, "are we talking business or sentiment? If the former, please understand I have my own interests to attend to, and that I mean to attend to them. If the latter, I am willing, if you say Miss Elmsdale has pressing need for the money, to send her my cheque for fifty or a hundred pounds. Charity is one thing, trade another, and I do not care to mix them. I should never have attained to my present position, had I allowed fine feelings to interfere with the driving of a bargain. I don't want River Hall. I would not give that," and he snapped his fingers, "to have the titledeeds in my hands tomorrow; but as Miss Elmsdale wishes to sell, and as no one else will buy, I offer what I consider a fair price for the place. If you think you can do better, well and good. If" He stopped suddenly in his sentence, then rising, he cried, "It is a tricka vile, infamous, disgraceful trick!" while his utterance grew thick, and his face began to work like that of a person in convulsions. "What do you mean?" I asked, rising also, and turning to look in the direction he indicated with outstretched arm and dilated eyes. Then I sawno need for him to answer. Standing in the entrance to the strong room was Robert Elmsdale himself, darkness for a background, the light of the gas falling full upon his face. Slowly, sternly, he came forward, step by step. With footfalls that fell noiselessly, he advanced across the carpet, moving steadily forward towards Mr. Harringford, who, beating the air with his hands, screamed, "Keep him off! don't let him touch me!" and fell full length on the floor. Next instant, Munro was in the room. "Hullo, what is the matter?" he asked. "What have you done to himwhat has he been doing to you?" I could not answer. Looking in my face, I think Munro understood we had both seen that which no man can behold unappalled. "Come, Hal," he said, "bestir yourself. Whatever has happened, don't sink under it like a woman. Help me to lift him. Merciful Heaven!" he added, as he raised the prostrate figure. "He is dead!" To this hour, I do not know how we managed to carry him into the drawingroom. I cannot imagine how our trembling hands bore that inert body out of the library and across the hall. It seems like a dream to me calling up Mrs. Stott, and then tearing away from the house in quest of further medical help, haunted, every step I took, by the memory of that awful presence, the mere sight of which had stricken down one of us in the midst of his buying, and bargaining, and boasting. I had done itI had raised that ghostI had brought the man to his death; and as I fled through the night, innocent as I had been of the thought of such a catastrophe, I understood what Cain must have felt when he went out to live his life with the brand of murderer upon him. But the man was not dead; though he lay for hours like one from whom life had departed, he did not die then. We had all the genius, and knowledge, and skill of London at his service. If doctors could have saved him, he had lived. If nursing could have availed him, he had recovered, for I never left him. When the end came I was almost worn out myself. And the end came very soon. "No more doctors," whispered the sick man; "they cannot cure me. Send for a clergyman, and a lawyer, Mr. Craven as well as any other. It is all over now; and better so; life is but a long fever. Perhaps he will sleep now, and let me sleep too. Yes, I killed him. Why, I will tell you. Give me some wine. "What I said at the inquest about owing my worldly prosperity to him was true. I trace my pecuniary success to Mr. Elmsdale; but I trace also hours, months, and years of anguish to his agency. My God! the nights that man has made me spend when he was living, the nights I have spent in consequence of his death" He stopped; he had mentally gone back over a long journey. He was retracing the road he had travelled, from youth to old age. For he was old, if not in years, in sorrow. Lying on his deathbed, he understood for what a game he had burnt his candle to the socket; comprehended how the agony, and the suspense, and the suffering, and the long, long fever of life, which with him never knew a remittent moment, had robbed him of that which every man has a right to expect, some pleasure in the course of his existence. "When I first met Elmsdale," he went on, "I was a young man, and an ambitious one. I was a clerk in the City. I had been married a couple of years to a wife I loved dearly. She was possessed of only a small dot; and after furnishing our house, and paying for all the expenses incident on the coming of a first child, we thought ourselves fortunate in knowing there was still a deposit standing in our name at the JointStock Bank, for something over two hundred pounds. "Nevertheless, I was anxious. So far, we had lived within our income; but with an annual advance of salary only amounting to ten pounds, or thereabouts, I did not see how we were to manage when more children came, particularly as the cost of living increased day by day. It was a dear year that of which I am speaking. "I do not precisely remember on what occasion it was I first saw Mr. Elmsdale; but I knew afterwards he picked me out as a person likely to be useful to him. "He was on good terms with my employers, and asked them to allow me to bid for some houses he wanted to purchase at a sale. "To this hour I do not know why he did not bid for them himself. He gave me a fivepound note for my services; and that was the beginning of our connection. Off and on, I did many things for him of one sort or another, and made rather a nice addition to my salary out of doing them, till the devil, or he, or both, put it into my head to start as builder and speculator on my own account. "I had two hundred pounds and my furniture that was the whole of my capital; but Elmsdale found me money. I thought my fortune was made, the day he advanced me my first five hundred pounds. If I had knownif I had known" "Don't talk any more," I entreated. "What can it avail to speak of such matters now?" He turned towards me impatiently. "Not talk," he repeated, "when I have for years been as one dumb, and at length the string of my tongue is loosened! Not talk, when, if I keep silence now, he will haunt me in eternity, as he has haunted me in time!" I did not answer, I only moistened his parched lips, and bathed his burning forehead as tenderly as my unaccustomed hands understood how to perform such offices. "Lift me up a little, please," he said; and I put the pillows in position as deftly as I could. "You are not a bad fellow," he remarked, "but I am not going to leave you anything." "God forbid!" I exclaimed, involuntarily. "Are not you in want of money?" he asked. "Not of yours," I answered. "Mine," he said; "it is not mine, it is his. He thought a great deal of money, and he has come back for it. He can't rest, and he won't let me rest till I have paid him principal and interestcompound interest. Yeswell, I am able to do even that." We sat silent for a few minutes, then he spoke again. "When I first went into business with my borrowed capital, nothing I touched really succeeded. I found myself going backback. Far better was my position as clerk; then at least I slept sound at nights, and relished my meals. But I had tasted of socalled independence, and I could not go back to be at the beck and call of an employer. Ah! no employer ever made me work so hard as Mr. Elmsdale; no beck and call were ever so imperative as his. "I pass over a long time of anxiety, struggle, and hardship. The world thought me a prosperous man; probably no human being, save Mr. Elmsdale, understood my real position, and he made my position almost unendurable. "How I came first to bet on races, would be a long story, longer than I have time to tell; but my betting began upon a very small scale, and I always wonalways in the beginning. I won so certainly and so continuously, that finally I began to hope for deliverance from Mr. Elmsdale's clutches. "I don't know how"the narrative was not recited straight on as I am writing it, but by starts, as strength served him"Mr. Elmsdale ascertained I was devoting myself to the turf all I can say is, he did ascertain the fact, and followed me down to Ascot to make sure there was no mistake in his information. "At the previous Derby my luck had begun to turn. I had lost thenlost heavily for me, and he taxed me with having done so. "In equity, and at law, he had then the power of foreclosing on every house and rood of ground I owned. I was in his powerin the power of Robert Elmsdale. Think of it. But you never knew him. Young man, you ought to kneel down and thank God you were never so placed as to be in the power of such a devil "If ever you should get into the power of a man like Robert Elmsdale, don't offend him. It is bad enough to owe him money; but it is worse for him to owe you a grudge. I had offended him. He was always worrying me about his wifelamenting her illhealth, extolling her beauty, glorifying himself on having married a woman of birth and breeding; just as if his were the only wife in the world, as if other men had not at home women twice as good, if not as handsome as Miss Blake's sister. "Under Miss Blake's insolence I had writhed; and once, when my usual prudence deserted me, I told Mr.

Elmsdale I had been in Ireland and seen the paternal Blake's ancestral cabin, and ascertained none of the family had ever mixed amongst the upper thousand, or whatever the number may be which goes to make up society in the Isle of Saints. "It was foolish, and it was wrong; but I could not help saying what I did, and from that hour he was my enemy. Hitherto, he had merely been my creditor. My own imprudent speech transformed him into a man lying in wait to ruin me. "He bided his time. He was a man who could wait for years before he struck, but who would never strike till he could make sure of inflicting a mortal wound. He drew me into his power more and more, and then he told me he did not intend to continue trusting anyone who bettedthat he must have his money. If he had not it by a certain date, which he named, he would foreclose. "That meant he would beggar me, and I with an ailing wife and a large family! "I appealed to him. I don't remember now what I said, but I do recollect I might as well have talked to stone. "What I endured during the time which followed, I could not describe, were I to talk for ever. Till a man in extremity tries to raise money, he never understands the difficulty of doing so. I had been short of money every hour since I first engaged in business, and yet I never comprehended the meaning of a deadlock till then. "One day, in the City, when I was almost mad with anxiety, I met Mr. Elmsdale. "'Shall you be ready for me, Harringford?' he asked. "'I do not knowI hope so,' I answered. "'Well, remember, if you are not prepared with the money, I shall be prepared to act,' he said, with an evil smile. "As I walked home that evening, an idea flashed into my mind. I had tried all honest means of raising the money; I would try dishonest. My credit was good. I had large transactions with firstrate houses. I was in the habit of discounting largely, and Iwell, I signed names to paper that I ought not to have done. I had the bills put through. I had four months and three days in which to turn round, and I might, by that time, be able to raise sufficient to retire the acceptances. "In the meantime, I could face Mr. Elmsdale, and so I wrote, appointing an evening when I would call with the money, and take his release for all claims upon me. "When I arrived at River Hall he had all the necessary documents ready, but refused to give them up in exchange for my cheque. "He could not trust me, he said, and he had, moreover, no banking account. If I liked to bring the amount in notes, well and good; if not, he would instruct his solicitors. "The next day I had important business to attend to, so a stormy interview ended in my writing 'pay cash' on the cheque, and his consenting to take it to my bankers himself. "My business on the following day, which happened to be out of town, detained me much longer than I anticipated, and it was late before I could reach River Hall. Late though it was, however, I determined to go after my papers. I held Mr. Elmsdale's receipt for the cheque, certainly; but I knew I had not an hour to lose in putting matters in train for another loan, if I was to retire the forged acceptances. By experience, I knew how the months slipped away when money had to be provided at the end of them, and I was feverishly anxious to hold my leases and titledeeds once more. "I arrived at the door leading to the library. Mr. Elmsdale opened it as wide as the chain would permit, and asked who was there. I told him, and, grumbling a little at the unconscionable hour at which I had elected to pay my visit, he admitted me. "He was out of temper. He had hoped and expected, I knew, to find payment of the cheque refused, and he could not submit with equanimity to seeing me slip out of his hands. "Evidently, he did not expect me to come that night, for his table was strewed with deeds and notes, which he had been reckoning up, no doubt, as a miser counts his gold. "A pair of pistols lay beside his deskclose to my hand, as I took the seat he indicated. "We talked long and bitterly. It does not matter now what he said or I said. We fenced round and about a quarrel during the whole interview. I was meek, because I wanted him to let me have part of the money at all events on loan again; and he was blatant and insolent because he fancied I cringed to himand I did cringe. "I prayed for help that night from Man as I have never since prayed for help from God. "You are still young, Mr. Patterson, and life, as yet, is new to you, or else I would ask whether, in going into an entirely strange office, you have not, if agitated in mind, picked up from the table a letter or card, and kept twisting it about, utterly unconscious for the time being of the social solecism you were committing. "In precisely the same spiritGod is my witness, as I am a dying man, with no object to serve in speaking falsehoodswhile we talked, I took up one of the pistols and commenced handling it. "'Take care,' he said; 'that is loaded'; hearing which I laid it down again. "For a time we went on talking; he trying to ascertain how I had obtained the money, I striving to mislead him. "'Come, Mr. Elmsdale,' I remarked at last, 'you see I have been able to raise the money; now be friendly, and consent to advance me a few thousands, at a fair rate, on a property I am negotiating for. There is no occasion, surely, for us to quarrel, after all the years we have done business together. Say you will give me a helpinghand once more, and' "Then he interrupted me, and swore, with a great oath, he would never have another transaction with me. "'Though you have paid me,' he said, 'I know you are hopelessly insolvent. I cannot tell where or how you have managed to raise that money, but certain am I it has been by deceiving some one; and so sure as I stand here I will know all about the transaction within a month.' "While we talked, he had been, at intervals, passing to and from his strong room, putting away the notes and papers previously lying about on the table; and, as he made this last observation, he was standing just within the door, placing something on the shelf. "'It is of no use talking to me any more,' he went on. 'If you talked from now to eternity you could not alter my decision. There are your deeds; take them, and never let me see you in my house again.' "He came out of the darkness into the light at that moment, looking burly, and insolent, and braggart, as was his wont. "Something in his face, in the tone of his voice, in the vulgar assumption of his manner, maddened me. I do not know, I have never been able to tell, what made me long at that moment to kill himbut I did long. With an impulse I could not resist, I rose as he returned towards the table, and snatching a pistol from the tablefired. "Before he could realize my intention, the bullet was in his brain. He was dead, and I a murderer. "You can understand pretty well what followed. I ran into the passage and opened the door; then, finding no one seemed to have heard the report of the pistol, my senses came back to me. I was not sorry for what I had done. All I cared for was to avert suspicion from myself, and to secure some advantage from his death. "Stealing back into the room, I took all the money I could find, as well as deeds and other securities. These last I destroyed next day, and in doing so I felt a savage satisfaction. "He would have served them the same as me,' I thought. All the rest you know pretty well. "From the hour I left him lying dead in the library every worldly plan prospered with me. If I invested in land, it trebled in value. Did I speculate in houses, they were sought after as investments. I grew rich, respected, a man of standing. I had sold my soul to the devil, and he paid me even higher wages than those for which I engagedbut there was a balance. "One after another, wife and children died; and while my heart was breaking by reason of my home left desolate, there came to me the first rumour of this place being haunted. "I would not believe itI did notI fought against the truth as men fight with despair. "I used to come here at night and wander as near to the house as I safely could. The place dogged me, sleeping and waking. That library was an everpresent memory. I have sat in my lonely rooms till I could endure the horrors of imagination no longer, and been forced to come from London that I might look at this terrible house, with the silent river flowing sullenly past its desolate gardens. "Life seemed ebbing away from me. I saw that day by day the blood left my cheeks. I looked at my hands, and beheld they were becoming like those of some one very aged. My lameness grew perceptible to others as well as to me, and I could distinguish, as I walked in the sunshine, the shadow my figure threw was that of one deformed. I grew weak, and worn, and tired, yet I never thoroughly lost heart till I knew you had come here to unravel the secret. "'And it will be revealed to him,' I thought, 'if I do not kill him too.' "You have been within an ace of death often and often since you set yourself this task, but at the last instant my heart always failed me. "Well, you are to live, and I to die. It was to be so, I suppose; but you will never be nearer your last moment, till you lie a corpse, than you have been twice, at any rate." Then I understood how accurately Munro had judged when he warned me to be on my guard against this mannow harmless and dying, but so recently desperate and allpowerful for evil; and as I recalled the nights I had spent in that desolate house, I shivered. Even now, though the years have come and the years have gone since I kept my lonely watch in River Hall, I start sometimes from sleep with a great horror of darkness upon me, and a feeling that stealthily some one is creeping through the silence to take my life! 15. CONCLUSION I can remember the day and the hour as if it had all happened yesterday. I can recall the view from the windows distinctly, as though time had stood still ever since. There are no gardens under our windows in Buckingham Street. Buckingham Gate stands the entrance to a desert of mud, on which the young Arabsshoeless, stockinglessare disporting themselves. It is low water, and the river steamers keep towards the middle arches of Waterloo. Up aloft the Hungerford Suspension rears itself in mid air, and that spickandspan new bridge, across which trains run now ceaselessly, has not yet been projected. It is a bright spring day. The sunshine falls upon the buildings on the Surrey side, and lights them with a picturesque beauty to which they have not the slightest title. A barge, laden with hay, is lying almost motionless in the middle of the Thames. There is, even in London, a great promise and hope about that pleasant spring day, but for me life has held no promise, and the future no hope, since that night when the mystery of River Hall was solved in my presence, and out of his own mouth the murderer uttered his condemnation. How the weeks and the months had passed with me is soon told. Ill when I left River Hall, shortly after my return home I fell sick unto death, and lay like one who had already entered the Valley of the Shadow. I was too weak to move; I was too faint to think; and when at length I was brought slowly back to the recollection of life and its cares, of all I had experienced and suffered in the Uninhabited House, the time spent in it seemed to me like the memory of some frightful dream. I had lost my health there, and my love too. Helena was now further removed from me than ever. She was a great heiress. Mr. Harringford had left her all his money absolutely, and already Miss Blake was considering which of the suitors, who now came rushing to woo, it would be best for her niece to wed. As for me, Taylor repeated, by way of a good joke, that her aunt referred to me as a "decent sort of young man" who "seemed to be but weakly," and, ignoring the fact of ever having stated "she would not mind giving fifty pounds," remarked to Mr. Craven, that, if I was in poor circumstances, he might pay me five or ten sovereigns, and charge the amount to her account. Of all this Mr. Craven said nothing to me. He only came perpetually to my sickbed, and told my mother that whenever I was able to leave town I must get away, drawing upon him for whatever sums I might require. I did not need to encroach on his kindness, however, for my uncle, hearing of my illness, sent me a cordial invitation to spend some time with him. In his cottage, far away from London, strength at last returned to me, and by the autumn my old place in Mr. Craven's office was no longer vacant. I sat in my accustomed corner, pursuing former avocations, a changed man. I was hardworking as ever, but hope lightened my road no longer. To a penny I knew the amount of my lady's fortune, and understood Mr. Harringford's bequest had set her as far above me as the stars are above the earth. I had the conduct of most of Miss Elmsdale's business. As a compliment, perhaps, Mr. Craven entrusted all the work connected with Mr. Harringford's estate to me, and I accepted that trust as I should have done any other which he might choose to place in my hands. But I could have dispensed with his wellmeant kindness. Every visit I paid to Miss Blake filled my soul with bitterness. Had I been a porter, a crossingsweeper, or a potman, she might, I suppose, have treated me with some sort of courtesy; but, as matters stood, her every tone, word, and look, said, plainly as possible, "If you do not know your station, I will teach it to you." As for Helena, she was always the samesweet, and kind, and grateful, and gracious; but she had her friends about her new lovers waiting for her smiles. And, after a time, the shadow cast across her youth would, I understood, be altogether removed, and leave her free to begin a new and beautiful life, unalloyed by that hideous, haunting memory of suicide, which had changed into melancholy the gay cheerfulness of her lovely girlhood. Yes; it was the old story of the streamlet and the snow, of the rose and the wind. To others my love might not have seemed hopeless, but to me it was dead as the flowers I had seen blooming a year before. Not for any earthly consideration would I have made a claim upon her affection. What I had done had been done freely and loyally. I gave it all to her as utterly as I had previously given my heart, and now I could make no bargain with my dear. I never for a moment thought she owed me anything for my pains and trouble. Her kindly glances, her sweet words, her little, thoughtful turns of manner, were free gifts of her goodness, but in no sense payment for my services. She understood I could not presume upon them, and was, perhaps, better satisfied it should be so. But nothing satisfied Miss Blake, and at length between her and Mr. Craven there ensued a serious disagreement. She insisted he should not "send that clerk of his" to the house again, and suggested if Mr. Craven were too high and mighty to attend to the concerns of Miss Elmsdale himself, Miss Blake must look out for another solicitor. "The sooner the better, madam," said Mr. Craven, with great state; and Miss Blake left in a huff, and actually did go off to a rival attorney, who, however, firmly declined to undertake her business. Then Helena came as peacemaker. She smoothed down Mr. Craven's ruffled feathers and talked him into a good temper, and effected a reconciliation with her aunt, and then nearly spoilt everything by adding "But indeed I think Mr. Patterson had better not come to see us for the present, at all events." "You ungrateful girl!" exclaimed Mr. Craven; but she answered, with a little sob, that she was not ungrateful, onlyonly she thought it would be better if I stayed away. And so Taylor took my duties on him, and, as a natural consequence, some very pretty disputes between him and Miss Blake had to be arranged by Mr. Craven. Thus the winter passed, and it was spring againthat spring day of which I have spoken. Mr. Craven and I were alone in the office. He had come late into town and was reading his letters; whilst I, seated by a window overlooking the Thames, gave about equal attention to the river outside and a tedious document lying on my table. We had not spoken a word, I think, for ten minutes, when a slip of paper was brought in, on which was written a name. "Ask her to walk in," said Mr. Craven, and, going to the door, he greeted the visitor, and led Miss Elmsdale into the room. I rose, irresolute; but she came forward, and, with a charming blush, held out her hand, and asked me some commonplace question about my health. Then I was going, but she entreated me not to leave the room on her account. "This is my birthday, Mr. Craven," she went on, "and I have come to ask you to wish me many happy returns of the day, and to do something for mewill you?" "I wish you every happiness, my dear," he answered, with a tenderness born, perhaps, of olden memories and of lovingkindness towards one so sweet, and beautiful, and lonely. "And if there is anything I can do for you on your birthday, why, it is done, that is all I can say." She clasped her dear hands round his arm, and led him towards a further window. I could see her downcast eyesthe long lashes lying on her cheeks, the soft colour flitting and coming, making her alternately pale and rosy, and I was jealous. Heaven forgive me! If she had hung so trustfully about one of the patriarchs, I should have been jealous, though he reckoned his years by centuries. What she had to say was said quickly. She spoke in a whisper, bringing her lips close to his ear, and lifting her eyes imploringly to his when she had finished. "Upon my word, miss," he exclaimed, aloud, and he held her from him and looked at her till the colour rushed in beautiful blushes even to her temples, and her lashes were wet with tears, and her cheeks dimpled with smiles. "Upon my wordand you make such a request to meto me, who have a character to maintain, and who have daughters of my own to whom I am bound to set a good example! Patterson, come here. Can you imagine what this young lady wants me to do for her now? She is twentyone today, she tells me, and she wants me to ask you to marry her. She says she will never marry anyone else." Then, as I hung back a little, dazed, fearful, and unable to credit the evidence of my senses, he added "Take her; she means it every word, and you deserve to have her. If she had chosen anybody else I would never have drawn out her settlements." But I would not take her, not then. Standing there with the spring landscape blurred for the moment before me, I tried to tell them both what I felt. At first, my words were low and broken, for the change from misery to happiness affected me almost as though I had been suddenly plunged from happiness into despair. But by degrees I recovered my senses, and told my darling and Mr. Craven it was not fit she should, out of very generosity, give herself to mea man utterly destitute of fortunea man who, though he loved her better than life, was only a clerk at a clerk's salary. "If I were a duke," I went on, breaking ground at last, "with a duke's revenue and a duke's rank, I should only value what I had for her sake. I would carry my money, and my birth, and my position to her, and ask her to take all, if she would only take me with them; but, as matters stand, Mr. Craven" "I owe everything worth having in life to you," she said, impetuously, taking my hand in hers. "I should not like you at all if you were a duke, and had a ducal revenue." "I think you are too straitlaced, Patterson," agreed Mr. Craven. "She does owe everything she has to your determination, remember." "But I undertook to solve the mystery for fifty pounds," I remarked, smiling in spite of myself. "Which has never been paid," remarked my employer. "But," he went on, "you young people come here and sit down, and let us talk the affair over all together." And so he put us in chairs as if we had been clients, while he took his professional seat, and, after a pause, began "My dear Helena, I think the young man has reason. A woman should marry her equal. He will, in a worldly sense, be more than your equal some day; but that is nothing. A man should be head of the household. "It is good, and nice, and loving of you, my child, to wish to endow your husband with all your worldly goods; but your husband ought, before he takes you, to have goods of his own wherewith to endow you. Now, now, now, don't purse up your pretty mouth, and try to controvert a lawyer's wisdom. You are both young you have plenty of time before you. "He ought to be given an opportunity of showing what he can do, and you ought to mix in society and see whether you meet anyone you think you can like better. There is no worse time for finding out a mistake of that sort, than after marriage." And so the kind soul prosed on, and would, possibly, have gone on prosing for a few hours more, had I not interrupted one of his sentences by saying I would not have Miss Elmsdale bound by any engagement, or consider herself other than free as air. "Well, well," he answered, testily, "we understand that thoroughly. But I suppose you do not intend to cast the young lady's affections from you as if they were of no value?" At this juncture her eyes and mine met. She smiled, and I could not help smiling too. "Suppose we leave it in this way," Mr. Craven said, addressing apparently some independent stranger. "If, at the end of a year, Miss Elmsdale is of the same mind, let her write to me and say so. That course will leave her free enough, and it will give us twelve months in which to turn round, and see what we can do in the way of making his fortune. I do not imagine he will ever be able to count down guineas against her guineas, or that he wants to do anything so absurd. But he is right in saying an heiress should not marry a struggling clerk. He ought to be earning a good income before he is much older, and he shall, or my name is not William Craven." I got up and shook his hand, and Helena kissed him. "Tut, tut! fie, fie! what's all this?" he exclaimed, searching sedulously for his double eyeglasswhich all the while he held between his finger and thumb. "Now, young people, you must not occupy my time any longer. Harry, see this selfwilled little lady into a cab; and you need not return until the afternoon. If you are in time to find me before I leave, that will do quite well. Goodbye, Miss Helena." I did not take his hint, though. Failing to find a cabperhaps for want of looking for oneI ventured to walk with my beautiful companion up Regent Street as far as Oxford Circus. Through what enchanted ground we passed in that short distance, how can I ever hope to tell! It was all like a story of fairyland, with Helena for Queen of Unreality. But it was real enough. Ah! my dear, you knew your own mind, as I, after years and years of wedded happiness, can testify. Next day, Mr. Craven started off to the west of England. He did not tell me where he was going; indeed, I never knew he had been to see my uncle until long afterwards. What he told that gentleman, what he said of me and Helena, of my poor talents and her beauty, may be gathered from the fact that the old admiral agreed first to buy me a partnership in some established firm, and then swore a mighty oath, that if the heiress was, at the end of twelve months, willing to marry his nephew, he would make him his heir. "I should like to have you with me, Patterson," said Mr. Craven, when we were discussing my uncle's proposal, which a few weeks after took me greatly by surprise; "but, if you remain here, Miss Blake will always regard you as a clerk. I know of a good opening; trust me to arrange everything satisfactorily for you." Whether Miss Blake, even with my altered fortunes, would ever have become reconciled to the match, is extremely doubtful, had the beau monde not turned a very decided coldshoulder to the Irish patriot. Helena, of course, everyone wanted, but Miss Blake no one wanted; and the fact was made very patent to that lady. "They'll be for parting you and me, my dear," said the poor creature one day, when society had proved more than usually cruel. "If ever I am let see you after your marriage, I suppose I shall have to creep in at the areadoor, and make believe I am some faithful old nurse wanting to have a look at my dear child's sweet face." "No one shall ever separate me from you, dear, silly aunt," said my charmer, kissing first one of her relative's high cheekbones, and then the other. "We'll have to jog on, two old spinsters together, then, I am thinking," replied Miss Blake. "No," was the answer, very distinctly spoken. "I am going to marry Mr. Henry Patterson, and he will not ask me to part from my ridiculous, foolish aunt." "Patterson! that conceited clerk of William Craven's? Why, he has not darkened our doors for fifteen months and more." "Quite true," agreed her niece; "but, nevertheless, I am going to marry him. I asked him to marry me a year ago." "You don't mane that, Helena!" said poor Miss Blake. "You should not talk like an infant in arms." "We are only waiting for your consent," went on my lady fair. "Then that you will never have. While I retain my powers of speech you shall not marry a pauper who has only asked you for the sake of your money." "He did not ask me; I asked him," said Helena, mischievously; "and he is not a beggar. His uncle has bought him a partnership, and is going to leave him his money; and he will be here himself tomorrow, to tell you all about his prospects." At first, Miss Blake refused to see me; but after a time she relented, and, thankful, perhaps, to have once again anyone over whom she could tyrannise, treated her niece's future husbandas Helena declaredmost shamefully. "But you two must learn to agree, for there shall be no quarrelling in our house," added the pretty autocrat. "You needn't trouble yourself about that, Helena," said her aunt. "He'll be just like all the rest. If he's civil to me before marriage, he won't be after. He will soon find out there is no place in the house, or, for that matter, in the world, for Susan Blake"; and my enemy, for the first time in my memory, fairly broke down and began to whimper. "Miss Blake," I said, "how can I convince you that I never dreamt, never could dream of asking you and Helena to separate?" "See that, now, and he calls you Helena already," said the lady, reproachfully. "Well, he must begin sometime. And that reminds me the sooner he begins to call you aunt, the better." I did not begin to do so then, of that the reader may be quite certain; but there came a day when the word fell quite naturally from my lips. For a long period ours was a hollow truce, but, as time passed on, and I resolutely refused to quarrel with Miss Blake, she gradually ceased trying to pick quarrels with me. Our home is very dear to her. All the household management Helena from the first hour took into her own hands; but in the nursery Miss Blake reigns supreme. She has always a grievance, but she is thoroughly happy. She dresses now like other people, and wears over her gray hair caps of Helena's selection. Time has softened some of her prejudices, and age renders her eccentricities less noticeable; but she is still, after her fashion, unique, and we feel in our home, as we used to feel in the officethat we could better spare a better man. The old house was pulled down, and not a square, but a fine terrace occupied its site. Munro lives in one of those desirable tenements, and is growing rich and famous day by day. Mr. Craven has retired from practice, and taken a place in the country, where he is bored to death though he professes himself charmed with the quiet. Helena and I have always been towndwellers. Though the Uninhabited House is never mentioned by either of us, she knows I have still a shuddering horror of lonely places. My experiences in the Uninhabited House have made me somewhat nervous. Why, it was only the other night "What are you doing, making all that spluttering on your paper?" says an interrupting voice at this juncture, and, looking up, I see Miss Blake seated by the window, clothed and in her right mind. "You had better put by that writing," she proceeds, with the manner of one having authority, and I am so amazed, when I contrast Miss Blake as she is, with what she was, that I at once obey! 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1 Jessie could hear the back door banging lightly, randomly, in the October breeze blowing around the house. The jamb always swelled in the fall and you really had to give the door a yank to shut it. This time they had forgotten. She thought of telling Gerald to go back and shut the door before they got too involved or that banging would drive her nuts. Then she thought how ridiculous that would be, given the current circumstances. It would ruin the whole mood. What mood? A good question, that. And as Gerald turned the hollow barrel of the key in the second lock, as she heard the minute click from above her left ear, she realized that, for her at least, the mood wasnt worth preserving. That was why she had noted the unlatched door in the first place, of course. For her, the sexual turnon of the bondage games hadnt lasted long. The same could not be said of Gerald, however. He was wearing only a pair of Jockey shorts now, and she didnt have to look as high as his face to see that his interest continued unabated. This is stupid, she thought, but stupid wasnt the whole story, either. It was also a little scary. She didnt like to admit it, but there it was. Gerald, why dont we just forget this? He hesitated for a moment, frowning a little, then went on across the room to the dresser which stood to the left of the bathroom door. His face cleared as he went. She watched him from where she lay on the bed, her arms raised and splayed out, making her look a little like Fay Wray chained up and waiting for the great ape in King Kong. Her wrists had been secured to the mahogany bedposts with two sets of handcuffs. The chains gave each hand about six inches worth of movement. Not much. He put the keys on top of the dressertwo minute clicks, her ears seemed in exceptionally fine working order for a Wednesday afternoonand then turned back to her. Over his head, sunripples from the lake danced and wavered on the bedrooms high white ceiling. What do you say? This has lost a lot of its charm for me. And it never had that much to begin with, she did not add. He grinned. He had a heavy, pinkskinned face below a narrow widows peak of hair as black as a crows wing, and that grin of his had always done something to her that she didnt much care for. She couldnt quite put her finger on what that something was, but Oh, sure you can. It makes him look stupid. You can practically see his IQ going down ten points for every inch that grin spreads. At its maximum width, your killer corporate lawyer of a husband looks like a janitor on workrelease from the local mental institution. That was cruel, but not entirely inaccurate. But how did you tell your husband of almost twenty years that every time he grinned he looked as if he were suffering from light mental retardation? The answer was simple, of course you didnt. His smile was a different matter entirely. He had a lovely smileshe guessed it was that smile, so warm and goodhumored, which had persuaded her to go out with him in the first place. It had reminded her of her fathers smile when he told his family amusing things about his day as he sipped a beforedinner gin and tonic. This wasnt the smile, though. This was the grin a version of it he seemed to save just for these sessions. She had an idea that to Gerald, who was on the inside of it, the grin felt wolfish. Piratical, maybe. From her angle, however, lying here with her arms raised above her head and nothing on but a pair of bikini panties, it only looked stupid. No ... retarded. He was, after all, no devilmaycare adventurer like the ones in the mens magazines over which he had spent the furious ejaculations of his lonely, overweight puberty; he was an attorney with a pink, toolarge face spreading below a widows peak which was narrowing relentlessly toward total baldness. Just an attorney with a hardon poking the front of his undershorts out of shape. And only moderately out of shape, at that. The size of his erection wasnt the important thing, though. The important thing was the grin. It hadnt changed a bit, and that meant Gerald hadnt taken her seriously. She was supposed to protest; after all, that was the game. Gerald? I mean it. The grin widened. A few more of his small, inoffensive attorneys teeth came into view; his IQ tumbled another twenty or thirty points. And he still wasnt hearing her. Are you sure of that? She was. She couldnt read him like a bookshe supposed it took a lot more than seventeen years of marriage to get to that pointbut she thought she usually had a pretty good idea of what was going through his head. She thought something would be seriously out of whack if she didnt. If thats the truth, toots, how come he cant read you? How come he cant see this isnt just a new scene in the same old sexfarce? Now it was her turn to frown slightly. She had always heard voices inside her headshe guessed everyone did, although people usually didnt talk about them, any more than they talked about their bowel functionsand most of them were old friends, as comfortable as bedroom slippers. This one, however, was new ... and there was nothing comfortable about it. It was a strong voice, one that sounded young and vigorous. It also sounded impatient. Now it spoke again, answering its own question. It isnt that he cant read you; its just that sometimes, toots, he doesnt want to. Gerald, reallyI dont feel like it. Bring the keys back and unlock me. Well do something else. Ill get on top, if you want. Or you can just lie there with your hands behind your head and Ill do you, you know, the other way. Are you sure you want to do that? the new voice asked. Are you really sure you want to have any sex with this man? Jessie closed her eyes, as if she could make the voice shut up by doing that. When she opened them again, Gerald was standing at the foot of the bed, the front of his shorts jutting like the prow of a ship. Well ... some kids toy boat, maybe. His grin had widened further, exposing the last few teeththe ones with the gold Sitingson both sides. She didnt just dislike that dumb grin, she realized; she despised it. I will let you up ... if youre very, very good. Can you be very, very good, Jessie? Corny, the new nobullshit voice commented. Trs corny. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his underpants like some absurd gunslinger. The Jockeys went down pretty fast once they got past his not inconsiderable love handles. And there it was, exposed. Not the formidable engine of love she had first encountered as a teenager in the pages of Fanny Hill but something meek and pink and circumcised; five inches of completely unremarkable erection. Two or three years ago, on one of her infrequent trips to Boston, she had seen a movie called The Belly of an Architect. She thought, Right. And now Im looking at The Penis of an Attorney. She had to bite the insides of her cheeks to keep from laughing. Laughing at this point would be impolitic. An idea came to her then, and it killed any urge shed had to laugh. It was this he didnt know she was serious because for him, Jessie Mahout Burlingame, wife of Gerald, sister of Maddy and Will, daughter of Tom and Sally, mother of no one, was really not here at all. She had ceased to be here when the keys made their small, steely clicks in the locks of the handcuffs. The mens adventure magazines of Geralds teenage years had been replaced by a pile of skin magazines in the bottom drawer of his desk, magazines in which women wearing pearls and nothing else knelt on bearskin rugs while men with sexual equipment that made Geralds look strictly HOSCALE by comparison took them from behind. In the backs of these magazines, between the talkdirtytome phone ads with their 900 numbers, were ads for inflatable women which were supposed to be anatomically correcta bizarre concept if Jessie had ever encountered one. She thought of those airfilled dollies now, their pink skins, lineless cartoon bodies, and featureless faces, with a kind of revelatory amazement. It wasnt horrornot quitebut an intense light flashed on inside her, and the landscape it disclosed was certainly more frightening than this stupid game, or the fact that this time they were playing it in the summer house by the lake long after summer had run away for another year. But none of it had affected her hearing in the slightest. Now it was a chainsaw she heard, snarling away in the woods at some considerable distanceas much as five miles, maybe. Closer by, out on the main body of Kashwakamak Lake, a loon tardy in starting its annual run south lifted its crazed cry into the blue October air. Closer still, somewhere here on the north shore, a dog barked. It was an ugly, ratcheting sound, but Jessie found it oddly comforting. It meant that someone else was up here, midweek in October or no. Otherwise there was just the sound of the door, loose as an old tooth in a rotted gum, slapping at the swollen jamb. She felt that if she had to listen to that for long, it would drive her crazy. Gerald, now naked save for his spectacles, knelt on the bed and began crawling up toward her. His eyes were still gleaming. She had an idea it was that gleam which had kept her playing the game long after her initial curiosity had been satisfied. It had been years since shed seen that much heat in Geralds gaze when he looked at her. She wasnt badlookingshed managed to keep the weight off, and still had most of her figurebut Geralds interest in her had waned just the same. She had an idea that the booze was partly to blame for thathe drank a hell of a lot more now than when theyd first been marriedbut she knew the booze wasnt all of it. What was the old saw about familiarity breeding contempt? That wasnt supposed to hold true for men and women in love, at least according to the Romantic poets shed read in English Lit 101, but in the years since college she had discovered there were certain facts of life about which John Keats and Percy Shelley had never written. But of course, they had both died a lot younger than she and Gerald were now. And all of that didnt matter much right here and right now. What maybe did was that she had gone on with the game longer than she had really wanted to because she had liked that hot little gleam in Geralds eyes. It made her feel young and pretty and desirable. But ... ... but if you really thought it was you he was seeing when he got that look in his eye, you were misled, toots. Or maybe you misled yourself. And maybe now you have to decidereally, really decideif you intend to continue putting up with this humiliation. Because isnt that pretty much how you feel? Humiliated? She sighed. Yes. It pretty much was. Gerald, I do mean it. She spoke louder now, and for the first time the gleam in his eyes flickered a little. Good. He could hear her after all, it seemed. So maybe things were still okay. Not great, it had been a long time since things had been what you could call great, but okay. Then the gleam reappeared, and a moment later the idiot grin followed. Ill teach you, me proud beauty, he said. He actually said that, pronouncing beauty the way the landlord in a bad Victorian melodrama might say it. Let him do it, then. Just let him do it and it will be done. This was a voice she was much more familiar with, and she intended to follow its advice. She didnt know if Gloria Steinem would approve and didnt care; the advice had the attractiveness of the completely practical. Let him do it and it would be done. Q.E.D. Then his handhis soft, shortfingered hand, its flesh as pink as that which capped his penisreached out and grasped her breast, and something inside her suddenly popped like an overstrained tendon. She bucked her hips and back sharply upward, flinging his hand off. Quit it, Gerald. Unlock these stupid handcuffs and let me up. This stopped being fun around last March, while there was still snow on the ground. I dont feel sexy; I feel ridiculous. This time he heard her all the way down. She could see it in the way the gleam in his eyes went out all at once, like candleflames in a strong gust of wind. She guessed that the two words which had finally gotten through to him were stupid and ridiculous. He had been a fat kid with thick glasses, a kid who hadnt had a date until he was eighteenthe year after he went on a strict diet and began to work out in an effort to strangle the engirdling flab before it could strangle him. By the time he was a sophomore in college, Geralds life was what he described as more or less under control (as if life his life, anywaywere a bucking bronco he had been ordered to tame), but she knew his high school years had been a horror show that had left him with a deep legacy of contempt for himself and suspicion of others. His success as a corporate lawyer (and marriage to her; she believed that had also played a part, perhaps even the crucial one) had further restored his confidence and selfrespect, but she supposed that some nightmares never completely ended. In a deep part of his mind, the bullies were still giving Gerald wedgies in studyhall, still laughing at Geralds inability to do anything but girliepushups in phys ed, and there were wordsstupid and ridiculous, for instancethat brought all that back as if high school had been yesterday ... or so she suspected. Psychologists could be incredibly stupid about many things, almost willfully stupid, it often seemed to her, but about the horrible persistence of some memories she thought they were bangon. Some memories battened onto a persons mind like evil leeches, and certain wordsstupid and ridiculous, for examplecould bring them instantly back to squirming, feverish life. She waited to feel a pang of shame at hitting below the belt like this and was pleasedor maybe it was relief she feltwhen no pang came. I guess maybe Im just tired of pretending, she thought, and this idea led to another she might have her own sexual agenda, and if she did, this business with the handcuffs was definitely not on it. They made her feel demeaned. The whole idea made her feel demeaned. Oh, a certain uneasy excitement had accompanied the first few experimentsthe ones with the scarvesand on a couple of occasions shed had multiple orgasms, and that was a rarity for her. All the same, there had been sideeffects she didnt care for, and that feeling of being somehow demeaned was only one of them. Shed had her own nightmares following each of those early versions of Geralds game. She awoke from them sweaty and gasping, her hands thrust deeply into the fork of her crotch and rolled into tight little balls. She only remembered one of these dreams, and that memory was distant, blurred she had been playing croquet without any clothes on, and all at once the sun had gone out. Never mind all that, Jessie; those are things you can consider another day. Right now the only important thing is getting him to let you loose. Yes. Because this wasnt their game; this game was all his. She had gone on playing it simply because Gerald wanted her to. And that was no longer good enough. The loon voiced its lonely cry out on the lake again. Geralds dopey grin of anticipation had been replaced by a look of sulky displeasure. You broke my toy, you bitch, that look said. Jessie found herself remembering the last time shed gotten a good look at that expression. In August Gerald had come to her with a glossy brochure, had pointed out what he wanted, and she had said yes, of course he could buy a Porsche if he wanted a Porsche, they could certainly afford a Porsche, but she thought he might do better to buy a membership in the Forest Avenue Health Club, as he had been threatening to do for the past two years. You dont have a Porsche body just now, she had said, knowing she wasnt being very diplomatic but feeling that this really wasnt the time for diplomacy. Also, he had exasperated her to the point where she hadnt cared a whole hell of a lot for his feelings. This had been happening more and more frequently to her lately, and it dismayed her, but she didnt know what to do about it. Just what is that supposed to mean? he had asked stiffly. She didnt bother to answer; she had learned that when Gerald asked such questions, they were almost always rhetorical. The important message lay in the simple subtext Youre upsetting me, Jessie. Youre not playing the game. But on that occasionperhaps in an unknowing tuneup for this oneshe had elected to ignore the subtext and answer the question. It means that youre still going to be fortysix this winter whether you own a Porsche or not, Gerald ... and youre still going to be thirty pounds overweight. Cruel, yes, but she could have been downright gratuitous; could have passed on the image which had flashed before her eyes when she had looked at the photograph of the sports car on the front of the glossy brochure Gerald had handed her. In that blink of an instant she had seen a chubby little kid with a pink face and a widows peak stuck in the innertube hed brought to the old swimming hole. Gerald had snatched the brochure out of her hand and had stalked away without another word. The subject of the Porsche had not been raised since ... but she had often seen it in his resentful We Are Not Amused stare. She was seeing an even hotter version of that stare right now. You said it sounded like fun. Those were your exact words It sounds like fun. Had she said that? She supposed she had. But it had been a mistake. A little goof, that was all, a little slip on the old banana peel. Sure. But how did you tell your husband that when he had his lower lip pooched out like Baby Huey getting ready to do a tantrum? She didnt know, so she dropped her gaze ... and saw something she didnt like at all. Geralds version of Mr. Happy hadnt wilted a bit. Apparently Mr. Happy hadnt heard about the change of plans. Gerald, I just dont feel like it? Well, thats a hell of a note, isnt it? I took the whole day off work. And if we spend the night, that means tomorrow morning off, as well. He brooded over this for a moment, and then repeated You said it sounded like fun. She began to fan out her excuses like a tired old pokerhand (Yes, but now I have a headache; Yes, but Im having these really shitty premenstrual cramps; Yes, but Im a woman and therefore entitled to change my mind; Yes, but now that were actually out here in the Big Lonely you frighten me, you bad beautiful brute of a man, you), the lies that fed either his misconceptions or his ego (the two were frequently interchangeable), but before she could pick a card, any card, the new voice spoke up. It was the first time it had spoken out loud, and Jessie was fascinated to find that it sounded the same in the air as it did inside her head strong, dry, decisive, in control. It also sounded curiously familiar. Youre rightI guess I did say that, but what really sounded like fun was breaking away with you the way we used to before you got your name up on the door with the rest of the typeAs. I thought maybe we could bounce the bedsprings a little, then sit on the deck and dig the quiet. Maybe play some Scrabble after the sun went down. Is that an actionable offense, Gerald? What do you think? Tell me, because I really want to know. But you said For the last five minutes she had been telling him in various ways that she wanted out of these goddam handcuffs, and he still hadnt let her out of them. Her impatience boiled over into fury. My God, Gerald, this stopped being fun for me almost as soon as we started, and if you werent as thick as a brick, you would have realized it! Your mouth. Your smart, sarcastic mouth. Sometimes I get so tired of Gerald, when you get your head really set on something, sweet and low doesnt come close to reaching you. And whose fault is that? I dont like you when youre like this, Jessie. When youre like this I dont like you a bit. This was going from bad to worse to horrible, and the scariest part was how fast it was happening. Suddenly she felt very tired, and a line from an old Paul Simon song occurred to her I dont want no part of this crazy love. Right on, Paul. You may be short, but you aint dumb. I know you dont. And its okay that you dont, because right now the subject is these handcuffs, not how much you do or dont like me when I tell you Ive changed my mind about something. I want out of these cuffs. Are you hearing me? No, she realized with dawning dismay. He really wasnt. Gerald was still one turn back. You are just so goddamned inconsistent, so goddamned sarcastic. I love you, Jess, but I hate the goddam lip on you. I always have. He wiped the palm of his left hand across his pouting rosebud of a mouth and then looked sadly at herpoor, putupon Gerald, saddled with a woman who had gotten him out here in the forest primeval and then reneged on her sexual obligations. Poor, putupon Gerald, who showed no sign whatever of getting the handcuff keys off the bureau by the bathroom door. Her unease had changed into something elsewhile her back was turned, as it were. It had become a mixture of anger and fear she could remember feeling only once before. When she was twelve or so, her brother Will had goosed her at a birthday party. All her friends had seen, and they had all laughed. Harhar, preety fonny, senhorra, I theenk. It hadnt been funny to her, though. Will had been laughing hardest of all, so hard he was actually doubled over with one hand planted above each knee, his hair hanging in his face. This had been a year or so after the advent of the Beatles and the Stones and the Searchers and all the rest, and Will had had a lot of hair to hang. It had apparently blocked his view of Jessie, because he had no idea of how angry she was ... and he was, under ordinary circumstances, very much aware of her turns of mood and temper. Hed gone on laughing until that froth of emotion so filled her that she understood she would have to do something with it or simply explode. So she had doubled up one small fist and had punched her wellloved brother in the mouth when he finally raised his head to look at her. The blow had knocked him over like a bowling pin and he had cried really hard. Later she had tried to tell herself that he had cried more out of surprise than pain, but she had known, even at twelve, that that wasnt so. She had hurt him, hurt him plenty. His lower lip had split in one place, his upper lip in two, and she had hurt him plenty. And why? Because he had done something stupid? But hed only been nine himselfnine that dayand at that age all kids were stupid. No; it hadnt been his stupidity. It had been her fearfear that if she didnt do something with that ugly green froth of anger and embarrassment, it would (put out the sun) cause her to explode. The truth, first encountered on that day, was this there was a well inside her, the water in that well was poisoned, and when he goosed her, William had sent a bucket down there, one which had come up filled with scum and squirming gluck. She had hated him for that, and she supposed it was really her hate which had caused her to strike out. That deep stuff had scared her. Now, all these years later, she was discovering it still did ... but it still infuriated her, as well. You wont put out the sun, she thought, without the slightest idea of what this meant. Be damned if you will. I dont want to argue the fine points, Gerald. Just get the keys to these fucking things and unlock me! And then he said something which so astounded her that at first she couldnt grasp it What if I wont? What registered first was the change in his tone. He usually spoke in a bluff, gruff, hearty sort of voiceIm in charge here, and its a pretty lucky thing for all of us, isnt it? that tone proclaimedbut this was a low, purring voice with which she was not familiar. The gleam had returned to his eyesthat hot little gleam which had turned her on like a bank of floodlights once upon a time. She couldnt see it very wellhis eyes were squinted down to puffy slits behind his goldrimmed spectaclesbut it was there. Yes indeed. Then there was the strange case of Mr. Happy. Mr. Happy hadnt wilted a bit. Seemed, in fact, to be standing taller than at any time she could remember ... although that was probably just her imagination. Do you think so, toots? I dont. She processed all this information before finally returning to the last thing hed saidthat amazing question. What if I wont? This time she got past the tone to the sense of the words, and as she came to fully understand them, she felt her rage and fear crank up a notch. Somewhere inside, that bucket was going down its shaft again for another slimy dipa scumload of water filled with microbes almost as poisonous as swamp copperheads. The kitchen door banged against its jamb and the dog began to bark in the woods again, sounding closer than ever now. It was a splintery, desperate sound. Listening to something like that for too long would undoubtedly give you a migraine. Listen, Gerald, she heard her strong new voice saying. She was aware that this voice could have picked a better time to break its silenceshe was, after all, out here on the deserted north shore of Kashwakamak Lake, handcuffed to the bedposts, and wearing only a skimpy pair of nylon pantiesbut she still found herself admiring it. Almost against her will she found herself admiring it. Are you listening yet? I know you dont do much of that these days when its me doing the talking, but this time its really important that you hear me. So ... are you finally listening? He was kneeling on the bed, looking at her as if she were some previously undiscovered species of bug. His cheeks, in which complex networks of tiny scarlet threads squirmed (she thought of them as Geralds liquorbrands), were flushed almost purple. A similar swath crossed his forehead. Its color was so dark, its shape so definite, that it looked like a birthmark. Yes, he said, and in his new purring voice the word came out yehusss. Im listening, Jessie. I most certainly am. Good. Then youll walk over to the bureau and get those keys. Youll unlock this oneshe rattled her right wrist against the headboardand then youll unlock this one. She rattled the left wrist in similar fashion. If you do this right away, we can have a little normal, painless, mutualorgasm sex before returning to our normal, painless lives in Portland. Pointless, she thought. You left that one out. Normal, painless, pointless lives in Portland. Perhaps that was so, or perhaps it was just a little overdramatization (being handcuffed to the bed brought that out in a person, she was discovering), but it was probably just as well shed left that one out, in any case. It suggested that the new, nobullshit voice wasnt so indiscreet, after all. Then, as if to contradict this idea, she heard that voicewhich was, after all, her voicebegin to rise in the unmistakable beats and pulses of rage. But if you continue screwing around and teasing me, Ill go straight to my sisters from here, find out who did her divorce, and call her. Im not joking. I do not want to play this game! Now something really incredible was happening, something she never would have suspected in a million years his grin was resurfacing. It was coming up like a sub which has finally reached friendly waters after a long and dangerous voyage. That wasnt the really incredible thing, though. The really incredible thing was that the grin no longer made Gerald look harmlessly retarded. It now made him look like a dangerous lunatic. His hand stole out again, caressed her left breast, then squeezed it painfully. He finished this unpleasant bit of business by pinching her nipple, a thing he had never done before. Ow, Gerald! That hurts! He gave a solemn, appreciative nod that went very strangely with his horrible grin. Thats good, Jessie. The whole thing, I mean. You could be an actress. Or a callgirl. One of the really highpriced ones. He hesitated, then added Thats supposed to be a compliment. What in Gods name are you talking about? Except she was pretty sure she knew. She was really afraid now. Something bad was loose in the bedroom; it was spinning around and around like a black top. But she was also still angryas angry as she had been on the day Will had goosed her. Gerald actually laughed. What am I talking about? For a minute there, you had me believing it. Thats what Im talking about. He dropped a hand onto her right thigh. When he spoke again, his voice was brisk and weirdly businesslike. Nowdo you want to spread them for me, or do I have to do it? Is that part of the game, too? Let me up! Yes ... eventually. His other hand shot out. This time it was her right breast he pinched, and this time the pinch was so hard it fired off nerves in little white sparkles all the way down her side to her hip. For now, spread those lovely legs, me proud beauty! She took a closer look at him and saw a terrible thing he knew. He knew she wasnt kidding about not wanting to go on with it. He knew, but he had chosen not to know he knew. Could a person do that? You bet, the nobullshit voice said. If youre a hotshot shyster in the biggest corporate lawfirm north of Boston and south of Montreal, I guess you can know whatever you want to know and not know whatever you dont want to. I think youre in big trouble here, honey. The kind of trouble that ends marriages. Better grit your teeth and squint your eyes, because I think one bitch of a vaccination shot is on the way. That grin. That ugly, meanspirited grin. Pretending ignorance. And doing it so hard that later on he would be able to pass a liedetector test on the subject. I thought it was part of the game, he would say, all hurt and wideeyed. I really did. And if she persisted, driving at him with her anger, he would eventually fall back to the oldest defense of them all ... and then slip into it, like a lizard into a crack in a rock You liked it. You know you did. Why dont you admit it? Pretending into ignorance. Knowing but planning to go ahead anyway. Hed handcuffed her to the bedposts, had done it with her own cooperation, and now, oh shit, lets not gild the lily, now he meant to rape her, actually rape her while the door banged and the dog barked and the chainsaw snarled and the loon yodeled out there on the lake. He really meant to do it. Yessir, boys, hyuck, hyuck, hyuck, you aint really had pussy until youve had pussy thats jumpin around underneath you like a hen on a hot griddle. And if she did go to Maddys when this exercise in humiliation was over, he would continue to insist that rape had been the furthest thing from his mind. He placed his pink hands against her thighs and began spreading her legs. She did not resist much; for the moment, at least, she was too horrified and amazed by what was going on here to resist much. And thats exactly the right attitude, the more familiar voice inside her spoke up. Just lie there quietly and let him shoot his squirt. After all, whats the big deal? Hes done it at least a thousand times before and you never once turned green. In case you forgot, its been quite a few years since you were a blushing virgin. And what would happen if she didnt listen and obey the counsel of that voice? What was the alternative? As if in answer, a horrid picture rose in her mind. It was herself she saw, testifying in divorce court. She didnt know if there still were such things as divorce courts in Maine, but that in no way dimmed the vividness of the vision. She saw herself dressed in her conservative pink Donna Karan suit, with her peach silk blouse beneath it. Her knees and ankles were primly together. Her small clutch bag, the white one, was in her lap.

She saw herself telling a judge who looked like the late Harry Reasoner that yes, it was true she had accompanied Gerald to the summer house of her own free will, yes, she had allowed him to tether her to the bedposts with two sets of Kreig handcuffs, also of her own free will, and yes, as a matter of fact they had played such games before, although never at the place on the lake. Yes, Judge. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. As Gerald continued to spread her legs, Jessie heard herself telling the judge who looked like Harry Reasoner about how they had started with silk scarves, and how she had allowed the game to go on, progressing from scarves to ropes to handcuffs, even though she had quickly tired of the whole thing. Had become disgusted by it. So disgusted, in fact, that she had allowed Gerald to drive her the eightythree miles from Portland to Kashwakamak Lake on a weekday in October; so revolted she had once again allowed him to chain her up like a dog; so bored with the whole thing that she had been wearing nothing but a pair of nylon panties so wispy you could have read The New York Times classified section through them. The judge would believe it all and sympathize with her most deeply. Of course he would. Who wouldnt? She could see herself sitting there on the witness stand and saying, So there I was, handcuffed to the bedpost and wearing nothing but some underwear from Victorias Secret and a smile, but I changed my mind at the last minute, and Gerald knew it, and that makes it rape. Yes sir, that would do her, all right. Bet your boots. She came out of this appalling fantasy to find Gerald yanking at her panties. He was kneeling between her legs, his face so studious that you might have been tempted to believe it was the Bar Exam he was planning to take instead of his unwilling wife. There was a runner of white spittle coursing down his chin from the center of his plump lower lip. Let him do it, Jessie. Let him shoot his squirt. Its that stuff in his balls thats making him crazy, and you know it. It makes them all crazy. When he gets rid of it, youll be able to talk to him again. Youll be able to deal with him. So dont make a fussjust lie there and wait until hes got it out of his system. Good advice, and she supposed she would have followed it if not for the new presence inside her. This unnamed newcomer clearly thought that Jessies usual source of advicethe voice she had over the years come to think of as Goodwife Budingamewas a wimp of the highest order. Jessie still might have let things run their course, but two things happened simultaneously. The first was her realization that, although her wrists were cuffed to the bedposts, her feet and legs were free. At the same moment she realized this, the runner of drool fell off Geralds chin. It dangled for a moment, elongating, and then fell on her midriff, just above the navel. Something about this sensation was familiar, and she was swept by a horribly intense sensation of dj vu. The room seemed to darken around her, as if the windows and the skylight had been replaced with panes of smoked glass. Its his spunk, she thought, although she knew perfectly well it wasnt. Its his goddam spunk. Her response was not so much directed at Gerald as at that hateful feeling that came flooding up from the bottom of her mind. In a very real sense she acted with no thought at all, but only lashed out with the instinctive, panicky revulsion of a woman who realizes the trapped thing fluttering in her hair is a bat. She drew back her legs, her rising right knee barely missing the promontory of his chin, and then drove her bare feet out again like pistons. The sole and instep of her right drove deep into the bowl of his belly. The heel of her left smashed into the stiff root of his penis and the testicles hanging below it like pale, ripe fruit. He rocked backward, his butt coming down on his plump, hairless calves. He tilted his head up toward the skylight and the white ceiling with its reflected patterns of sunripples and voiced a high, wheezy scream. The loon on the lake cried out again just then, in hellish counterpoint; to Jessie it sounded like one male commiserating with another. Geralds eyes werent slitted now; they werent gleaming, either. They were wide open, they were as blue as todays flawless sky (the thought of seeing that sky over the autumnempty lake had been the deciding factor when Gerald had called from the office and said hed had a postponement and would she like to go up to the summer place at least for the day and maybe overnight), and the expression in them was an agonized glare she could hardly look at. Cords of tendon stood out on the sides of his neck. Jessie thought I havent seen those since the rainy summer when he pretty much gave up gardening and made J. W. Dant his hobby instead. His scream began to fade. It was as if someone with a special Remote Gerald Control were turning down his volume. That wasnt it, of course; he had been screaming for an extraordinarily long time, perhaps as long as thirty seconds, and he was just running out of breath. I must have hurt him badly, she thought. The red spots on his cheeks and the swath across his forehead were now turning purple. You did! the Goodwifes dismayed voice cried. You really really did! Yep; damned good shot, wasnt it? the new voice mused. You kicked your husband in the balls! the Goodwife screamed. What in Gods name gives you the right to do something like that? What gives you the right to even joke about it? She knew the answer to that one, or thought she did shed done it because her husband had intended to commit rape and pass it off later as a missed signal between two essentially harmonious marriage partners who had been playing a harmless sexgame. It was the games fault, he would have said, shrugging. The games, not mine. We dont have to play it again, Jess, if you dont want to. Knowing, of course, that nothing he could offer would ever cause her to hold her wrists up for the handcuffs again. No, this had been a case of last time pays for all. Gerald had known it, and had intended to make the most of it. That black thing she had sensed in the room had spun out of control, just as she had feared it might. Gerald still appeared to be screaming, although no sound at all (at least none she could hear) was now coming from his pursed, agonized mouth. His face had become so congested with blood that it actually appeared to be black in places. She could see his jugular veinor maybe it was his carotid artery, if that mattered at a time like thispulsing furiously beneath the carefully shaved skin of his throat. Whichever one it was, it looked ready to explode, and a nasty jolt of terror stabbed Jessie. Gerald? Her voice sounded thin and uncertain, the voice of a girl who has broken something valuable at a friends birthday party. Gerald, are you all right? It was a stupid question, of course, incredibly stupid, but it was a lot easier to ask than the ones which were really on her mind Gerald, how badly are you hurt? Gerald, do you think you might die? Of course hes not going to die, the Goodwife said nervously. Youve hurt him, indeed you have, and you ought to be sorry, but hes not going to die. Nobody is going to die around here. Geralds pursed, puckered mouth continued to quiver soundlessly, but he didnt answer her question. One of his hands had gone to his belly; the other had cupped his wounded testes. Now they both rose slowly and settled just above his left nipple. They settled like a pair of pudgy pink birds too tired to fly farther. Jessie could see the shape of a bare foother bare footrising on her husbands round stomach. It was a bright, accusatory red against his pink flesh. He was exhaling, or trying to, sending out a dour fog that smelled like rotting onions. Thats tidal breath, she thought. The bottom ten per cent of our lungs is reserved for tidal breath, isnt that what they taught us in high school biology? Yes, I think so. Tidal breath, the fabled last gasp of drowners and chokers. Once you expel that, you either faint or ... Gerald! she cried in a sharp, scolding voice. Gerald, breathe! His eyes bulged from their sockets like blue marbles stuck in a clod of PlayDoh, and he did manage to drag in a single small sip of air. He used it to speak a final word to her, this man who had sometimes seemed made of words. ... heart ... That was all. Gerald! Now she sounded shocked as well as scolding, an oldmaid schoolteacher who has caught the secondgrade flirt pulling up her skirt to show the boys the bunnies on her underpants. Gerald, stop fooling around and breathe, goddammit! Gerald didnt. Instead, his eyes rolled back in their sockets, disclosing yellowish whites. His tongue blew out of his mouth and made a farting sound. A stream of cloudy, orangetinted urine arced out of his deflated penis and her knees and thighs were doused with feverishly hot droplets. Jessie voiced a long, piercing shriek. This time she was unaware of yanking against the handcuffs, of using them to draw herself as far back from him as possible, awkwardly curling her legs beneath her as she did so. Stop it, Gerald! Just stop it before you fall off the b Too late. Even if he were still hearing her, which her rational mind doubted, it was too late. His bowed back arched the top half of his body beyond the edge of the bed and gravity took over. Gerald Burlingame, with whom Jessie had once eaten Creamsicles in bed, fell over backward with his knees up and his head down, like a clumsy kid trying to impress his friends during Free Swim at the YMCA pool. The sound of his skull meeting the hardwood floor made her shriek again. It sounded like some enormous egg being cracked against the lip of a stone bowl. She would have given anything not to have heard that. Then there was silence, broken only by the distant roar of the chainsaw. A large gray rose was opening in the air before Jessies wide eyes. The petals spread and spread, and when they closed around her again like the dusty wings of huge colorless moths, blocking out everything for awhile, the only clear feeling she had was one of gratitude. 2 She seemed to be in a long, cold hall filled with white fog, a hall that was canted severely to one side like the halls people were always walking down in movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street and TV shows like The Twilight Zone. She was naked and the cold was really getting to her, making her muscles acheparticularly those of her back and neck and shoulders. Ive got to get out of here or Ill be sick, she thought. Im already getting cramps from the fog and the damp. (Although she knew it was not the fog and the damp.) Also, somethings wrong with Gerald. I cant remember exactly what it is, but I think he might be sick. (Although she knew that sick wasnt exactly the right word.) But, and this was odd, another part of her really didnt want to escape the tilted, foggy corridor at all. This part suggested that shed be a lot better off staying here. That if she left shed be sorry. So she did stay for awhile. What finally got her going again was a barking dog. It was an exceedingly ugly bark, bottomheavy but breaking to shrill bits in its upper registers. Each time the animal let go with it, it sounded as if it were puking up a throatful of sharp splinters. She had heard that bark before, although it might be betterquite a bit better, actuallyif she managed not to remember when, or where, or what had been happening at the time. But at least it got her movingleft foot, right foot, hayfoot, strawfbotand suddenly it occurred to her that she could see through the fog better if she opened her eyes, so she did. It wasnt some spooky Twilight Zone hallway she saw but the master bedroom of their summer house on the north end of Kashwakamak Lakethe area that was known as Notch Bay. She guessed the reason she had felt cold was that she was wearing nothing but a pair of bikini panties, and her neck and shoulders hurt because she was handcuffed to the bedposts and her bottom had slid down the bed when she fainted. No tilted corridor; no foggy damp. Only the dog was real, still barking its fool head off. It now sounded quite close to the house. If Gerald heard that The thought of Gerald made her twitch, and the twitch sent complex spiralsparkles of feeling through her cramped biceps and triceps. These tingles faded away to nothing at her elbows, and Jessie realized with soupy, justwakingup dismay that her forearms were mostly without feeling and her hands might as well have been gloves stuffed with congealed mashed potatoes. This is going to hurt, she thought, and then everything came back to her ... especially the image of Gerald doing his header off the side of the bed. Her husband was on the floor, either dead or unconscious, and she was lying up here on the bed, thinking about what a drag it was that her lower arms and hands had gone to sleep. How selfish and selfcentered could you get? If hes dead, its his own damned fault, the nobullshit voice said. It tried to add a few other home truths as well, but Jessie gagged it. In her stillnotquiteconscious state she had a clearer sightline into the deeper archives of her memory banks, and she suddenly realized whose voiceslightly nasal, clipped, always on the verge of a sarcasmtinged taughthat was. It belonged to her college roommate, Ruth Neary. Now that Jessie knew, she found she wasnt a bit surprised. Ruth had always been extremely generous with pieces of her mind, and her advice had often scandalized her nineteenyearold wetbehindtheears roommate from Falmouth Foreside ... which had undoubtedly been the idea, or part of it; Ruths heart had always been in the right place, and Jessie had never doubted that Ruth actually believed sixty per cent of the things she said and had actually done forty per cent of the things she claimed to have done. When it came to things sexual, the percentage was probably even higher. Ruth Neary, the first woman Jessie had ever known who absolutely refused to shave her legs and her armpits; Ruth, who had once filled an unpleasant floorcounsellors pillowcase with strawberryscented foam douche; Ruth, who on general principles went to every student rally and attended every experimental student play. lfall else fails, tootsie, some goodlooking guy will probably take his clothes off, she had told an amazed but fascinated Jessie after coming back from a student effort entitled The Son of Noahs Parrot. I mean, it doesnt always happen, but it usually doesI think thats really what studentwritten and produced plays are forso guys and girls can take off their clothes and make out in public. She hadnt thought of Ruth in years and now Ruth was inside her head, handing out little nuggets of wisdom just as she had in days of yore. Well, why not? Who was more qualified to advise the mentally confused and emotionally disturbed than Ruth Neary, who had gone on from the University of New Hampshire to three marriages, two suicide attempts, and four drugandalcohol rehabs? Good old Ruth, just another shining example of how well the erstwhile Love Generation was making the transition to middle age. Jesus, just what I need, Dear Abby from hell, she said, and the thick, slurry quality of her voice frightened her more than the lack of feeling in her hands and lower arms. She tried to yank herself back up to the mostlysitting position she had managed just before Geralds little diving exhibition (Had that horrible eggcracking sound been part of her dream? She prayed that it had been), and thoughts of Ruth were swallowed by a sudden burst of panic when she did not move at all. Those tingling spirals of sensation spun through her muscles again, but nothing else happened. Her arms just went on hanging above and slightly behind her, as moveless and feelingless as stovelengths of rock maple. The muzzy feeling in her head disappearedpanic beat the hell out of smelling salts, she was discoveringand her heart kicked into a higher gear, but that was all. A vivid image culled from some longago history text flickered behind her eyes for a moment a circle of laughing, pointing people standing around a young woman with her head and hands in stocks. The woman was bent over like a hag in a fairytale and her hair hung in her face like a penitents shroud. Her name is Goodwife Burlingame and shes being punished for hurting her husband, she thought. Theyre punishing the Goodwife because they cant get hold of the one whos really responsible for hurting him ... the one who sounds like my old college roommate. But was hurting the right word? Was it not likely that she was now sharing this bedroom with a dead man? Was it not also likely that, dog or no dog, the Notch Bay end of the lake was entirely deserted? That if she started to scream, she would be answered only by the loon? Only that and nothing more? It was mostly that thought, with its strange echo of Poes The Raven, that brought her to a sudden realization of just what was going on here, what she had gotten herself into, and fullfledged, mindless terror suddenly fell on her. For twenty seconds or so (if asked how long that panicattack lasted, she would have guessed at least three minutes and probably closer to five) she was totally in its grip. A thin rod of rational consciousness remained deep inside her, but it was helplessonly a dismayed spectator watching the woman writhe on the bed with her hair flying as she whipped her head from side to side in a gesture of negation, hearing her hoarse, frightened screams. A deep, glassy pain at the base of her neck, just above the place where her left shoulder started, put a stop to it. It was a musclecramp, a bad one. Moaning, Jessie let her head fall back against the separated mahogany slats which formed the headboard of the bed. The muscle she had strained was frozen in a strenuous flexed position, and it felt as hard as a rock. The fact that her exertion had forced pins and needles of feeling all the way down her forearms to the palms of her hands meant little next to that terrible pain, and she found that leaning back against the headboard was only putting more pressure on the overstrained muscle. Moving instinctively, without any thought at all, Jessie planted her heels against the coverlet, raised her buttocks, and shoved with her feet. Her elbows bent and the pressure on her shoulders and upper arms eased. A moment later the Charley horse in her deltoid muscle began to let go. She let out her breath in a long, harsh sigh of relief. The windit had progressed quite a bit beyond the breeze stage, she noticedgusted outside, sighing through the pines on the slope between the house and the lake. Just off the kitchen (which was in another universe as far as Jessie was concerned), the door she and Gerald had neglected to pull shut banged against the swollen jamb one time, two time, three time, four. These were the only sounds; only these and nothing more. The dog had quit barking, at least for the time being, and the chainsaw had quit roaring. Even the loon seemed to be on its coffeebreak. The image of a lakeloon taking a coffeebreak, maybe floating in the watercooler and chatting up a few of the lady loons, caused a dusty croaking sound in her throat. Under less unpleasant circumstances, that sound might have been termed a chuckle. It dissolved the last of her panic, leaving her still afraid but at least in charge of her thoughts and actions once more. It also left her with an unpleasant metallic taste on her tongue. Thats adrenaline, toots, or whatever glandular secretion your body dumps when you sprout claws and start climbing the walls. If anyone ever asks you what panic is, now you can tell them an emotional blank spot that leaves you feeling as if youve been sucking on a mouthful of pennies. Her forearms were buzzing, and the tingles of sensation had at last spread into her fingers as well. Jessie rolled her hands open and closed several times, wincing as she did so. She could hear the faint sound of the handcuff chains rattling against the bedposts and took a moment to wonder if she and Gerald had been mad it certainly seemed so now, although she had no doubt that thousands of people all over the world played similar games each and every day. She had read that there were even sexual free spirits who hanged themselves in their closets and then beat off as the bloodsupply to their brains slowly decreased to nothing. Such news only served to increase her belief that men were not so much gifted with penises as cursed with them. But if it had been only a game (only that and nothing more), why had Gerald felt it necessary to buy real handcuffs? That was sort of an interesting question, wasnt it? Maybe, but I dont think its the really important question just now, Jessie, do you? Ruth Neary asked from inside her head. It was really quite amazing how many different tracks the human mind could work on at the same time. On one of these she now found herself wondering what had become of Ruth, whom she had last seen ten years ago. It had been at least three years since Jessie had heard from her. The last communication had been a postcard showing a young man in an ornate red velvet suit with a ruff at the neck. The young mans mouth was open, and his long tongue had been protruding suggestively. SOME DAY MY PRINCE WILL TONGUE, the card had said. New Age wit, Jessie remembered thinking at the time. The Victorians had Anthony Trollope; the Lost Generation had H. L. Mencken; we got stuck with dirty greeting cards and bumpersticker witticisms like AS A MATTER OF FACT, I DO OWN THE ROAD. The card had borne a blurry Arizona postmark and the information that Ruth had joined a lesbian commune. Jessie hadnt been terribly surprised at the news; had even mused that perhaps her old friend, who could be wildly irritating and surprisingly, wistfully sweet (sometimes in the same breath) had finally found the hole on the great gameboard of life which had been drilled to accept her own oddly shaped peg. She had put Ruths card in the top left drawer of her desk, the one where she kept various odd lots of correspondence which would probably never be answered, and that had been the last time shed thought about her old roomie until nowRuth Neary, who lusted to own a HarleyDavidson barnburner but who had never been able to master any standard transmission, even the one on Jessies tame old Ford Pinto; Ruth, who often got lost on the UNH campus even after three years there; Ruth, who always cried when she forgot she was cooking something on the hotplate and burned it to a crisp. She did that last so often it was really a miracle she had never set their roomor the whole dormon fire. How odd that the confident nobullshit voice in her head should turn out to be Ruths. The dog began to bark again. It sounded no closer, but it sounded no farther away, either. Its owner wasnt hunting birds, that was for sure; no hunter would have anything to do with such a canine blabbermouth. And if dog and master were out for a simple afternoon walk, how come the barks had been coming from the same place for the last five minutes or so? Because you were right before, her mind whispered. There is no master. This voice wasnt Ruths or Goodwife Burlingames, and it certainly wasnt what she thought of as her own voice (whatever that was); it was very young and very scared. And, like Ruths voice, it was strangely familiar. Its just a stray, out here on its own. It wont help you, Jessie. It wont help us. But that was maybe too gloomy an assessment. After all, she didnt know the dog was a stray, did she? Not for sure. And until she did, she refused to believe it. If you dont like it, sue me, she said in a low, hoarse voice. Meanwhile, there was the question of Gerald. In her panic and subsequent pain, he had kind of slipped her mind. Gerald? Her voice still sounded dusty, not really there. She cleared her throat and tried again. Gerald! Nothing. Zilch. No response at all. That doesnt mean hes dead, though, so keep your fur on, womandont go off on another rip. She was keeping her fur on, thank you very much, and she had no intention whatever of going off on another rip. All the same, she felt a deep, welling dismay in her vitals, a feeling that was like some awful homesickness. Geralds lack of response didnt mean he was dead, that was true, but it did mean he was unconscious, at the very least. And probably dead, Ruth Neary added. I dont want to piss on your parade, Jessreallybut you dont hear him breathing, do you? I mean, you usually can hear unconscious people breathing; they take these big snory, blubbery snatches of air, dont they? How the fuck would I know? she said, but that was stupid. She knew because she had been an enthusiastic candystriper for most of her high school years, and it didnt take long for you to get a pretty good fix on what dead sounded like; it sounded like nothing at all. Ruth had known all about the time she had spent in Portland City Hospitalwhat Jessie herself had sometimes called The Bedpan Yearsbut this voice would have known it even if Ruth hadnt, because this voice wasnt Ruth; this voice was her. She had to keep reminding herself of that, because this voice was so weirdly its own self. Like the voices you heard before, the young voice murmured. The voices you heard after the dark day. But she didnt want to think about that. Never wanted to think about that. Didnt she have enough problems already? But Ruths voice was right unconscious peopleespecially those whod gotten unconscious as the result of a good hard rap on the nogginusually did snore. Which meant ... Hes probably dead, she said in her dusty voice. Okay, yeah. She leaned to the left, moving carefully, mindful of the muscle which had cramped so painfully at the base of her neck on that side. She had not quite reached the farthest extent of the chain binding her right wrist when she saw one pink, chubby arm and half of one handthe last two fingers, actually. It was his right hand; she knew this because there was no wedding ring on his third finger. She could see the white crescents of his nails. Gerald had always been very vain about his hands and his nails. She had never realized just how vain until right now. It was funny how little you saw, sometimes. How little you saw even after you thought youd seen it all. I suppose, but Ill tell you one thing, sweetie right now you can pull down the shades, because I dont want to see any more. No, not one thing more. But refusing to see was a luxury in which she could not, at least for the time being, indulge. Continuing to move with exaggerated care, babying her neck and shoulder, Jessie slid as far to the left as the chain would allow. It wasnt muchanother two or three inches, topsbut it fattened the angle enough for her to see part of Geralds upper arm, part of his right shoulder, and a tiny bit of his head. She wasnt sure, but she thought she could also see tiny beads of blood at the edges of his thinning hair. She supposed it was at least technically possible that this last was just imagination. She hoped so. Gerald? she whispered. Gerald, can you hear me? Please say you can. No answer. No movement. She could feel that deep homesick dismay again, welling and welling, like an unstanched wound. Gerald? she whispered again. Why are you whispering? Hes dead. The man who once surprised you with a weekend trip to ArubaAruba, of all placesand once wore your alligator shoes on his ears at a New Years Eve party ... that man is dead. So just why in the hell are you whispering? Gerald! This time she screamed his name. Gerald, wake up! The sound of her own screaming voice almost sent her into another panicky, convulsive interlude, and the scariest part wasnt Geralds continued failure to move or respond; it was the realization that the panic was still there, still right there, restlessly circling her conscious mind as patiently as a predator might circle the guttering campfire of a woman who has somehow wandered away from her friends and gotten lost in the deep, dark fastnesses of the woods. Youre not lost, Goodwife Burlingame said, but Jessie did not trust that voice. Its control sounded bogus, its rationality only paintdeep. You know just where you are. Yes, she did. She was at the end of a twisting, rutted camp road which split off from Bay Lane two miles south of here. The camp road had been an aisle of fallen red and yellow leaves over which she and Gerald had driven, and those leaves were mute testimony to the fact that this spur, leading to the Notch Bay end of Kashwakamak, had been used little or not at all in the three weeks since the leaves had first begun to turn and then to fall. This end of the lake was almost exclusively the domain of summer people, and for all Jessie knew, the spur might not have been used since Labor Day. It was a total of five miles, first along the spur and then along Bay Lane, before one came out on Route 117, where there were a few yearround homes. Im out here alone, my husband is lying dead on the floor, and Im handcuffed to the bed. I can scream until I turn blue and it wont do me any good; no ones going to hear. The guy with the chainsaw is probably the closest, and hes at least four miles away. He might even be on the other side of the lake. The dog would probably hear me, but the dog is almost certainly a stray. Geralds dead, and thats a shameI never meant to kill him, if thats what I didbut at least it was relatively quick for him. It wont be quick for me; if no one in Portland starts to worry about us, and theres no real reason why anyone should, at least for awhile ... She shouldnt be thinking this way; it brought the panicthing closer. If she didnt get her mind out of this rut, she would soon see the panicthings stupid, terrified eyes. No, she absolutely shouldnt be thinking this way. The bitch of it was, once you got started, it was very hard to stop again. But maybe its what you deservethe hectoring, feverish voice of Goody Burlingame suddenly spoke up. Maybe it is. Because you did kill him, Jessie. You cant kid yourself about that, because I wont let you. Im sure he wasnt in very good shape, and Im sure it would have happened sooner or later, anywaya heart attack at the office, or maybe in the turnpike passing lane on his way home some night, him with a cigarette in his hand, trying to light it, and a big tenwheeler behind him, honking for him to get the hell back over into the righthand lane and make some room. But you couldnt wait for sooner or later, could you? Oh no, not you, not Tom Mahouts good little girl Jessie. You couldnt just lie there and let him shoot his squirt, could you? Cosmo Girl Jessie Burlingame says No man chains me down. You had to kick him in the guts and the nuts, didnt you? And you had to do it while his thermostat was already well over the red line. Lets cut to the chase, dear you murdered him. So maybe you deserve to be right here, handcuffed to this bed. Maybe Oh, that is such bullshit, she said. It was an inexpressible relief to hear that other voiceRuths voice come out of her mouth. She sometimes (well ... maybe often would be closer to the truth) hated the Goodwife voice; hated it and feared it. It was often foolish and flighty, she recognized that, but it was also so strong, so hard to say no to. Goody was always eager to assure her she had bought the wrong dress, or that she had chosen the wrong caterer for the endofsummer party Gerald threw each year for the other partners in the firm and their wives (except it was really Jessie who threw it; Gerald was just the guy who stood around and said aw shucks and took all the credit). Goody was the one who always insisted she had to lose five pounds. That voice wouldnt let up even if her ribs were showing. Never mind your ribs! it screamed in tones of selfrighteous horror.

Look at your tits, old girl! And if they arent enough to make you barf a keg, look at your thighs! Such bullshit, she said, trying to make it even stronger, but now she heard a minute shake in her voice, and that wasnt so good. Not so good at all. He knew I was serious ... he knew it. So whose fault does that make it? But was that really true? In a way it wasshe had seen him deciding to reject what he saw in her face and heard in her voice because it would spoil the game. But in another waya much more fundamental wayshe knew it wasnt true at all, because Gerald hadnt taken her seriously about much of anything during the last ten or twelve years of their life together. He had made what almost amounted to a second career out of not hearing what she said unless it was about meals or where they were supposed to be at suchandsuch a time on suchandsuch a night (so dont forget, Gerald). The only other exceptions to the general Rules of Ear were unfriendly remarks about his weight or his drinking. He heard the things she had to say on these subjects, and didnt like them, but they were dismissible as part of some mythic natural order fish gotta swim, bird gotta fly, wife gotta nag. So what, exactly, had she expected from this man? For him to say, Yes, dear, I will free you at once, and by the way, thanks for raising my consciousness? Yes; she suspected some naive part of her, some untouched and dewyeyed littlegirl part, had expected just that. The chainsaw, which had been snarling and ripping away again for quite some time, suddenly fell silent. Dog, loon, and even the wind had also fallen silent, at least temporarily, and the quiet felt as thick and as palpable as ten years of undisturbed dust in an empty house. She could hear no car or truck engine, not even a distant one. And now the voice which spoke belonged to no one but herself. Oh my God, it said. Oh my God, I am all alone out here. I am all alone. 3 Jessie closed her eyes tightly. Six years ago she had spent an abortive fivemonth period in counselling, not telling Gerald because she knew he would be sarcastic ... and probably worried about what beans she might be spilling. She had stated her problem as stress, and Nora Callighan, her therapist, had taught her a simple relaxation technique. Most people associate counting to ten with Donald Duck trying to keep his temper, Nora had said, but what a tencount really does is give you a chance to reset all your emotional dials ... and anybody who doesnt need an emotional reset at least once a day has probably got problems a lot more serious than yours or mine. This voice was also clearclear enough to raise a small, wistful smile on her face. I liked Nora. I liked her a lot. Had she, Jessie, known that at the time? She was moderately astounded to find she couldnt exactly remember, any more than she could exactly remember why she had quit going to see Nora on Tuesday afternoons. She supposed that a bunch of stuffCommunity Chest, the Court Street homeless shelter, maybe the new library fund drivehad just all come up at once. Shit Happens, as another piece of New Age vapidity passing for wisdom pointed out. Quitting had probably been for the best, anyway. If you didnt draw the line somewhere, therapy just went on and on, until you and your therapist doddered off to that great group encounter session in the sky together. Never mindgo ahead and do the count, starting with your toes. Do it just the way she taught you. Yeswhy not? One is for feet, ten little toes, cute little piggies, all in a row. Except that eight were comically croggled and her great toes looked like the heads on a pair of ballpeen hammers. Two is for legs, lovely and long. Well, not that longshe was only fiveseven, after all, and longwaistedbut Gerald had claimed they were still her best feature, at least in the old sexappeal department. She had always been amused by this claim, which seemed to be perfectly sincere on his part. He had somehow missed her knees, which were as ugly as the knobs on an apple tree, and her chubby upper thighs. Three is my sex, whats right cant be wrong. Mildly cutea little too cute, many might saybut not very illuminating. She raised her head a little, as if to look at the object in question, but her eyes remained closed. She didnt need her eyes to see it, anyway; she had been coexisting with that particular accessory for a long time. What lay between her hips was a triangle of gingercolored, crinkly hair surrounding an unassuming slit with all the aesthetic beauty of a badly healed scar. This thingthis organ that was really little more than a deep fold of flesh cradled by crisscrossing belts of muscleseemed to her an unlikely wellspring for myth, but it certainly held mythic status in the collective male mind; it was the magic vale, wasnt it? The corral where even the wildest unicorns were eventually penned? Mother Macree, what bullshit, she said, smiling a little but not opening her eyes. Except it wasnt bullshit, not entirely. That slit was the object of every mans lustthe heterosexual ones, at leastbut it was also frequently an object of their inexplicable scorn,. distrust, and hate. You didnt hear that dark anger in all their jokes, but it was present in enough of them, and in some it was right out front, raw as a sore Whats a woman? A lifiesupport system for a cunt. Stop it, Jessie, Goodwife Burlingame ordered. Her voice was upset and disgusted. Stop it right now. That, Jessie decided, was a damned good idea, and she turned her mind back to Noras tencount. Four was for her hips (too wide), and five her belly (too thick). Six was her breasts, which she thought were her best featureGerald, she suspected, was a bit put off by the vague tracings of blue veins beneath their smoothly sloping curves; the breasts of the gatefold girls in his magazines did not show such hints of the plumbing beneath. The magazine girls didnt have tiny hairs growing out of their areolae, either. Seven was her toowide shoulders, eight was her neck (which used to be goodlooking but had grown decidedly chickeny in the last few years), nine was her receding chin, and ten Wait a minute! Wait just one goddammed minute here! the nobullshit voice broke in furiously. What kind of dumb game is this? Jessie shut her eyes tighter, appalled by the depth of anger in that voice and frightened by its separateness. In its anger it didnt seem like a voice coming from the central taproot of her mind at all, but like a real interloperan alien spirit that wanted to possess her the way the spirit of Pazuzu had possessed the little girl in The Exorcist. Dont want to answer that? Ruth Nearyalias Panzuzuasked. Okay, maybe that ones too complicated. Let me make it really simple for you, Jess who turned Nora Callighans badly rhymed little relaxation litany into a mantra of selfhate? No one, she thought back meekly, and knew at once that the nobullshit voice would never accept that, so she added The Goodwife. It was her. No, it wasnt, Ruths voice returned at once. She sounded disgusted at this halfassed effort to shift the blame. Goodys a little stupid and right now shes a lot scared, but shes a sweet enough thing at the bottom, and her intentions have always been good. The intentions of whoever reedited Noras list were actively evil, Jessie. Dont you see that? Dont you I dont see anything, because my eyes are closed, she said in a trembling, childish voice. She almost opened them, but something told her that was apt to make the situation worse instead of better. Who was the one, Jessie? Who taught you that you were ugly and worthless? Who picked out Gerald Burlingame as your soulmate and Prince Charming, probably years before you actually met him at that Republican Party mixer? Who decided he wasnt only what you needed but exactly what you deserved? With a tremendous effort, Jessie swept this voiceall the voices, she fervently hopedout of her mind. She began the mantra again, this time speaking it aloud. One is my toes, all in a row, two is my legs, lovely and long, three is my sex, whats right cant be wrong, four is my hips, curving and sweet, five is my stomach, where I store what I eat. She couldnt remember the rest of the rhymes (which was probably a mercy; she had a strong suspicion that Nora had whomped them up herself, probably with an eye toward publication in one of the soft and yearning selfhelp magazines which sat on the coffeetable in her waiting room) and so went on without them Six is my breasts, sevens my shoulders, eights my neck ... She paused to take a breath and was relieved to find her heartbeat had slowed from a gallop to a fast run. ... nine is my chin, and ten is my eyes. Eyes, open wide! . She suited the action to the words and the bedroom jumped into bright existence around her, somehow new andfor the moment, at leastalmost as delightful as it had been to her when she and Gerald had spent their first summer in this house. Back in 1979, a year which once had the ring of science fiction and now seemed impossibly antique. Jessie looked at the gray barnboard walls, the high white ceiling with its reflected shimmers from the lake, and the two big windows, one on either side of the bed. The one to her left looked west, giving a view of the deck, the sloping land beyond it, and the heartbreaking bright blue of the lake. The one on her right provided a less romantic vistathe driveway and her gray dowager of a Mercedes, now eight years old and beginning to show the first small speckles of rust along the rockerpanels. Directly across the room she saw the framed batik butterfly hanging on the wall over the dresser, and remembered with a superstitious lack of surprise that it had been a thirtiethbirthday present from Ruth. She couldnt see the tiny signature stitched in red thread from over here, but she knew it was there Neary, 83. Another sciencefiction year. Not far from the butterfly (and clashing like mad, although she had never quite summoned enough nerve to point this out to her husband), Geralds Alpha Gamma Rho beerstein hung from a chrome peg. Rho wasnt a very bright star in the fraternity universethe other fratrats used to call it Alpha Grab A Hoebut Gerald wore the pin with a perverse sort of pride and kept the stein on the wall and drank the first beer of the summer out of it each year when they came up here in June. It was the sort of ceremony that had sometimes made her wonder, long before todays festivities, if she had been mentally competent when she married Gerald. Somebody should have put a stop to it, she thought drearily. Somebody really should have, because just look how it turned out. In the chair on the other side of the bathroom door, she could see the saucy little culotte skirt and the sleeveless blouse she had worn on this unseasonably warm fall day; her bra hung on the bathroom doorknob. And lying across the bedspread and her legs, turning the tiny soft hairs on her upper thighs to golden wires, was a bright band of afternoon sunlight. Not the square of light that lay almost dead center on the bedspread at one oclock and not the rectangle which lay on it at two; this was a wide band that would soon narrow to a stripe, and although a power outage had buggered the readout of the digital clockradio on the dresser (it flashed 1200 A.M. over and over, as relentless as a neon barsign), the band of light told her it was going on four oclock. Before long, the stripe would start to slide off the bed and she would see shadows in the corners and under the little table over by the wall. And as the stripe became a string, first slipping across the floor and then climbing up the far wall, fading as it went, those shadows would begin to creep out of their places and spread across the room like inkstains, eating the light as they grew. The sun was westering; in another hour, an hour and a half at most, it would be going down; forty minutes or so after that, it would be dark. This thought didnt cause panicat least not yetbut it did lay a membrane of gloom over her mind and a dank atmosphere of dread over her heart. She saw herself lying here, handcuffed to the bed with Gerald dead on the floor beside and below her; saw them lying here in the dark long after the man with the chainsaw had gone back to his wife and kids and welllighted home and the dog had wandered away and there was only that damned loon out there on the lake for companyonly that and nothing more. Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Burlingame, spending one last long night together. Looking at the beerstein and the batik butterfly, unlikely neighbors which could be tolerated only in a oneseasonayear house such as this one, Jessie thought that it was easy to reflect on the past and just as easy (although a lot less pleasant) to go wandering off into possible versions of the future. The really tough job seemed to be staying in the present, but she thought shed better try her best to do it. This nasty situation was probably going to get a lot nastier if she didnt. She couldnt depend on some deus ex machina to get her out of the jam she was in, and that was a bummer, but if she succeeded in doing it herself, there would be a bonus shed be saved the embarrassment of lying here almost starkers while some sheriffs deputy unlocked her, asked what the hell had happened, and got a nice long look at the new widows fair white body, all at the same time. There were two other things going on as well. She would have given a lot to push them away, even temporarily, but she couldnt. She needed to go to the bathroom, and she was thirsty. Right now the need to ship was stronger than the need to receive, but it was her desire for a drink of water that worried her. It wasnt t a big deal yet, but that would change if she wasnt able to shuck the cuffs and get to a faucet. It would change in ways she didnt like to think of. Itd be funny if I died of thirst two hundred yards from the ninthbiggest lake in Maine, she thought, and then she shook her head. This wasnt the ninthbiggest lake in Maine; what had she been thinking of? That was Dark Score Lake, the one where she and her parents and her brother and sister had gone all those years ago. Back before the voices. Back before She cut that off. Hard. It had been a long time since shed thought about Dark Score Lake, and she didnt intend to start now, handcuffs or no handcuffs. Better to think about being thirsty. Whats to think about, toots? Its psychosomatic, thats all. Youre thirsty because you know you cant get up and get a drink. Its as simple as that. But it wasnt. Shed had a fight with her husband, and the two swift kicks shed dealt him had started a chain reaction which finally resulted in his death. She herself was suffering the aftereffects of a major hormonespill. The technical term for it was shock, and one of the commonest symptoms of shock was thirst. She should probably count herself lucky that her mouth was no drier than it was, at least so far, and And maybe thats one thing I can do something about. Gerald was the quintessential creature of habit, and one of his habits was keeping a glass of water on his side of the shelf above the headboard of the bed. She twisted her head up and to the right and yes, there it was, a tall glass of water with a little cluster of melting icecubes floating on top. The glass was no doubt sitting on a coaster so it wouldnt leave a ring on the shelfthat was Gerald, so considerate about the little things. Beads of condensation stood out on the glass like sweat. Looking at these, Jessie felt her first pang of real thirst. It made her lick her lips. She slid to the right as far as the chain on the left handcuff would allow. This was only six inches, but it brought her onto Geralds side of the bed. The movement also exposed several dark spots on the left side of the coverlet. She stared at these vacantly for several moments before remembering how Gerald had voided his bladder in his last agony. Then she quickly turned her eyes back to the glass of water, sitting up there on a round of cardboard which probably advertised some brand of yuppie suds, Becks or Heineken being the most likely. She reached out and up, doing it slowly, willing her reach to be long enough. It wasnt. The tips of her fingers stopped three inches short of the glass. The pang of thirsta slight tightening in the throat, a slight prickle on the tonguecame and went again. If no one comes or I cant think of a way to wiggle free by tomorrow morning, I wont even be able to look at that glass. This idea had about it a cold reasonableness that was terrifying in and of itself. But she wouldnt still be here tomorrow morning, that was the thing. The idea was totally ridiculous. Insane. Loopy. Not worth thinking about. It Stop, the nobullshit voice said. Just stop. And so she did. The thing she had to face was that the idea wasnt totally ridiculous. She refused to accept or even entertain the possibility that she could die herethat was loopy, of coursebut she could be in for some long, uncomfortable hours if she didnt dust away the cobwebs on the old thinking machine and get it running. Long, uncomfortable... and maybe painful, the Goodwife said nervously. But the pain would be an act of atonement, wouldnt it? After all, you brought this on yourself. I hope Im not being tiresome, but ifyoudjust let him shoot his squirt You are being tiresome, Goody, Jessie said. She couldnt remember if she had ever spoken out loud to one of the interior voices before. She wondered if she was going mad. She decided she didnt give much of a shit one way or the other, at least for the time being. Jessie closed her eyes again. 4 This time it wasnt her body she visualized in the darkness behind her lids but this whole room. Of course she was still the centerpiece, gosh, yesJessie Mahout Burlingame, still a shade under forty, still fairly trim at fiveseven and a hundred and twentyfive pounds, gray eyes, brownishred hair (she covered the gray that had begun to show up about five years ago with a glossy rinse and was fairly sure Geraldhad never known). Jessie Mahout Burlingame, who had gotten herself into this mess without quite knowing how or why. Jessie Mahout Burlingame, now presumably the widow of Gerald, still mother of no one, and tethered to this goddamned bed by two sets of police handcuffs. She made the imaging part of her mind zoom in on these last. A furrow of concentration appeared between her closed eyes. Four cuffs in all, each pair separated by six inches of rubbersleeved steel chain, each with M17a serial number, she assumedstamped into the steel of the lockplate. She remembered Geralds telling her, back when the game was new, that each cuff had a notched takeup arm, which made the cuff adjustable. It was also possible to shorten the chains until a prisoners hands were jammed painfully together, wrist to wrist, but Gerald had allowed her the maximum length of chain. And why the hell xot? she thought now. After all, it was only a game... right, Gerald? Yet now her earlier question occurred to her, and she wondered again if it had ever really been just a game for Gerald. Whats a woman? some other voicea UFO voicewhispered softly from a well of darkness deep inside her. A lifesupport system for a cunt. Go away, Jessie thought. Go away, youre not helping. But the UFO voice declined the order. Why does a woman have a mouth and a cunt? it asked instead. So she can piss and moan at the same time. Any other questions, little lady? No. Given the unsettlingly surreal quality of the answers, she had no other questions. She rotated her hands inside the cuffs. The scant flesh of her wrists dragged against the steel, making her wince, but the pain was minor and her hands turned easily enough. Gerald might or might not have believed that a womans only purpose was to serve as a lifesupport system for a cunt, but he hadnt tightened the cuffs enough to hurt; she would have balked at that even before today, of course (or so she told herself, and none of the interior voices were mean enough to dispute her on the subject). Still, they were too tight to slip out of. Or were they? Jessie gave them an experimental tug. The cuffs slid up her wrists as her hands came down, and then the steel bracelets wedged firmly against the junctions of bone and cartilage where the wrists made their complex and marvellous alliances with her hands. She yanked harder. Now the pain was much more intense. She suddenly remembered the time Daddy had slammed the driversside door of their old Country Squire station wagon on Maddys left hand, not knowing she was sliding out on his side for a change instead of on her own. How she had screamed! It had broken some boneJessie couldnt remember the name of itbut she did remember Maddy proudly showing off her soft cast and saying, I also tore my posterior ligament. That had struck Jess and Will funny, because everyone knew that your posterior was the scientific name for your situpon. They had laughed, more in surprise than in scorn, but Maddy had gone storming off just the same, her face as dark as a thundercloud, to tell Mommy. Posterior ligament, she thought, deliberately applying more pressure in spite of the escalating pain. Posterior ligament and radioulnar somethingorother. Doesnt matter. If you can slip out of these cuffs, I think you better do it, toots, and let some doctor worry about putting Humpty back together again later on. Slowly, steadily, she increased the pressure, willing the handcuffs to slip down and off. If they would just go a little waya quarter of an inch might do it, and a half was almost for sureshe would be past the bulkiest ridges of bone and would have more yielding tissue to deal with. Or so she hoped. There were bones in her thumbs, of course, but she would worry about them when and if the time came. She pulled down harder, her lips parting to show her teeth in a grimace of pain and effort. The muscles on her upper arms now stood out in shallow white arcs. Sweat began to bead her brow, her cheeks, even the slight indentation of her philtrum below her nose. She poked out her tongue and licked off this last without even being aware of it. There was a lot of pain, but the pain wasnt what caused her to stop. What did was the simple realization that she had gotten to the point of maximum pull her muscles would provide and it hadnt moved the cuffs a whit farther down than they were right now. Her brief hope of simply squeezing out of this flickered and died. Are you sure you pulled as hard as you could? Or are you maybe only kidding yourself a little because it hurt so much? No, she said, still not opening her eyes. I pulled as hard as I could. Really. But that other voice remained, actually more glimpsed than heard something like a comicbook questionmark. There were deep white grooves in the flesh of her wristsbelow the pad of the thumb, across the back of the hand, and over the delicate blue tracings of vein belowwhere the steel had bitten in, and her wrists continued to throb painfully even though she had taken off all the pressure of the cuffs by raising her hands until she could grip one of the headboard slats. Oh boy, she said, her voice shaky and uneven. Doesnt this just suck the big one. Had she pulled as hard as she could? Had she really? Doesnt matter, she thought, looking up at the shimmers of reflection on the ceiling. Doesnt matter and Ill tell you whyif I am capable of pulling harder, what happened to Maddys left wrist when the car door slammed on it is going to happen to both of mine bones are going to break, posterior ligaments are going to snap like rubber bands, and radioulnar whojiggies are going to explode like clay pigeons in a shooting gallery. The only thing that would change is that, instead of lying here chained and thirsty, Id be lying here chained, thirsty, and with a pair of broken wrists thrown into the bargain. Theyd swell, too. What I think is this Gerald died before he ever had a chance to climb into the saddle, but he fucked me good and proper just the same. Okay; what other options were there? None, Goodwife Burlingame said in the watery tone of a woman who is just a teardrop away from breaking down completely. Jessie waited to see if the other voiceRuths voice would weigh in with an opinion. It didnt. For all she knew, Ruth was floating around in the office watercooler with the rest of the loons. In any case, Ruths abdication left Jessie to fend for herself. So, okay, fend, she thought. What are you going to do about the handcuffs, now that youve ascertained simply slipping out of them is impossible? What can you do? There are two handcuffs in each setthe young voice, the one she hadnt yet found a name for, spoke up hesitantly. Youve tried to slip out of the ones with your hands inside them and it didnt work... but what about the others? The ones hooked to the bedposts? Have you thought about them? Jessie pressed the back of her head into her pillow and arched her neck so she could look at the headboard and the bedposts. The fact that she was looking at these things upside down barely registered. The bed was smaller than a king or a queen but quite a bit larger than a twin. It had some sort of fancy nameCourt Jester Size, maybe, or Chief LadyinWaitingbut she found it harder and harder to keep track of such things as she got older; she didnt know if you called that good sense or encroaching senility. In any case, the bed on which she now found herself had been just right for screwing but a little too small for the two of them to share comfortably through the night. For her and Gerald that hadnt been a drawback, because they had slept in separate rooms, both here and in the Portland house, for the last five years. It had been her decision, not his; she had gotten tired of his snoring, which seemed to get a little worse every year. On the rare occasions when they had overnight guests down here, she and Gerald had slept togetheruncomfortablyin this room, but otherwise they had shared this bed only when they had sex. And his snoring hadnt been the real reason she had moved out; it had just been the most diplomatic one. The real reason had been olfactory. Jessie had first come to dislike and then actually loathe the aroma of her husbands nightsweat. Even if he showered just before coming to bed, the sour smell of Scotch whisky began to creep out of his pores by two the next morning. Until this year, the pattern had been increasingly perfunctory sex followed by a period of drowsing (this had actually become her favorite part of the whole business), after which he would shower and leave her. Since March, however, there had been some changes. The scarves and the handcuffsparticularly the latterhad seemed to exhaust Gerald in a way plain old missionarystyle sex never had, and he often fell deeply asleep next to her, shoulder to shoulder. She didnt mind this; most of those encounters had been matinees, and Gerald smelled like plain old sweat instead of a weak Scotch and water afterward. He didnt snore much, either, come to think of it. But all those sessionsall those matinees with the scarves and the handcuffswere in the Portland house, she thought. We spent most of July and some of August down here, but on the occasions when we had sexthere werent many, but there were someit was the plain old potroastandmashedpotatoes kind Tarzan on top, Jane on the bottom. We never played the game down here until today. Why was that, I wonder? Probably it had been the windows, which were too tall and oddly cut for drapes. They had never gotten around to replacing the clear glass with reflective sheets, although Gerald had continued to talk about doing that right up to ... well ... Right up until today, Goody finished, and Jessie blessed her tact. And youre rightit probably was the windows, at least mostly. He wouldnt have liked Fred Laglan or Jamie Brooks driving in to ask on the spur of the moment if he wanted to play nine holes of golf and seeing him boffing Mrs. Burlingame, who just happened to be attached to the bedposts with a pair of Kreig handcuffs. Word on something like that would probably get around. Fred and Jamie are good enough fellows, I guess A couple of middleaged pukes, if you ask me, Ruth broke in sourly. but theyre only human, and a story like that would have been too good not to talk about. And theres something else, Jessie ... Jessie didnt let her finish. This wasnt a thought she wanted to hear articulated in the Goodwifes pleasant but hopelessly prissy voice. It was possible that Gerald had never asked her to play the game down here because he had been afraid of some crazy joker popping out of the deck. What joker? Well, she thought, lets just say that there might have been a part of Gerald that really did believe a woman was just a lifesupport system for a cunt ... and that some other part of him, one I could call Geralds better nature, for want of a clearer term, knew it. That part could have been afraid that things might get out of control. After all, isnt that just whats happened? It was a hard idea to argue with. If this didnt fit the definition of out of control, Jessie didnt know what did. She felt a moment of wistful sadness and had to restrain an urge to look back toward the place where Gerald lay. She didnt know if she had grief in her for her late husband or not, but she did know that if it was there, this wasnt the time to deal with it. Still, it was nice to remember something good about the man with whom she had spent so many years, and the memory of the way he had sometimes fallen asleep beside her after sex was a good one. She hadnt liked the scarves and had come to loathe the handcuffs, but she had liked looking at him as he drifted off; had liked the way the lines smoothed out of his large pink face. And, in a way, he was sleeping beside her again right now ... wasnt he? That idea chilled even the flesh of her upper thighs, where the narrowing patch of sun lay. She turned the thought asideor at least tried toand went back to studying the head of the bed. The posts were set in slightly from the sides, leaving her arms spread but not uncomfortably so, particularly with the six inches or so of free play afforded by the handcuff chains. There were four horizontal boards running between the posts. These were also mahogany, and engraved with simple but pleasing waveshapes. Gerald had once suggested that they have their initials carved in the center boardhe knew of a man in Tashmore Glen who would be happy to drive over and do it, he saidbut she had poured cold water on the idea. It seemed both ostentatious and strangely childish to her, like teenybop sweethearts carving hearts on their studyhall desks. The bedshelf was set above the topmost board, just high enough to ensure that no one sitting up suddenly would bump his or her head. It held Geralds glass of water, a couple of paperbacks left over from the summer, and, on her end, a little strew of cosmetics. These were also left over from the summer gone by, and she supposed they were dried out by now. A real shame, toonothing cheered up a handcuffed woman more reliably than a little Country Morning Rose Blusher. All the womens magazines said so. Jessie lifted her hands slowly, holding her arms out at a slight angle so her fists wouldnt fetch up on the underside of the shelf. She kept her head back, wanting to see what happened on the far end of the chains. The other cuffs were clamped to the bedposts between the second and third crossboards. As she lifted her fisted hands, looking like a woman benchpressing an invisible barbell, the cuffs slid along the posts until they reached the next board up. If she could pull that board off, and the one above it, she would be able to simply slip the handcuffs off the ends of the bedposts. Voil. Probably too good to be true, hontoo easy to be true but you might as well give it a shot.

Its a way to pass the time, anyway. She wrapped her hands around the engraved horizontal board currently barring any further upward progress for the cuffs clamped to the bedposts. She took a deep breath, held it, and yanked. One hard tug was enough to tell her that way was also blocked; it was like trying to pull a steel retaining rod out of a concrete wall. She could not feel even a millimeters worth of give. I could yank on that bastard for ten years and not even move it, let alone pull it off the bedposts, she thought, and let her hands fall back to their former slack, chainsupported position above the bed. A despairing little cry escaped her. To her it sounded like the caw of a thirsty crow. What am I going to do? she asked the shimmers on the ceiling, and at last gave way to desperate, frightened tears. Just what in the hell am I going to do? As if in answer, the dog began to bark again, and this time it was so close it scared her into a scream. It sounded, in fact, as if it was right outside the east window, in the driveway. 5 The dog wasnt in the driveway; it was even closer than that. The shadow stretching up the asphalt almost to the front bumper of the Mercedes meant it was on the back porch. That long, trailing shadow looked as if it belonged to some twisted and monstrous freakshow dog, and she hated it on sight. Dont be so damned silly, she scolded herself. The shadow only looks that way because the suns going down. Now open your mouth and make some noise, girlit doesnt have to be a stray, after all. True enough; there might be a master in the picture somewhere, but she didnt hold out much hope for the idea. She guessed that the dog had been drawn to the back deck by the wirecovered garbage bin just outside the door. Gerald had sometimes called this tidy little construction, with its cedar shingles on top and its double latches on the lid, their raccoonmagnet. This time it had drawn a dog instead of a coon, that was alta stray, almost certainly. An illfed, downonitsluck mutt. Still, she had to try. Hey! she screamed. Hey! Is anyone there? I need some help if you are! Is anyone there? The dog stopped barking instantly. Its spidery, distorted shadow jerked, turned, started to move ... and then stopped again. She and Gerald had eaten sub sandwiches on the ride up from Portland, big oily salamiandcheese combos, and the first thing shed done when they arrived was to gather up the scraps and wrappings and dump them into the garbage bin. The rich smell of oil and meat was probably what had drawn the dog in the first place, and it was undoubtedly the smell which kept it from bolting back into the woods at the sound of her voice. That smell was stronger than the impulses of its feral heart. Help! Jessie screamed, and part of her mind tried to warn her that screaming was probably a mistake, that she would only scrape her throat raw and make herself thirstier, but that rational, cautioning voice never had a chance. She had caught the stink of her own fear, it was as strong and compelling to her as the smell of the sandwich leftovers was to the dog, and it quickly carried her into a state that was not just panic but a kind of temporary insanity. HELP ME! SOMEBODY HELP ME! HELP! HELP! HELLLLLLP! Her voice broke at last and she turned her head as far to the right as it would go, her hair plastered to her cheeks and forehead in sweaty licks and tangles, her eyes bulging. The fear of being found chained up naked with her husband lying dead on the floor beside her had ceased to be even a casual factor in her thinking. This new panicattack was like some weird mental eclipseit filtered out the bright light of reason and hope and allowed her to see the most awful possibilities of all starvation, thirstinduced madness, convulsions, death. She was not Heather Locklear or Victoria Principal, and this was not a madeforTV suspense movie on the USA cable network. There were no cameras, no lights, no director to call cut. This was happening, and if help didnt come, it might well go on happening until she ceased to exist as a lifeform. Far from worrying about the circumstances of her detention, she had reached a point where she would have welcomed Maury Povich and the entire film crew of A Current Affair with tears of gratitude. But no one answered her frantic criesno caretaker, down here to check on his places by the lake, no curious local out rambling with his dog (and perhaps trying to discover which of his neighbors might be growing a little marijuana among the whispering pines), and certainly not Maury Povich. There was only that long, queerly unpleasant shadow, which made her think of some weird dogspider balancing on four thin and febrile legs. Jessie took a deep, shuddery breath and tried to reestablish control over her skittish mind. Her throat was hot and dry, her nose uncomfortably wet and plugged with tears. What now? She didnt know. Disappointment throbbed in her head, temporarily too large to allow anything like constructive thought. The only thing of which she was completely sure was that the dog meant nothing; it was only going to stand out there on the back porch for awhile and then go away when it realized that what had drawn it was out of reach. Jessie made a low, unhappy cry and closed her eyes. Tears oozed out from beneath her lashes and spilled slowly down her cheeks. In the lateafternoon sun, they looked like drops of gold. What now? she asked again. The wind gusted outside, making the pines whisper and the loose door bang. What now, Goodwife? What now, Ruth ? What now, all you assorted UFOs and hangerson? Any of youany of us got any ideas? Im thirsty, I need to pee, my husband is dead, and my only company is a woodsdog whose idea of heaven is the leftovers of a ThreeCheese Genoa Salami sub from Amatos in Gorham. Pretty soon its going to decide that the smell is as close to heaven as its going to get, and then it will bug out. So ... what now? No answers. All the interior voices had fallen silent. That was badthey were company, at leastbut the panic had also gone, leaving only its heavymetal aftertaste, and that was good. Ill sleep for awhile, she thought, amazed to find she could actually do just that if she wanted to. Ill sleep for awhile, and when I wake up, maybe Ill have an idea. At the very least, I can get away from the fear for awhile. The tiny strainlines at the corners of her closed eyes and the two more noticeable ones between her brows began to smooth out. She could feel herself beginning to drift. She let herself go toward that refuge from selfregard with feelings of relief and gratitude. When the wind gusted this time, it seemed distant, and the restless sound of the door was even farther away bangbang, bangbang, bang. Her breathing, which had been deepening and slowing as she slipped into a doze, suddenly stopped. Her eyes sprang open. The only emotion she was aware of in that first moment of sleepsnatchedaway disorientation was a kind of puzzled pique she had almost made it, damn it all, and then that damned door What about that damned door? Just what about it? The damned door hadnt finished its usual double bang, that was what about it. As if this thought had brought them into being, Jessie now heard the distinctive click of a dogs toenails on the floor of the entryway. The stray had come in through the unlatched door. It was in the house. Her reaction was instant and unequivocal. You get out! she screamed at it, unaware that her overstrained voice had taken on a hoarse foghorn quality. Get out, motherfucker! Do you hear me? you GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE! She stopped, breathing fast, eyes wide. Her skin seemed woven through with copper wires carrying a low electrical charge; the top two or three layers buzzed and crawled. She was distantly aware that the hairs on the nape of her neck were standing as erect as porcupine quills. The idea of sleep had disappeared right off the map. She heard the initial startled scrabble of the dogs nails on the entry floor ... then nothing. I must have scared it away. It probably scatted right out the door again. I mean, its got to be afraid of people and houses, a stray like that. I dunno, toots, Ruths voice said. It sounded uncharacteristically doubtful. I dont see its shadow in the driveway. Of course you dont. It probably went right around the other side of the house and back into the woods. Or down by the lake. Scared to death and running like hell. Doesnt that make sense? Ruths voice didnt answer. Neither did Goodys, although at this point Jessie would have welcomed either one of them. I did scare it away, she said. Im sure I did. But still she lay there, listening as hard as she could, hearing nothing but the hushthump of blood in her ears. At least, not yet. 6 She hadnt scared it away. It was afraid of people and houses, Jessie had been right about that, but she had underestimated its desperate condition. Its former namePrincewas hideously ironic now. It had encountered a great many garbage bins just like the Burlingames in its long, starving circuit of Kashwakamak Lake this fall, and it had quickly dismissed the smell of salami, cheese, and olive oil coming from this one. The aroma was tantalizing, but bitter experience had taught the former Prince that the source of it was beyond its reach. There were other smells, however; the dog got a whiff of them each time the wind lazed the back door open. These smells were fainter than the ones coming from the box, and their source was inside the house, but they were too good to ignore. The dog knew it would probably be driven off by shouting masters who chased and kicked with their strange, hard feet, but the smells were stronger than its fear. One thing might have countered its terrible hunger, but it as yet knew nothing of guns. That would change if it lived until deerseason, but that was still two weeks away and the shouting masters with their hard, hurtful feet were the worst things it could imagine for now. It slipped through the door when the wind opened it and trotted into the entryway ... but not too far. It was ready to beat a hasty retreat the instant danger threatened. Its ears told it that the inhabitant of this house was a bitchmaster, and she was clearly aware of the dog because she had shouted at it, but what the stray heard in the bitchmasters raised voice was fear, not anger. After its initial backward jerk of fright, the dog stood its ground. It waited for some other master to join its cries to those of the bitchmaster or to come running, and when this didnt happen, the dog stretched its neck forward, sniffing at the slightly stale air of the house. At first it turned to the right, in the direction of the kitchen. It was from this direction that the puffs of scent dispersed by the flapping door had come. The smells were dry but pleasant peanut butter, RyKrisp crackers, raisins, cereal (this latter smell was drifting from a box of Special K in one of the cupboardsa hungry fieldmouse had gnawed a hole in the bottom of the box). The dog took a step in that direction, then swung its head back the other way to make sure no master was creeping up on itmasters most frequently shouted, but they could be sly, too. There was no one in the hallway leading down to the left, but the dog caught a much stronger scent coming from that direction, one that caused its stomach to cramp with terrible longing. The dog stared down the hall, its eyes sparkling with a mad mixture of fear and desire, its snout wrinkled backward like a rumpled throwrug, its long upper lip rising and falling in a nervous, spasmodic sneer that revealed its teeth in small white winks. A stream of anxious urine squirted from it and pattered on the floor, marking the front halland thus the whole houseas the dogs territory. This sound was too small and too brief for even Jessies straining ears to catch. What it smelled was blood. The scent was both strong and wrong. In the end, the dogs extreme hunger tipped the scales; it must eat soon or die. The former Prince began to walk slowly down the hall toward the bedroom. The smell grew stronger as it went. It was blood, all right, but it was the wrong blood. It was the blood of a master. Nevertheless, that smell, one far too rich and compelling to deny, had gotten into its small, desperate brain. The dog kept walking, and as it neared the bedroom door, it began to growl. 7 Jessie heard the click of the dogs nails and understood it was indeed still in the house, and coming this way. She began to scream. She knew this was probably the worst thing a person could doit went against all the advice shed ever heard about never showing a potentially dangerous animal that you were afraidbut she couldnt help it. She had too good an idea of what was drawing the stray toward the bedroom. She pulled her legs up, using the handcuffs to yank herself back against the headboard at the same time. Her eyes never left the door to the hallway as she did this. Now she could hear the dog growling. The sound made her bowels feel loose and hot and liquid. It halted in the doorway. Here the shadows had already begun to gather, and to Jessie the dog was only a vague shape low to the noornot a big one, but no toy poodle or Chihuahua, either. Two orangeyellow crescents of reflected sunlight marked its eyes. Go away! Jessie screamed at it. Go away! Get out! Youre... youre not welcome here! That was a ridiculous thing to say ... but under the circumstances, what wasnt? Ill be asking it to fetch me the keys from the top of the dresser before you know it, she thought. There was movement from the hindquarters of the shadowy shape in the doorway it had begun to wag its tail. In some sentimental girls novel, this probably would have meant the stray had confused the voice of the woman on the bed with the voice of some beloved but longlost master. Jessie knew better. Dogs didnt just wag their tails when they were happy; theytike catsalso wagged them when they were indecisive, still trying to evaluate a situation. The dog had barely flinched at the sound of her voice, but it didnt quite trust the dim room, either. Not yet, at least. The former Prince had yet to learn about guns, but it had learned a good many other hard lessons in the six weeks or so since the last day of August. That was when Mr. Charles Sutlin, a lawyer from Braintree, Massachusetts, had turned it out in the woods to die rather than take it back home and pay a combined state and town dogtax of seventy dollars. Seventy dollars for a pooch which was nothing but a Heinz Fiftyseven was a pretty tall set of tickets, in Charles Sutlins opinion. A little too tall. He had bought a motorsailer for himself only that June, granted, a purchase that was well up in the, fivefigure range, and you could claim there was some fuckedup thinking going on if you compared the price of the boat and the price of the dogtaxof course you could, anybody could, but that wasnt really the point. The point was that the motorsailer had been a planned purchase. That particular acquisition had been on the old Sutlin drawingboard for two years or more. The dog, on the other hand, was just a spurofthemoment buy at a roadside vegetable stand in Harlow. He never would have bought it if his daughter hadnt been with him and fallen in love with the pup. That one, Daddy! shed said, pointing. The one with the white spot on his nosethe one thats standing all by himself like a little prince. So hed bought her the pupno one ever said he didnt know how to make his little girl happybut seventy bucks (maybe as much as a hundred if Prince was classified as a Class B, Larger Dog) was serious dough when you were talking about a mutt that had come without a single piece of paperwork. Too much dough, Mr. Charles Sutlin had decided as the time to close up the cottage on the lake for another year began to approach. Taking it back to Braintree in the back seat of the Saab would also be a pain in the assit would shed everywhere, might even puke or take a shit on the carpeting. He could buy it a Vari Kennel, he supposed, but those little beauts started at 29.95 and worked up from there. A dog like Prince wouldnt be happy in a kennel, anyway. He would be happier running wild, with the whole north woods for his kingdom. Yes, Sutlin had told himself on that last day of August as he parked on a deserted stretch of Bay Lane and then coaxed the dog out of the back seat. Old Prince had the heart of a happy wandereryou only had to take a good close look at him to see that. Sutlin wasnt a stupid man and part of him knew this was selfserving bullshit, but part of him was also exalted by the idea of it, and as he got back into his car and drove off, leaving Prince standing at the side of the road and looking after him, he was whistling the theme from Born Free, occasionally bursting into a snatch of the lyrics Booorn freeee ... to follow your heaaaart! He had slept well that night, not sparing a thought for Prince (soon to be the former Prince), who spent the same night curled up beneath a fallen tree, shivering and wakeful and hungry, whining with fear each time an owl hooted or an animal moved in the woods. Now the dog Charles Sutlin had turned out to the theme of Born Free stood in the doorway of the master bedroom of the Burlingame summer home (the Sutlin cottage was on the far side of the lake and the two families had never met, although they had exchanged casual nods at the town boatdock over the last three or four summers). Its head was down, its eyes were wide, and its hackles were up. It was unaware of its own steady growl; all of its concentration was focused on the room. It understood in some deep, instinctual way that the bloodsmell would soon overwhelm all caution. Before that happened, it must assure itself as completely as it could that this was not a trap. It didnt want to be caught by masters with hard, hurtful feet, or by those who picked up hard pieces of the ground and threw them. Go away! Jessie tried to shout, but her voice came out sounding weak and trembly. She wasnt going to make the dog go away by shouting at it; the bastard somehow knew she couldnt get up off the bed and hurt it. This cant be happening, she thought. How could it be, when just three hours ago I was in the passenger seat of the Mercedes with my seatbelt around me, listening to the Rainmakers on the tape player and reminding myself to see what was playing at the Mountain Valley Cinemas, just in case we did decide to spend the night? How can my husband be dead when we were singing along with Bob Walkenhorst? One more summer, we sang, one more chance, one more stab at romance. We both know all the words to that one, because its a great one, and that being the case, how can Gerald possibly be dead? How can things have possibly gotten from there to here? Sorry, folks, but this just has to be a dream. Its much too absurd for reality. The stray began to advance slowly into the room, legs stiff with caution, tail drooping, eyes wide and black, lips peeled back to reveal a full complement of teeth. About such concepts as absurdity it knew from nothing. The former Prince, with whom the eightyearold Catherine Sutlin had once romped joyfully (at least until shed gotten a Cabbage Patch doll named Marnie for her birthday and temporarily lost some of her interest), was part Lab and part collie ... a mixed breed, but a long way from being a mongrel. When Sutlin had turned it out on Bay Lane at the end of August, it had weighed eighty pounds and its coat had been glossy and sleek with health, a not unattractive mixture of brown and black (with a distinctive white collie bib on the chest and undersnout). It now weighed a bare forty pounds, and a hand passed down its side would have felt each straining rib, not to mention the rapid, feverish beat of its heart. One ear had been badly gashed. Its coat was dull and bedraggled and full of burdocks. A halfhealed pink scar, souvenir of a panicky scramble under a barbed wire fence, zigzagged down one haunch, and a few porcupine quills stuck out of its muzzle like crooked whiskers. It had found the porker lying dead under a log about ten days ago, but had given up on it after the first noseful of quills. It had been hungry but not yet desperate. Now it was both. Its last meal had been a few maggoty scraps nosed out of a discarded garbage bag in a ditch running beside Route 117, and that had been two days ago. The dog which had quickly learned to bring Catherine Sutlin a red rubber ball when she rolled it across the livingroom floor or into the hall was now quite literally starving on its feet. Yes, but hereright here, on the floor, within sight!were pounds and pounds of fresh meat, and fat, and bones filled with sweet marrow. It was like a gift from the God of Strays. The onetime darling of Catherine Sutlin continued to advance on the corpse of Gerald Burlingame. 8 This isnt going to happen, Jessie told herself. No way it can, so just relax. She went on telling herself this right up to the moment when the upper half of the strays body was cut off from her view by the left side of the bed. Its tail began to wag harder than ever, and then there was a sound she recognizedthe sound of a dog drinking from a puddle on a hot summer day. Except it wasnt quite like that. This sound was rougher, somehow, not so much the sound of lapping as of licking. Jessie stared at the rapidly wagging tail, and her mind suddenly showed her what was hidden from her eyes by the angle of the bed. This homeless stray with its burdocktangled fur and its weary, wary eyes was licking the blood out of her husbands thinning hair. NO! She lifted her buttocks off the bed and swung her legs around to the left. GET AWAY FROM HIM! JUST GET AWAY! She kicked out, and one of her heels brushed across the raised knobs of the dogs spine. It pulled back instantly and raised its muzzle, its eyes so wide they showed delicate rings of white. Its teeth parted, and in the fading afternoon light the cobwebthin strands of saliva stretched between its upper and lower incisors looked like threads of spun gold. It lunged forward at her bare foot. Jessie yanked it back with a scream, feeling the hot mist of the dogs breath on her skin but saving her toes. She curled her legs under her again without being aware that she was doing it, without hearing the cries of outrage from the muscles in her overstrained shoulders, without feeling her joints roll reluctantly in their bony beds. The dog looked at her a moment longer, continuing to snarl, threatening her with its eyes. Lets have an understanding, lady, the eyes said. You do your thing and Ill do mine. Thats the understanding. Sound okay to you? It better, because if you get in my way, Im going to fuck you up. Besides, hes deadyou know it as well as I do, and why should he go to waste when Im starving? Youd do the same. I doubt if you see that now, but I believe you may come around to my way of thinking on the subject, and sooner than you think. GET OUT! she screamed. Now she sat on her heels with her arms stretched out to either side, looking more like Fay Wray on the sacrificial jungle altar than ever. Her posturehead up, breasts thrust outward, shoulders thrown so far back they were white with strain at their farthest points, deep triangular hollows of shadow at the base of her neckwas that of an exceptionally hot pinup in a girlie magazine. The obligatory pout of sultry invitation was missing, however; the expression on her face was that of a woman who stands very near the borderline between the country of the sane and that of the mad. GET OUT OF HERE! The dog continued to look up at her and snarl for a few moments. Then, when it had apparently assured itself that the kick wouldnt be repeated, it dismissed her and lowered its head again. There was no lapping or licking this time. Jessie heard a loud smacking sound instead. It reminded her of the enthusiastic kisses her brother Will used to place on Gramma Joans cheek when they went to visit. The growling continued for a few seconds, but it was now oddly muffled, as if someone had slipped a pillowcase over the strays head. From her new sitting position, with her hair almost brushing the bottom of the shelf over her head, Jessie could see one of Geralds plump feet as well as his right arm and hand. The foot was shaking back and forth, as if Gerald were bopping a little to some jivey piece of musicOne More Summer by the Rainmakers, for instance. She could see the dog better from her new vantage point; its body was now visible all the way up to the place where its neck started. She would have been able to see its head, too, if it had been up. It wasnt, though. The strays head was down, and its rear legs were stiffly braced. Suddenly there was a thick ripping sounda snotty sound, like someone with a bad cold trying to clear his throat. She moaned. Stop ... oh please, cant you stop? The dog paid no attention. Once it had sat up and begged for table scraps, its eyes appearing to laugh, its mouth appearing to grin, but those days, like its former name, were long gone and hard to find. This was now, and things were what they were. Survival was not a matter for politeness or apology. It hadnt eaten for two days, there was food here, and although there was also a master here who didnt want it to take the food (the days when there had been masters who laughed and patted its head and called it GOOD DOG and gave it scraps for doing its small repertoire of tricks were all gone), this masters feet were small and soft instead of hard and hurtful, and its voice said it was powerless. The former Princes growls changed to muffled pants of effort, and as Jessie watched, the rest of Geralds body began to bop along with his foot, first just jiving back and forth and then actually starting to slide, as if he had gotten all the way into the groove, dead or not. Get down, Disco Gerald! Jessie thought wildly. Never mind the Chicken or the Shagdo the Dog! The stray couldnt have moved him if the rug had still been down, but Jessie had made arrangements to have the floor waxed the week after Labor Day. Bill Dunn, their caretaker, had let the men from Skips Floors n More in and they had done a hell of a job. They had wanted the missus to fully appreciate their work the next time she happened to stop down, so they had left the bedroom rug rolled up in the entry closet, and once the stray got Disco Gerald moving on the glossy floor, he moved almost as easily as John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. The only real problem the dog had was keeping its own traction. Its long, dirty claws helped in this regard, digging in and inscribing short, jagged marks into the glossy wax as it backed up with its teeth buried to the gumlines in Geralds flabby upper arm. Im not seeing this, you know. None of this is really happening. Just a little while ago we were listening to the Rainmakers, and Gerald turned down the volume long enough to tell me that he was thinking about going up to Orono for the football game this Saturday. U. of M. against B. U. I remember him scratching the lobe of his right ear while he talked. So how can he be dead with a dog dragging him across our bedroom floor by the arm? Geralds widows peak was in disarrayprobably as a result of the dogs licking the blood out of itbut his glasses were still firmly in place. She could see his eyes, halfopen and glazed, glaring up from their puffy sockets at the fading sunripples on the ceiling. His face was still a mask of ugly red and purple blotches, as if even death had not been able to assuage his anger at her sudden capricious (Had he seen it as capricious? Of course he had) change of mind. Let go of him, she told the dog, but her voice was now meek and sad and strengthless. The dog barely twitched its ears at the sound of it and didnt pause at all. It merely went on pulling the thing with the disarrayed widows peak and the blotchy complexion. This thing no longer looked like Disco Geraldnot a bit. Now it was only Dead Gerald, sliding across the bedroom floor with a dogs teeth buried in its flabby biceps. A frayed flap of skin hung over the dogs snout. Jessie tried to tell herself it looked like wallpaper, but wallpaper did notat least as far as she knewcome with moles and a vaccination scar. Now she could see Geralds pink, fleshy belly, marked only by the smallcaliber bullethole that was his navel. His penis flopped and dangled in its nest of black pubic hair. His buttocks whispered along the hardwood boards with ghastly, frictionless ease. Abruptly the suffocating atmosphere of her terror was pierced by a shaft of anger so bright it was like a stroke of heatlightning inside her head. She did more than accept this new emotion; she welcomed it. Rage might not help her get out of this nightmarish situation, but she sensed that it would serve as an antidote to her growing sense of shocked unreality. You bastard, she said in a low, trembling voice. You cowardly, slinking bastard. Although she couldnt reach anything on Geralds side of the bedshelf, Jessie found that, by rotating her left wrist inside the handcuff so that her hand was pointing back over her shoulder, she could walk her fingers over a short stretch of the shelf on her own side. She couldnt turn her head enough to see the things she was touchingthey were just beyond that hazy spot people call the corner of their eyebut it didnt really matter. She had a pretty good idea of what was up there. She pattered her fingers back and forth, running their tips lightly over tubes of makeup, pushing a few farther back on the shelf and knocking others off it. Some of these latter landed on the coverlet; others bounced off the bed or her left thigh and landed on the floor. None of them were even close to the sort of thing she was looking for. Her fingers closed on a jar of Nivea face cream, and for a moment she allowed herself to think it might do the trick, but it was only a samplesized jar, too small and light to hurt the dog even if it had been made of glass instead of plastic. She dropped it back onto the shelf and resumed her blind search. At their farthest stretch, her exploring fingers encountered the rounded edge of a glass object that was by far the biggest thing she had touched. For a moment she couldnt place it, and then it came to her. The stein hanging on the wall was only one souvenir of Geralds Alpha Grab A Hoe days; she was touching another one. It was an ashtray, and the only reason she hadnt placed it immediately was because it belonged on Geralds end of the shelf, next to his glass of icewater. Someonepossibly Mrs. Dahl, the cleaning lady, possibly Gerald himselfhad moved it over to her side of the bed, maybe in the course of dusting the shelf, or maybe to make room for something else. The reason didnt matter, anyway. It was there, and right now that was enough. Jessie closed her fingers over its rounded edge, feeling two notches in itcigarette parkingspaces. She gripped the ashtray, drew her hand back as far as she could, then brought it forward again. Her luck was in and she snapped her wrist down at the instant the handcuff chain snubbed tight, like a bigleague pitcher breaking off a curve. All of this was an act of pure impulse, the missile sought for, found, and thrown before she had time to ensure the failure of the shot by reflecting on how unlikely it was that a woman who had gotten a D in the archery mode of her twoyear college phys ed requirement could possibly hit a dog with an ashtray, especially when the dog was fifteen feet away and the hand she was throwing with happened to be handcuffed to a bedpost. Nevertheless, she did hit it. The ashtray flipped over once in its flight, briefly revealing the Alpha Gamma Rho motto.

She couldnt read it from where she lay and didnt have to; the Latin words for service, growth, and courage were inscribed around a torch. The ashtray started to flip again but crashed into the dogs straining, bony shoulders before it could roll all the way over. The stray gave a yip of surprise and pain, and Jessie felt a moment of violent, primitive triumph. Her mouth pulled wide in an expression that felt like a grin and looked like a screech. She howled deliriously, arching her back and straightening her legs as she did. She was once again unaware of the pain in her shoulders as cartilage stretched and joints which had long since forgotten the limberness of twentyone were pressed almost to the point of dislocation. She would feel it all laterevery move, jerk, and twist she had madebut for now she was transported with savage delight at the success of her shot, and felt that if she did not somehow express her. triumphant delirium she might explode. She drummed her feet on the coverlet and rocked her body from side to side, her sweaty hair flailing her cheeks and temples, the tendons in her throat standing out like fat wires. HAH! she cried. I... GOT... YOUUUU! HAH! The dog jerked backward when the ashtray struck it, and jerked again when it bounced away and shattered on the floor. Its ears flattened at the change in the bitchmasters voice. What it heard now was not fear but triumph. Soon it would get off the bed and begin to deal out kicks with its strange feet, which would not be soft but hard after all. The dog knew it would be hurt again as it had been hurt before if it stayed here; it must run. It turned its head to make sure its path of retreat was still open, and the entrancing smell of fresh blood and meat struck it once more as it did so. The dogs stomach cramped, sour and imperative with hunger, and it whined uneasily. It was caught, perfectly balanced between two opposing directives, and it squirted out a fresh trickle of anxious urine. The smell of its own wateran odor that spoke of sickness and weakness instead of strength and conndenceadded to its frustration and confusion, and it began to bark again. Jessie winced back from that splintery, unpleasant soundshe would have covered her ears if she could and the dog sensed another change in the room. Something in the bitchmasters scent had changed. Her alphasmell was fading while it was still new and fresh, and the dog began to sense that perhaps the blow it had taken across its shoulders did not mean that other blows were coming, after all. The first blow had been more startling than painful, anyway. The dog took a tentative step toward the trailing arm it had dropped ... toward the entrancingly thick reek of mingled blood and meat. It watched the bitchmaster carefully as it moved. Its initial assessment of the bitchmaster as either harmless, helpless, or both might have been wrong. It would have to be very careful. Jessie lay on the bed, now faintly aware of the throbbing in her own shoulders, more aware that her throat really hurt now, most aware of all that, ashtray or no ashtray, the dog was still here. In the first hot rush of her triumph it had seemed a foregone conclusion to her that it must flee, but it had somehow stood its ground. Worse, it was advancing again. Cautiously and warily, true, but advancing. She felt a swollen green sac of poison pulsing somewhere inside herbitter stuff, hateful as hemlock. She was afraid that if that sac burst, she would choke on her own frustrated rage. Get out, shithead, she told the dog in a hoarse voice that had begun to crumble about the edges. Get out or Ill kill you. I dont know how, but I promise to God I will. The dog stopped again, looking at her with a deeply uneasy eye. Thats right, you better pay attention to me, Jessie said. You just better, because I mean it. I mean every word. Then her voice rose to a shout again, although it bled off into whispers in places as her overstrained voice began to short out. Ill kill you, I will, I swear I will, SO GET OUT! The dog which had once been little Catherine Sutlins Prince looked from the bitchmaster to the meat; from the meat to the bitchmaster; from the bitchmaster to the meat once more. It came to the sort of decision Catherines father would have called a compromise. It leaned forward, eyes rolling up to watch Jessie carefully at the same time, and seized the torn flap of tendon, fat, and gristle that had once been Gerald Burlingames right bicep. Growling, it yanked backward. Geralds arm came up; his limp fingers seemed to point through the east window at the Mercedes in the driveway. Stop it! Jessie shrieked. Her wounded voice now broke more frequently into that upper register where shrieks become gaspy falsetto whispers. Havent you done enough? Just leave him alone! The stray paid no heed. It shook its head rapidly from side to side, as it had often done when it and Cathy Sutlin played tugowar with one of its rubber toys. This, however, was no game. Curds of foam flew from the strays jaws as it worked, shaking the meat off the bone. Geralds carefully manicured hand swooped wildly back and forth in the air. Now he looked like a bandconductor urging his musicians to pick up their tempo. Jessie heard that thick throatclearing sound again and suddenly realized she had to vomit. No, Jessie! It was Ruths voice, and it was full of alarm. No, you cant do that! The smell might bring it to you ... bring it on you! Jessies face knotted into a stressful grimace as she struggled to bring her gorge under control. The ripping sound came again and she caught just a glimpse of the dogits forepaws were once again stiff and braced, and it seemed to stand at the end of a thick dark strip of elastic the color of a Ball jar gasketbefore she closed her eyes. She tried to put her hands over her face, temporarily forgetting in her distress that she was cuffed. Her hands stopped still at least two feet apart from each other and the chains jingled. Jessie moaned. It was a sound that went beyond desperation and into despair. It sounded like giving up. She heard that wet, snotty ripping sound once more. It ended with another bighappykiss smack. Jessie did not open her eyes. The stray began to back toward the hall door, its eyes never leaving the bitchmaster on the bed. In its jaws was a large, glistening chunk of Gerald Burlingame. If the master on the bed meant to try and take it back, it would make its move now. The dog could not thinkat least not as human beings understand that wordbut its complex network of instincts provided a very effective alternative to thought, and it knew that what it had doneand what it was about to doconstituted a kind of damnation. But it had been hungry for a long time. It had been left in the woods by a man who had gone back home whistling the theme from Born Free, and now it was starving. If the bitchmaster tried to take away its meal now, it would fight. It shot one final glance at her, saw she was making no move to get off her bed, and turned away. It carried the meat into the entry and settled down with it caught firmly between its paws. The wind gusted briefly, first breezing the door open and then banging it shut. The stray glanced briefly in that direction and ascertained in its doggy, notquitethinking way that it could push the door open with its muzzle and escape quickly if the need arose. With this last piece of business taken care of, it began to eat. 9 The urge to vomit passed slowly, but it did pass. Jessie lay on her back with her eyes pressed tightly shut, now beginning to really feel the painful throbbing in her shoulders. It came in slow, peristaltic waves, and she had a dismaying idea that this was only the beginning. I want to go to sleep, she thought. It was the childs voice again. Now it sounded shocked and frightened. It had no interest in logic, no patience for cans and cants. I was almost asleep when the bad dog came, and thats what I want nowto go to sleep. She sympathized wholeheartedly. The problem was, she didnt really feel sleepy anymore. She had just seen a dog tear a chunk out of her husband, and she didnt feel sleepy at all. What she felt was thirsty. Jessie opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was Gerald, lying on his own reflection in the highly polished bedroom floor like some grotesque human atoll. His eyes were still open, still staring furiously up at the ceiling, but his glasses now hung askew with one bow sticking into his ear instead of going over it. His head was cocked at such an extreme angle that his plump left cheek lay almost against his left shoulder. Between his right shoulder and right elbow there was nothing but a dark red smile with ragged white edges. Dear Jesus, Jessie muttered. She looked quickly away, out the west window. Golden lightit was almost sunset light nowdazzled her, and she shut her eyes again, watching the ebb and flow of red and black as her heart pushed membranes of blood through her closed lids. After a few moments of this, she noticed that the same darting patterns repeated themselves over and over again. It was almost like looking at protozoa under a microscope, protozoa on a slide which had been tinted with a red stain. She found this repeating pattern both interesting and soothing. She supposed you didnt have to be a genius to understand the appeal such simple repeating shapes held, given the circumstances. When all the normal patterns and routines of a persons life fell apartand with such shocking suddennessyou had to find something you could hold onto, something that was both sane and predictable. If the organized swirl of blood in the thin sheaths of skin between your eyeballs and the last sunlight of an October day was all you could find, then you took it and said thank you very much. Because if you couldnt find something to hold onto, something that made at least some sort of sense, the alien elements of the new world order were apt to drive you quite mad. Elements like the sounds now coming from the entry, for instance. The sounds that were a filthy, starving stray eating part of the man who had taken you to see your first Bergman film, the man who had taken you to the amusement park at Old Orchard Beach, coaxed you aboard that big Viking ship that swung back and forth in the air like a pendulum, then laughed until tears squirted out of his eyes when you said you wanted to go again. The man who had once made love to you in the bathtub until you were literally screaming with pleasure. The man who was now sliding down that dogs gullet in gobs and chunks. Alien elements like that. Strange days, pretty mamma, she said. Strange days indeed. Her speaking voice had become a dusty, painful croak. She supposed she would do well to just shut up and give it a rest, but when it was quiet in the bedroom she could hear the panic, still there, still creeping around on the big soft pads of its feet, looking for an opening, waiting for her to let down her guard. Besides, there was no real quiet. The chainsaw guy had packed it in for the day, but the loon still voiced its occasional cry and the wind was rising as night approached, banging the door more loudlyand more frequentlythan ever. Plus, of course, the sound of the dog dining on her husband. While Gerald had been waiting to collect and pay for their sub sandwiches in Amatos, Jessie had stepped next door to Michauds Market. The fish at Michauds was always goodalmost fresh enough to flop, as her grandmother would have said. She had bought some lovely fillet of sole, thinking she would panbroil it if they decided to stay overnight. Sole was good because Gerald, who would live on a diet of nothing but roast beef and fried chicken if left to his own devices (with the occasional order of deepfried mushrooms thrown in for nutritional purposes), actually claimed to like sole. She had bought it without the slightest premonition that he would be eaten before he could eat. Its a jungle out there, baby, Jessie said in her dusty, croaky voice, and realized she was now doing more than just thinking in Ruth Nearys voice; she actually sounded like Ruth, who in their college days would have lived on a diet of nothing but Dewars and Marlboros, if left to her own devices. That tough nobullshit voice spoke up then, as if Jessie had rubbed a magic lamp. Remember that Nick Lowe song you heard on IWBLM when you were coming home from your pottery class one day last winter? The one that made you laugh? She did. She didnt want to, but she did. It had been a Nick Lowe tune she believed had been titled She Used to Be a Winner (Now Shes Just the Doggys Dinner), a cynically amusing pop meditation on loneliness set to an incongruously sunny beat. Amusing as hell last winter, yes, Ruth was right about that, but not so amusing now. Stop it, Ruth, she croaked. If youre going to freeload in my head, at least have the decency to quit teasing me. Teasing you? Jesus, tootsie, Im not teasing you ; Im trying to wake you up! . I am awake! she said querulously. On the lake the loon cried out again, as if to back her up on that. Partly thanks to you! No, youre not. You havent been awakereally awakefor a long time. When something bad happens, Jess, do you know what you do? You tell yourself, Oh, this is nothing to worry about, this is just a bad dream. I get them every now and then, theyre no big deal, and as soon as I roll over on my back again Ill be fine. And thats what you do, you poor sap. Thats just what you do. Jessie opened her mouth to replysuch canards should not go unanswered, dry mouth and sore throat or notbut Goodwife Burlingame had mounted the ramparts before Jessie herself could do more than begin to organize her thoughts. How can you say such awful things? Youre horrible! Go away! Ruths nobullshit voice uttered its cynical bark of laughter again, and Jessie thought how disquietinghow horribly disquietingit was to hear part of your mind laughing in the makebelieve voice of an old acquaintance who was long gone to God knew where. Go away? Youd like that, wouldnt you? TootsieWootsie, Puddin n Pie, Daddys little girl. Any time the truth gets too close, any time you start to suspect the dream is maybe not just a dream, you run away. Thats ridiculous. Is it? Then what happened to Nora Callighan? For a moment that shocked Goodys voiceand her own, the one that usually spoke both aloud and in her mind as Ito silence, but in that silence a strange, familiar image formed a circle of laughing, pointing peoplemostly womenstanding around a young girl with her head and hands in stocks. She was hard to see because it was very darkit should still have been full daylight but was for some reason very dark, just the samebut the girls face would have been hidden even if the day had been bright. Her hair hung over it like a penitents shroud, although it was hard to believe she could have done anything too horrible; she was clearly no more than twelve or so. Whatever it was she was being punished for, it couldnt be for hurting her husband. This particular daughter of Eve was too young to have even begun her monthly courses, let alone have a husband. No, thats not true, a voice from the deeper ranges of her mind suddenly spoke up. This voice was both musical yet frighteningly powerful, like the cry of a whale. She started when she was only ten and a half. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he smelled blood, just like that dog out in the entry. Maybe it made him frantic. Shut up! Jessie cried. She felt suddenly frantic herself. Shut up, we dont talk about that! And speaking of smells, whats that other one? Ruth asked. Now the mental voice was harsh and eager ... the voice of a prospector who has finally stumbled onto a vein of ore he has long suspected but has never been able to find. That mineral smell, like salt and old pennies We dont talk about that, I said! She lay on the coverlet, her muscles tense beneath her cold skin, both her captivity and her husbands death forgottenat least for the time beingin the face of this new threat. She could feel Ruth, or some cutoff part of her for which Ruth spoke, debating whether or not to pursue the matter. When it decided not to (not directly, at least), both Jessie and Goodwife Burlingame breathed a sigh of relief. All rightlets talk about Nora instead, Ruth said. Nora, your therapist? Nora, your counsellor? The one you started to go see around the time you stopped painting because some of the paintings were scaring you? Which was also the time, coincidentally or not, when Geralds sexual interest in you seemed to evaporate and you started sniffing the collars of his shirts for perfume? You remember Nora, dont you? Nora Callighan was a prying bitch! the Goodwife snarled. No, Jessie muttered. She was wellintentioned, I dont doubt that a bit, she just always wanted to go one step too far. Ask one question too many. You said you liked her a lot. Didnt I hear you say that? I want to stop thinking, Jessie said. Her voice was wavery and uncertain. I especially want to stop hearing voices, and talking back to them, too. Its nuts. Well, you better listen just the same, Ruth said grimly, because you cant run away from this the way you ran away from Nora ... the way you ran away from me, for that matter. I never ran away from you, Ruth! Shocked denial, and not very convincing. She had done just that, of course. Had simply packed her bags and moved out of the cheesy but cheerful dorm suite she and Ruth shared. She hadnt done it because Ruth had started asking her too many of the wrong questionsquestions about Jessies childhood, questions about Dark Score Lake, questions about what might have happened there during the summer just after Jessie started to menstruate. No, only a bad friend would have moved out for such reasons. Jessie hadnt moved out because Ruth started asking questions; she moved out because Ruth wouldnt stop asking them when Jessie asked her to do so. That, in Jessies opinion, made Ruth a bad friend. Ruth had seen the lines Jessie had drawn in the dust ... and had then deliberately stepped over them anyway. As Nora Callighan had done, years later. Besides, the idea of running away under these conditions was pretty ludicrous, wasnt it? She was, after all, handcuffed to the bed. Dont insult my intelligence, cutiepie, Ruth said. Your mind isnt handcuffed to the bed, and we both know it. You can still run if you want to, but my advicemy strong adviceis dont you do it, because Im the only chance youve got. If you just lie there pretending this is a bad dream you got from sleeping on your left side, youre going to die in handcuffs. Is that what you want? Is that your prize for living your whole life in handcuffs, ever since I will not think about that! Jessie screamed at the empty room. For a moment Ruth was silent, but before Jessie could do more than begin to hope that shed gone away, Ruth was back ... and back at her, worrying her like a terrier worrying a rag. Come on, Jessyoud probably like to believe youre crazy rather than dig around in that old grave, but youre really not, you know. Im you, the Goodwifes you ... were all you, as a matter of fact. I have a pretty good idea of what happened that day at Dark Score when the rest of the family was gone, and the thing Im really curious about doesnt have a lot to do with the events per se. What Im really curious about is this is there a part of youone I dont know aboutthat wants to be sharing space with Gerald in that dogs guts come this time tomorrow? I only ask because that doesnt sound like loyalty to me; it sounds like lunacy. Tears were trickling down her cheeks again, but she didnt know if she was crying because of the possibilityfinally articulatedthat she actually could die here or because for the first time in at least four years she had come close to thinking about that other summer place, the one on Dark Score Lake, and about what happened there on the day when the sun went out. Once upon a time she had almost spilled that secret at a womens consciousness group ... back in the early seventies that had been, and of course attending that meeting had been her roomies idea, but Jessie had gone along willingly, at least to begin with; it had seemed harmless enough, just another act in the amazing tiedyed carnival that was college back then. For Jessie, those first two years of collegeparticularly with someone like Ruth Neary to tour her through the games, rides, and exhibitshad been for the most part quite wonderful, a time when fearlessness seemed usual and achievement inevitable. Those were the days when no dorm room was complete without a Peter Max poster and if you were tired of the Beatlesnot that anybody wasyou could slap on a little Hot Tuna or MC5. It had all been a little too bright to be real, like things seen through a fever which is not quite high enough to be lifethreatening. In fact, those first two years had been a blast. The blast had ended with that first meeting of the womens consciousness group. In there, Jessie had discovered a ghastly gray world which seemed simultaneously to preview the adult future that lay ahead for her in the eighties and to whisper of gloomy childhood secrets that had been buried alive in the sixties ... but did not lie quiet there. There had been twenty women in the living room of the cottage attached to the Neuworth Interdenominational Chapel, some perched on the old sofa, others peering out of the shadows thrown by the wings of the vast and lumpy parsonage chairs, most sitting crosslegged on the floor in a rough circle twenty women between the ages of eighteen and fortysomething. They had joined hands and shared a moment of silence at the beginning of the session. When that was over, Jessie had been assaulted by ghastly stories of rape, of incest, of physical torture. If she lived to be a hundred she would never forget the calm, pretty blonde girl who had pulled up her sweater to show the old scars of cigarette burns on the undersides of her breasts. That was when the carnival ended for Jessie Mahout. Ended? No, that wasnt right. It was as if she had been afforded a momentary glimpse behind the carnival; had been allowed to see the gray and empty fields of autumn that were the real truth nothing but empty cigarette wrappers and used condoms and a few cheap broken prizes caught in the tall grass, waiting to either blow away or be covered by the winter snows. She saw that silent stupid sterile world waiting beyond the thin layer of patched canvas which was all that separated it from the razzledazzle brightness of the midway, the patter of the hucksters, and the glimmerglamour of the rides, and it terrified her. To think that only this lay ahead for her, only this and nothing more, was awful; to think that it lay behind her as well, imperfectly hidden by the patched and tawdry canvas of her own doctored memories, was insupportable. After showing them the bottoms of her breasts, the pretty blonde girl had pulled her sweater back down and explained that she could say nothing to her parents about what her brothers friends had done to her on the weekend her parents had gone to Montreal because it might mean that what her brother had been doing to her off and on all during the last year would come out, and her parents would never have believed that. The blonde girls voice was as calm as her face, her tone perfectly rational. When she finished there was a thunderstruck pausea moment during which Jessie had felt something tearing loose inside her and had heard a hundred ghostly interior voices screaming in mingled hope and terrorand then Ruth had spoken. Why wouldnt they believe you? shed demanded. Jesus, Livthey burned you with live cigarettes! I mean, you had the burns as evidence! Why wouldnt they believe you? Didnt they love you? Yes, Jessie thought. Yes, they loved her. But Yes, the blonde girl said. They loved me. They still do. But they idolized my brother Barry. Sitting beside Ruth, the heel of one notquitesteady hand resting against her forehead, Jessie remembered whispering, Besides, it would have killed her. Ruth turned to her, began, What? and the blonde girl, still not crying, still eerily calm, said Besides, finding out something like that would have killed my mother. And then Jessie had known she was going to explode if she didnt get out of there. So she had gotten up, springing out of her chair so fast she had almost knocked the ugly, bulky thing over. She had sprinted from the room, knowing they were all looking at her, not caring. What they thought didnt matter. What mattered was that the sun had gone out, the very sun itself, and if she told, her story would be disbelieved only if God was good. If God was in a bad mood, Jessie would be believed ... and even if it didnt kill her mother, it would blow the family apart like a stick of dynamite in a rotten pumpkin. So she had run out of the room and through the kitchen and would have belted right on through the back door, except the back door was locked. Ruth chased after her, calling for her to stop, Jessie, stop. She had, but only because that damned locked door made her. Shed put her face against the cold dark glass, actually consideringyes, for just a moment she hadslamming her head right through it and cutting her throat, anything to blot out that awful gray vision of the future ahead and the past behind, but in the end she had simply turned around and slid down to the floor, clasping her bare legs below the hem of the short skirt shed been wearing and putting her forehead against her upraised knees and closing her eyes. Ruth sat down beside her and put an arm around her, rocking her back and forth, crooning to her, stroking her hair, encouraging her to give it up, get rid of it, sick it up, let it go. Now, lying here in the house on the shore of Kashwakamak Lake, she wondered what had happened to the tearless, eerily calm blonde girl who had told them about her brother Barry and Barrys friendsyoung men who had clearly felt a woman was just a lifesupport system for a cunt and that branding was a perfectly just punishment for a young woman who felt more or less okay about fucking her brother but not her brothers goodbuddies. More to the point, Jessie wondered what she had said to Ruth as they sat with their backs against the locked kitchen door and their arms around each other. The only thing she could remember for sure was something like He never burned me, he never burned me, he never hurt me at all. But there must have been more to it than that, because the questions Ruth had refused to stop asking had all pointed clearly in just one direction toward Dark Score Lake and the day the sun had gone out. She had finally left Ruth rather than tell ... just as she had left Nora rather than tell. She had run just as fast as her legs could carry herJessie Mahout Burlingame, also known as The Amazing Gingerbread Girl, the last wonder of a dubious age, survivor of the day the sun had gone out, now handcuffed to the bed and able to run no more. Help me, she said to the empty bedroom. Now that she had remembered the blonde girl with the eerily calm face and voice and the stipple of old circular scars on her otherwise lovely breasts, Jessie could not get her out of her mind, nor the knowledge that it hadnt been calmness, not at all, but some fundamental disconnection from the terrible thing that had happened to her. Somehow the blonde girls face became her face, and when Jessie spoke, she did so in the shaking, humbled voice of an atheist who has been stripped of everything but one final longshot prayer. Please help me. It wasnt God who answered but the part of her which apparently could speak only while masquerading as Ruth Neary. The voice now sounded gentle ... but not very hopeful. Ill try, but you have to help me. I know youre willing to do painful things, but you may have to think painful thoughts, too. Are you ready for that? This isnt about thinking, Jessie said shakily, and thought So thats what Goodwife Burlingame sounds like out loud. Its about ... well ... escaping. And you may have to muzzle her, Ruth said. Shes a valid part of you, Jessieof usand not really a bad person, but shes been left to run the whole show for far too long, and in a situation like this, her way of dealing with the world is not much good. Do you want to argue the point? Jessie didnt want to argue that point or any other. She was too tired. The light falling through the west window was growing steadily hotter and redder as sunset approached. The wind gusted, sending leaves rattling along the lakeside deck, which was empty now; all the deck furniture had been stacked in the living room. The pines soughed; the back door banged; the dog paused, then resumed its noisome smacking and ripping and chewing. Im so thirsty, she said mournfully. Okay, thenthats where we ought to start. She turned her head the other way until she felt the last warmth of the sun on the left side of her neck and the damp hair stuck to her cheek, and then she opened her eyes again. She found herself staring directly at Geralds glass of water, and her throat immediately sent out a parched, imperative cry. Lets begin this phase of operations by forgetting about the dog, Ruth said. The dog is just doing what it has to do to get along, and youve got to do the same. I dont know if I can forget it, Jessie said. I think you can, tootsI really do. If you could sweep what happened on the day the sun went out under the rug, I guess you can sweep anything under the rug. For a moment she almost had it all, and understood she could have it all, if she really wanted to. The secret of that day had never been completely sunk in her subconscious, as such secrets were in the TV soapoperas and the movie melodramas; it had been buried in a shallow grave, at best. There had been some selective amnesia, but of a completely voluntary sort. If she wanted to remember what had happened on the day the sun had gone out, she thought she probably could. As if this idea had been an invitation, her minds eye suddenly saw a vision of heartbreaking clarity a pane of glass held in a pair of barbecue tongs. A hand wearing an ovenmitt was turning it this way and that in the smoke of a small sod fire. Jessie stiffened on the bed and willed the image away. Lets get one thing straight, she thought. She supposed it was the Ruthvoice she was speaking to, but wasnt completely sure; she wasnt really sure of anything anymore. I dont want to remember. Got it? The events of that day have nothing to do with the events of this one. Theyre apples and oranges. Its easy enough to understand the connectionstwo lakes, two summer houses, two cases of (secrets silence hurt harm) sexual hankypankybut remembering what happened in 1963 cant do a thing for me now except add to my general misery. So lets just drop that whole subject, okay? Lets forget Dark Score Lake. What do you say, Ruth? she asked in a low voice, and her gaze shifted to the batik butterfly across the room. For just a moment there was another imagea little girl, somebodys sweet little Punkin, smelling the sweet aroma of aftershave and looking up into the sky through a piece of smoked glassand then it was mercifully gone. She looked at the butterfly for a few moments longer, wanting to make sure those old memories were going to stay gone, and then she looked back at Geralds glass of water. Incredibly, there were still a few slivers of ice floating on top, although the darkening room continued to hold the heat of the afternoon sun and would for awhile longer. Jessie let her gaze drift down the glass, let it embrace those chilly bubbles of condensation standing on it.

She couldnt actually see the coaster on which the glass stoodthe shelf cut it offbut she didnt have to see it to visualize the dark, spreading ring of moisture forming on it as those cool beads of condensate continued to trickle down the sides of the glass and pool around it at the bottom. Jessies tongue slipped out and swiped across her upper lip, not imparting much moisture. I want a drink! the scared, demanding voice of the childof somebodys sweet little Punkinyelled. I want it and I want it right... NOW! But she couldnt reach the glass. It was a clearcut case of so near and yet so far. Ruth Dont give up so easyif you could hit the goddam dog with an ashtray, tootsie, maybe you can get the glass. Maybe you can. Jessie raised her right hand again, straining as hard as her throbbing shoulder would allow, and still came up at least two and a half inches short. She swallowed, grimacing at the sandpapery jerk and clench of her throat. See? she asked. Are you happy now? Ruth didnt reply, but Goody did. She spoke up softly, almost apologetically, inside Jessies head. She said get it, not reach it. They... they might not be the same thing. Goody laughed in an embarrassed whoamItostickmyoarin way, and Jessie had a moment to think again how surpassingly odd it was to feel a part of yourself laughing like that, as if it really were an entirely separate entity. If I had a few more voices, Jessie thought, we could have a goddam bridge tournament in here. She looked at the glass a moment longer, then let herself flop back down on the pillows so she could study the underside of the shelf. It wasnt attached to the wall, she saw; it lay on four steel brackets that looked like upsidedown capital Ls. And the shelf wasnt attached to them, eithershe was sure of it. She remembered once when Gerald had been talking on the phone, and had absentmindedly attempted to lean on the shelf. Her end had started to come up, levitating like the end of a seesaw, and if Gerald hadnt snatched his hand away immediately, he would have flipped the shelf like a tiddlywink. The thought of the telephone distracted her for a moment, but only a moment. It sat on the low table in front of the east window, the one with its scenic view of the driveway and the Mercedes, and it might as well have been on another planet, for all the good it could do in her current situation. Her eyes returned to the underside of the shelf, first studying the plank itself and then scanning the Lshaped brackets again. When Gerald leaned on his end, her end had tilted. If she exerted enough pressure on her end to tilt his, the glass of water ... It might slide down, she said in a hoarse, musing voice. It might slide down to my end. Of course it might also go sliding gaily right past her to shatter on the floor, and it might bang into some unseen obstacle up there and overturn before it ever got to her, but it was worth trying, wasnt it? Sure, I guess so, she thought. I mean, I was planning to fly to New York in my Learjeteat at Four Seasons, dance the night away at Birdlandbut with Gerald dead I guess that would be a little tacky. And with all the good books currently out of reachall the bad ones, too, as far as that goesI guess I might as well try for the consolation prize. All right; how was she supposed to go about it? Very carefully, she said. Thats how. She used the handcuffs to pull herself up again and studied the glass some more. Not being able to actually see the surface of the shelf now struck her as a drawback. She had a pretty good idea of what was on her end, but was less sure about Geralds and the nomansland in the middle. Of course it wasnt surprising; who but someone with an eidetic memory could reel off a complete inventory of the items on a bedroom shelf? Who would have ever thought such things could matter? Well, they matter now. Im living in a world where all the perspectives have changed. Yes indeed. In this world a stray dog could be scarier than Freddy Krueger, the phone was in the Twilight Zone, the soughtfor desert oasis, goal of a thousand grizzled Foreign Legionnaires in a hundred desert romances, was a glass of water with a few last slivers of ice floating on top. In this new world order, the bedroom shelf had become a shipping lane as vital as the Panama Canal and an old paperback western or mystery in the wrong place could become a lethal roadblock. Dont you think youre exaggerating a little? she asked herself uneasily, but in truth she did not. This would be a longodds operation under the best of circumstances, but if there was junk on the runway, forget it. A single skinny Hercule Poirotor one of the Star Trek novels Gerald read and then dropped like used napkinswouldnt show above the angle of the shelf, but it would be more than enough to stop or overturn the waterglass. No, she wasnt exaggerating. The perspectives of this world really had changed, and enough to make her think of that science fiction movie where the hero started to shrink and went on getting smaller until he was living in his daughters dollhouse and going in fear of the family cat. She was going to learn the new rules in a hurry ... learn them and live by them. Dont lose your courage, Jessie, Ruths voice whispered. Dont worry, she said. Im going to tryI really am. But sometimes its good to know what youre up against. I think sometimes that makes a difference. She rotated her right wrist outward from her body as far as it would go, then raised her arm. In this position she looked like a womanshape in a line of Egyptian hieroglyphs. She began to patter her fingers on the shelf again, feeling for obstructions along the stretch where she hoped the glass would finish up. She touched a piece of fairly heavygauge paper and thumbed it for a moment, trying to think what it might be. Her first guess was a sheet from the notepad that usually hid in the clutter on the telephone table, but it wasnt thin enough for that. Her eye happened on a magazineeither Time or Newsweek, Gerald had brought both alonglying facedown beside the phone. She remembered him thumbing rapidly through one of the magazines while he took off his socks and unbuttoned his shirt. The piece of paper on the shelf was probably one of those annoying blowin subscription cards with which the newsstand copies of magazines are always loaded. Gerald often laid such cards aside for later use as bookmarks. It might be something else, but Jessie decided it didnt matter to her plans in any case. It wasnt solid enough to stop the glass or overturn it. There was nothing else up there, at least within reach of her stretching, wriggling fingers. Okay, Jessie said. Her heart had started to pound hard. Some sadistic pirate broadcaster in her mind tried to transmit a picture of the glass tumbling off the shelf and she immediately blocked the image out. Easy; easy does it. Slow and easy wins the race. I hope. Holding her right hand where it was, although bending it away from her body in that direction didnt work very well and hurt like the devil, Jessie raised her left hand (My ashtraythrowing hand, she thought with a grim glint of humor) and gripped the shelf with it well beyond the last supporting bracket on her side of the bed. Here we go, she thought, and began to exert downward pressure with her left hand. Nothing happened. Im probably pulling too close to that last bracket to get enough leverage. The problem is the goddam handcuff chain. I dont have enough slack to get as far out on the shelf as I need to be. Probably true, but the insight didnt change the fact that she wasnt doing a thing to the shelf with her left hand where it was. She would have to spider her fingers out a little fartherif she could, that wasand hope it would be enough. It was funnybook physics, simple but deadly. The irony was that she could reach under the shelf and push it up any time she liked. There was one small problem with that, howeverit would tip the glass the wrong way, off Geralds end and onto the floor. When you considered it closely, you saw that the situation really did have its amusing side; it was like an Americas Funniest Home Videos segment sent in from hell. Suddenly the wind dropped and the sounds from the entry seemed very loud. Are you enjoying him, shithead? Jessie screamed. Pain ripped at her throat, but she didntcouldntstop. I hope so, because the first thing Im going to do when I get out of these cuffs is blow your head off! Big talk, she thought. Very big talk for a woman who no longer even remembers if Geralds old shotgunthe one that belonged to his dadis here or in the attic of the Portland house. Nevertheless, there was a gratifying moment of silence from the shadowy world beyond the bedroom door. It was almost as if the dog were giving this threat its soberest, most thoughtful consideration. Then the smackings and chewings began again. Jessies right wrist twanged warningly, threatening to cramp up, warning her that she had better get on with her business right away ... if she actually had any business to do, that was. She leaned to the left and stretched her hand as far as the chain would allow. Then she began to put the pressure on the shelf again. At first there was nothing. She pulled harder, eyes slitted almost shut, the corners of her mouth turned down. It was the face of a child who expects a dose of bad medicine. And, just before she reached the maximum downward pressure her aching arm muscles could exert, she felt a tiny shift in the board, a change in the uniform drag of gravity so minute that it was more intuited than actually sensed. Wishful thinking, Jessthats all you felt. Only that and nothing more. No. It was the input of senses which had been jacked into the stratosphere by terror, perhaps, but it wasnt wishful thinking. She let go of the shelf and just lay there for a few moments, taking long slow breaths and letting her muscles recover. She didnt want them spasming or cramping up at the critical moment; she had quite enough problems without that, thanks. When she thought she felt as ready as she could feel, she curled her left fist loosely around the bedpost and slid it up and down until the sweat on her palm dried and the mahogany squeaked. Then she stretched out her arm and gripped the shelf again. It was time. Got to be careful, though. The shelf moved, no question about that, and itll move more, but its going to take all my strength to get that glass in motion... if I can do it at all, that is. And when a person gets near the end of their strength, control gets spotty. That was true, but it wasnt the kicker. The kicker was this she had no feel for the shelfs tippoint. Absolutely none at all. Jessie remembered seesawing with her sister Maddy on the playground behind Falmouth Grammar School they had come back early from the lake one summer and it seemed to her she had spent that whole August going up and down on those paintpeeling teeterboards with Maddy as her partnerand how they had been able to balance perfectly whenever they felt like it. All it took was for Maddy, who weighed a little more, to move a butts length in toward the middle. Long hot afternoons of practice, singing jumprope songs to each other as they went up and down, had enabled them to find each seesaws tippoint with an almost scientific exactitude; those half a dozen warped green boards standing in a row on the sizzling hottop had seemed almost like living things to them. She felt none of that eager liveliness under her fingers now. She would simply have to try her best and hope it was good enough. And whatever the Bible may say to the contrary, dont let your left hand forget what your right hand is supposed to be doing. Your left may be your ashtraythrowing hand, but your right had better be your glasscatching hand, Jessie. Theres only a few inches of shelf where youll have a chance to get hold of it. If it slides past that area, it wont matter if it stays upitll be as out of reach as it is right now. Jessie didnt think she could forget what her right hand was doingit hurt too much. Whether or not it would be able to do what she needed it to do was another question entirely, though. She increased the pressure on the left side of the shelf as steadily and as gradually as she could. A stinging drop of sweat ran into the corner of one eye and she blinked it away. Somewhere the back door was banging again, but it had joined the telephone in that other universe. Here there was only the glass, the shelf, and Jessie. Part of her expected the shelf to come up all at once like a brutal Jackinthebox, catapulting everything off, and she tried to steel herself against the possible disappointment. Worry about that if it happens, toots. In the meantime, dont lose your concentration. I think somethings happening. Something was. She could feel that minute shift againthat feel of the shelf starting to come unanchored at some point along Geralds side. This time Jessie didnt let up her pressure but increased it, the muscles in her upper left arm standing out in hard little arcs that trembled with strain. She voiced a series of small explosive grunts. That sense of the shelf coming unanchored grew steadily stronger. And suddenly the flat circular surface of the water in Geralds glass was a tilted plane and she heard the last slivers of ice chatter faintly as the right end of the board actually did come up. The glass itself did not move, however, and a horrible thought occurred to her what if some of the water trickling down the sides of the glass had seeped beneath the cardboard coaster on which it sat? What if it had formed a seal, bonding it to the shelf? No that cant happen. The words came out in a single whispered blurt, like a tired childs rote prayer. She pulled down harder on the left end of the shelf, using all her strength. Every last horse was now running in harness; the stable was empty. Please dont let it happen. Please. Geralds end of the shelf continued to rise, its end wavering wildly. A tube of Max Factor blush spilled off Jessies end and landed on the floor near the place where Geralds head had lain before the dog had come along and dragged him away from the bed. And now a new possibilitymore of a probability, actuallyoccurred to her. If she increased the angle of the shelf much more, it would simply slide down the line of Lbrackets, glass and all, like a toboggan going down a snowy hill. Thinking of the shelf as a seesaw could get her into trouble. It wasnt a seesaw; there was no central pivotpoint to which it was attached. Slide, you bastard! she screamed at the glass in a high, breathy voice. She had forgotten Gerald; had forgotten she was thirsty; had forgotten everything but the glass, now tilted at an angle so acute that water was almost slopping over the rim and she couldnt understand why it didnt simply fall over. It didnt, though; it just went on standing where it had stood all along, as if it had been glued to the spot. Slide! Suddenly it did. Its movement ran so counter to her black imaginings that she was almost unable to understand what was happening. Later it would occur to her that the adventure of the sliding glass suggested something less than admirable about her own mindset she had in some fashion or other been prepared for failure. It was success which left her shocked and gaping. The short, smooth journey of the glass down the shelf toward her right hand so stunned her that Jessie almost pulled harder with her left, a move that almost certainly would have overbalanced the precariously tilted shelf and sent it crashing to the floor. Then her fingers were actually touching the glass, and she screamed again. It was the wordless, delighted shriek of a woman who has just won the lottery. The shelf wavered, began to slip, then paused, as if it had a rudimentary mind of its own and was considering whether or not it really wanted to do this. Not much time, toots, Ruth warned. Grab the goddam thing while the grabbings good. Jessie tried, but the pads of her fingers only slid along the slick wet surface of the glass. There was nothing to grab, it seemed, and she couldnt get quite enough fingersurface on the thricedamned thing to grip. Water sloshed onto her hand, and now she sensed that even if the shelf held, the glass would soon tip over. Imagination, tootsjust the old idea that a sad little Punkin like you can never do anything right. That wasnt far from the markit was certainly too close for comfortbut it wasnt on the mark, not this time. The glass was getting ready to tip over, it really was, and she didnt have the slightest idea of what she could do to prevent that from happening. Why did she have to have such short, stubby, ugly fingers? Why? If only she could get them a little farther around the glass ... A nightmare image from some old TV commercial occurred to her a smiling woman in a fifties hairdo with a pair of blue rubber gloves on her hands. So flexible you can pick up a dime! the woman was screaming through her smile. Too bad you dont have a pair, little Punkin or Goodwife or whoever the hell you are! Maybe you could get that fucking glass before everything on the goddam shelf takes the express elevator! Jessie suddenly realized the smiling, screaming woman in the Playtex rubber gloves was her mother, and a dry sob escaped her. Dont give up, Jessie! Ruth yelled. Not yet! Youre close! I swear you are! She exerted the last tiny scrap of her strength on the left side of the shelf, praying incoherently that it wouldnt slidenot yet, Oh please God or whoever You are, please dont let it slide, not now, not yet. The board did slide ... but only a little. Then it held again, perhaps temporarily snagged on a splinter or balked by a warp in the wood. The glass slid a little farther into her hand, and nowcrazier and crazier it seemed to be talking, too, the goddam glass. It sounded like one of those grizzled bigcity cabdrivers who have a perpetual hardon against the world Jesus, lady, what else ya want me to do? Grow myself a goddam handle and turn into a fuckin pitcher forya? A fresh trickle of water fell on Jessies straining right hand. Now the glass would fall; now it was inevitable. In her mind she could already feel the freeze as icewater doused the back of her neck. No! She twisted her right shoulder a little farther, opened her fingers a little wider, let the glass slide a tiny bit deeper into the straining pocket of her hand. The cuff was digging into the back of that hand, sending jabs of pain all the way up to her elbow, but Jessie ignored them. The muscles of her left arm were twanging wildly now, and the shakes were communicating themselves to the tilted, unstable shelf. Another tube of makeup tumbled to the floor. The last few slivers of ice chimed faintly. Above the shelf, she could see the shadow of the glass on the wall. In the long sunset light it looked like a grain silo blown atilt by a strong prairie wind. More ... just a little bit more ... There is no more! There better be. Theres got to be. She stretched her right hand to its absolute tendoncreaking limit and felt the glass slide a tiny bit farther down the shelf. Then she closed her fingers again, praying it would finally be enough, because now there really was no moreshe had pushed her resources to their absolute limit. It almost wasnt; she could still feel the wet glass trying to squirm away. It had begun to seem like a live thing to her, a sentient being with a mean streak as wide as a turnpike passing lane. Its goal was to keep flirting toward her and then squirming away until her sanity broke and she lay here in the shadows of twilight, handcuffed and raving. Dont let it get away Jessie dont you dare DONT YOU DARE LET THAT FUCKING GLASS GET AWAY And although there was no more, not a single footpound of pressure, not a single quarterinch of stretch, she managed a little more anyway, turning her right wrist one final bit in toward the board. And this time when she curved her fingers around the glass, it remained motionless. I think maybe Ive got it. Not for sure, but maybe. Maybe. Or maybe it was just that she had finally gotten to the wishfulthinking part. She didnt care. Maybe this and maybe that and none of the maybes mattered anymore and that was actually a relief. The certainty was thisshe couldnt hold the shelf any longer. She had only tilted it three or four inches anyway, five at the most, but it felt as if she had bent down and picked up the whole house by one corner. That was the certainty. She thought, Everything is perspective... and the voices that describe the world to you, I suppose. They matter. The voices inside your head. With an incoherent prayer that the glass would remain in her hand when the shelf was no longer there to support it, she let go with her left hand. The shelf banged back onto its brackets, only slightly askew and shifted only an inch or two down to the left. The glass did stay in her hand, and now she could see the coaster. It clung to the bottom of the glass like a flying saucer. Please God dont let me drop it now. Dont let me dr A cramp knotted her left arm, making her jerk back against the headboard. Her face knotted as well, pinching inward until the lips were a white scar and the eyes were agonized slits. Wait, it will pass ... it will pass ... Yes, of course it would. Shed had enough muscle cramps in her life to know that, but in the meantime oh God it hurt. If she had been able to touch the biceps of her left arm with her right hand, she knew, the skin there would have felt as if it had been stretched over a number of small smooth stones and then sewn up again with cunning invisible thread. It didnt feel like a Charley horse; it felt like rigorfuckingmortis. No, just a Charley horse, Jessie. Like the one you had earlier. Wait it out, thats all. Wait it out and for Christs sweet sake dont drop that glass of water. She waited, and after an eternity or two, the muscles in her arm began to relax and the pain began to ease. Jessie breathed out a long harsh sigh of relief, then prepared to drink her reward. Drink, yes, Goody thought, but I think you owe yourself a little more than just a nice cool drink, my dear. Enjoy your reward... but enjoy it with dignity. No piggy gulping! Goody, you never change, she thought, but when she raised the glass, she did so with the stately calm of a guest at a court dinner, ignoring the alkali dryness along the roof of her mouth and the bitter pulse of thirst in her throat. Because you could put Goody down all you wantedshe practically begged for it sometimesbut behaving with a little dignity under these circumstances (especially under these circumstances) wasnt such a bad idea. She had worked for the water; why not take the time to honor herself by enjoying it? That first cold sip sliding over her lips and coiling across the hot rug of her tongue was going to taste like victory ... and after the run of lousy luck shed just been through, that would indeed be a taste to savor. Jessie brought the glass toward her mouth, concentrating on the wet sweetness just ahead, the drenching downpour. Her tastebuds cramped with anticipation, her toes curled, and she could feel a furious pulse beating beneath the angle of her jaw. She realized her nipples had hardened, as they sometimes did when she was turned on. Secrets of female sexuality you never dreamed of, Gerald, she thought. Handcuff me to the bedposts and nothing happens. Show me a glass of water, though, and I turn into a raving nympho. The thought made her smile and when the glass came to an abrupt halt still a foot away from her face, slopping water onto her bare thigh and making it ripple with gooseflesh, the smile stayed on at first. She felt nothing in those first few seconds but a species of stupid amazement and (?huh?) incomprehension. What was wrong? What could be wrong? You know what, one of the UFO voices said. It spoke with a calm certainty Jessie found dreadful. Yes, she supposed she did know, somewhere inside, but she didnt want to let that knowledge step into the spotlight which was her conscious mind. Some truths were simply too harsh to be acknowledged. Too unfair. Unfortunately, some truths were also selfevident. As Jessie gazed at the glass, her bloodshot, puffy eyes began to fill with horrified comprehension. The chain was the reason she wasnt getting her drink. The handcuff chain was just too fucking short. The fact had been so obvious that she had missed it completely. Jessie suddenly found herself remembering the night George Bush had been elected President. She and Gerald had been invited to a posh celebration party in the Hotel Sonestas rooftop restaurant. Senator William Cohen was the guest of honor, and the Presidentelect, Lonesome George himself, was expected to make a closedcircuit television call shortly before midnight. Gerald had hired a fogcolored limo for the occasion and it had pulled into their driveway at seven oclock, dead on time, but at ten past the hour she had still been sitting on the bed in her best black dress, rummaging through her jewelry box and cursing as she hunted for a special pair of gold earrings. Gerald had poked his head impatiently into the room to see what was holding her up, listened with that Why are you girls always so darned silly? expression that she absolutely hated on his face, then said he wasnt sure, but he thought she was wearing the ones she was looking for. She had been. It had made her feel small and stupid, a perfect justification for his patronizing expression. It had also made her feel like flying at him and knocking out his beautifully capped teeth with one of the sexy but exquisitely uncomfortable highheeled shoes she was wearing. What she had felt then was mild compared to what she was feeling now, however, and if anyone deserved getting their teeth knocked out, it was her. She thrust her head as far forward as she could, pooching her lips out like the heroine of some corny old blackandwhite romance movie. She got so close to the glass that she could see tiny sprays of airbubbles caught in the last few slivers of ice, close enough to actually smell the minerals in the wellwater (or to imagine she did), but she did not get quite close enough to drink from it. When she reached the point where she could simply stretch no farther, her puckered kissme lips were still a good four inches from the glass. It was almost enough, but almost, as Gerald (and her father as well, now that she thought about it) had been fond of saying, only counted in horseshoes. I dont believe it, she heard herself saying in her new hoarse ScotchandMarlboros voice. I just dont believe it. Anger suddenly woke inside her and screamed at her in Ruth Nearys voice to throw the glass across the room; if she could not drink from it, Ruths voice proclaimed harshly, she would punish it; if she could not satisfy her thirst with what was in it, she could at least satisfy her mind with the sound of it shattering to a thousand bits against the wall. Her grip on the glass tightened and the steel chain softened to a lax arc as she drew her hand back to do just that. Unfair! It was just so unfair! The voice which stopped her was the soft, tentative voice of Goodwife Burlingame. Maybe theres a way, Jessie. Dont give up yetmaybe theres still a way. Ruth made no verbal reply to this, but there was no mistaking her sneer of disbelief; it was as heavy as iron and as bitter as a squirt of lemonjuice. Ruth still wanted her to throw the glass. Nora Callighan would undoubtedly have said that Ruth was heavily invested in the concept of payback. Dont pay any attention to her, the Goodwife said. Her voice had lost its unusual tentative quality; it sounded almost excited now. Put it back on the shelf, Jessie. And what then? Ruth asked. What then, O Great White Guru, O Goddess of Tupperware and Patron Saint of the Church of ShopbyMail? Goody told her, and Ruths voice fell silent as Jessie and all the other voices inside her listened. 10 She put the glass back on the shelf carefully, taking care to make sure she didnt leave it hanging over the edge. Her tongue now felt like a piece of 5 sandpaper and her throat actually seemed infected with thirst. It reminded her of the way she had felt in the autumn of her tenth year, when a combined case of the flu and bronchitis had kept her out of school for a month and a half. There had been long nights during that siege when she had awakened from confused, jangling nightmares she couldnt remember (except you can Jessie you dreamed about the smoked glass; you dreamed about how the sun went out; you dreamed about the flat and tearful smell that was like minerals in wellwater; you dreamed about his hands) and she was drenched with sweat but felt too weak to reach for the pitcher of water on the bedtable. She remembered lying there, wet and sticky and feversmelling on the outside, parched and full of phantoms on the inside; lying there and thinking that her real disease was not bronchitis but thirst. Now, all these years later, she felt exactly the same way. Her mind kept trying to return to the horrible moment when she had realized she wasnt going to be able to bridge the last sliver of distance between the glass and her mouth. She kept seeing the tiny sprays of airbubbles in the melting ice, kept smelling the faint aroma of minerals trapped in the aquifer far beneath the lake. These images taunted her like an unreachable itch between the shoulderblades. Nevertheless, she made herself wait. The part of her that was Goody Burlingame said she needed to take some time in spite of the taunting images and her throbbing throat. She needed to wait for her heart to slow down, for her muscles to stop trembling, for her emotions to settle a bit. Outside, the last color was fading from the air; the world was going a solemn and melancholy gray. On the lake, the loon lifted its piercing cry into the evening gloom. Shut your yap, Mr. Loon, Jessie said, and chuckled. It sounded like a rusty hinge. All right, dear, the Goodwife said. I think its time to try. Before it gets dark. Better dry your hands again first, though. She cupped both hands around the bedposts this time, rubbing them up and down until they produced squeaks. She held up her right hand and wiggled it in front of her eyes. They laughed when I sat down at the piano, she thought. Then, carefully, she reached just beyond the place where the glass stood on the edge of the shelf. She began to patter her fingers along the wood again. The handcuff chinked against the side of the glass once and she froze, waiting for it to overturn. When it didnt, she resumed her cautious exploration. She had almost decided that what she was looking for had slid down the shelfor entirely off itwhen she finally touched the corner of the blowin card. She tweezed it between the first and second fingers of her right hand and brought it carefully up and away from the shelf and the glass. Jessie steadied her grip on the card with her thumb and looked at it curiously. It was bright purple, with noisemakers dancing tipsily along the upper edge. Confetti and streamers drifted down between the words. Newsweek was celebrating BIG BIG SAVINGS, the card announced, and it wanted her to join the party. Newsweeks writers would keep her up to date on world events, take her behind the scenes with world leaders, and offer her indepth coverage of arts, politics, and the sporting life. Although it did not come right out and say so, the card pretty much implied that Newsweek could help Jessie make sense of the entire cosmos.

Best of all, those lovable lunatics in Newsweeks subscription department were offering a deal so amazing it could make your urine steam and your head explode if she used THIS VERY CARD to subscribe to Newsweek for three years, she would get each issue AT LESS THAN HALF THE NEWSSTAND PRICE! And was money a problem? Absolutely not! She would be billed later. I wonder if they have Direct Bed Service for handcuffed ladies, Jessie thought. Maybe with George Will or Jane Bryant Quinn or one of those other pompous old poops to turn the pages for mehandcuffs make doing that so dreadfully difficult, you know. Yet below the sarcasm, she felt a species of odd nervous wonder, and she couldnt seem to stop studying the purple card with its letshaveaparty motif, its blanks for her name and address, and its little squares marked DiCl, MC, Visa, and AMEX. Ive been cursing these cards all my lifeespecially when I have to bend over and pick one of the damned things up or see myself as just another litterbugwithout ever guessing that my sanity, maybe even my life, might depend on one someday. Her life? Was that really possible? Did she actually have to admit such a horrid idea into her calculations after all? Jessie was reluctantly coming to believe that she did. She might be here for quite awhile before someone discovered her, and yes, she supposed it was just barely possible that the difference between life and death could come down to a single drink of water. The idea was surreal but it no longer seemed patently ridiculous. Same thing as before, dearslow and easy wins the race. Yes ... but who would ever have believed the finishline would turn out to be situated in such weird countryside? She did move slowly and carefully, however, and was relieved to discover that manipulating the blowin card onehanded was not as difficult as she had feared it might be. This was partly because it was about six inches by fouralmost the size of two playing cards laid side by sidebut mostly because she wasnt trying to do anything very tricky with it. She held the card lengthwise between her first and second fingers, then used her thumb to bend the last halfinch of the long side all the way down. The fold wasnt even, but she thought it would serve. Besides, nobody was going to come along and judge her work; Brownie Crafts Hour on Thursday nights at the First Methodist Church of Falmouth was long behind her now. She pinched the purple card firmly between her first two fingers again and folded over another halfinch. It took her almost three minutes and seven foldovers to get to the end of the card. When she finally did, she had something that looked like a bomber joint clumsily rolled in jaunty purple paper. Or, if you stretched your imagination a little, a straw. Jessie stuck it in her mouth, trying to hold the crooked folds together with her teeth. When she had it as firmly as she thought she was going to get it, she began feeling around for the glass again. Stay careful, Jessie. Dont spoil it all with impatience now! Thanks for the advice. Also for the idea. It was greatI really mean that. Now, however, Id like you to shut up long enough for me to take my shot. Okay? When her fingertips touched the smooth surface of the glass, she slid them around it with the gentleness and caution of a young lover slipping her hand into her boyfriends fly for the first time. Gripping the glass in its new position was a relatively simple matter. She brought it around and lifted it as far as the chain would allow. The last slivers of ice had melted, she saw; tempus had gone fugiting merrily along despite her feeling that it had stopped dead in its tracks around the time the dog had put in its first appearance. But she wouldnt think about the dog. In fact, she was going to work hard at believing that no dog had ever been here. Youre good at unhappening things, arent you, tootsiewootsie? Hey, RuthIm trying to keep a grip on myself as well as on the damned glass, in case you didnt notice. If playing a few mindgames helps me do that, I dont see what the big deal is. Just shut up for awhile, okay? Give it a rest and let me get on with my business. Ruth apparently had no intention of giving it a rest, however. Shut up! she marvelled. Boy, how that takes me backits better than a Beach Boys oldie on the radio. You always did give good shut up, Jessieremember that night in the dorm after we came back from your first and last consciousnessraising session at Neuworth? I dont want to remember, Ruth. Im sure you dont, so Ill remember for both of us, hows that for a deal? You kept saying it was the girl with the scars on her breasts that had upset you, only her and nothing more, and when I tried to tell you what youd said in the kitchenabout how you and your father had been alone at your place on Dark Score Lake when the sun went out in 1963, and how hed done something to youyou told me to shut up. When I wouldnt, you tried to slap me. When I still wouldnt, you grabbed your coat, ran out, and spent the night somewhere elseprobably in Susie Timmels little fleabag cabin down by the river, the one we used to call Susies Lez Hotel. By the end of the week, youd found some girls who had an apartment downtown and needed another roomie. Boom, as fast as that ... but then, you always moved fast when youd made up your mind, Jess, Ill give you that. And like I said, you always gave good shut up. Shu There! Whatd I tell you? Leave me alone! Im pretty familiar with that one, too. You know what hurt me the most, Jessie? It wasnt the trust thingI knew even then that it was nothing personal, that you felt you couldnt trust anyone with the story of what happened that day, including yourself. What hurt was knowing how close you came to spilling it all, there in the kitchen of the Neuworth Parsonage. We were sitting with our backs against the door and our arms around each other and you started to talk. You said, I could never tell, it would have killed my Mom, and even if it didnt, she would have left him and I loved him. We all loved him, we all needed him, they would have blamed me, and he didnt do anything, not really. I asked you who didnt do anything and it came out of you so fast it was like youd spent the last nine years waiting for someone to pop the question. My father, you said. We were at Dark Score Lake on the day the sun went out. You would have told me the restI know you wouldbut that was when that dumb bitch came in and asked, Is she all right? As if you looked all right, you know what I mean? Jesus, sometimes I cant believe how dumb people can be. They ought to make it a law that you have to get a license, or at least a learners permit, before youre allowed to talk. Until you pass your Talkers Test, you should have to be a mute. It would solve a lot of problems. But thats not the way things are, and as soon as Hart Halls answer to Florence Nightingale came in, you closed up like a clam. There was nothing I could do to make you open up again, although God knows I tried. You should have just left me alone! Jessie returned. The glass of water was starting to shake in her hand, and the makeshift purple straw was trembling between her lips. You should have stopped meddling! It didnt concern you! Sometimes friends cant help their concern, Jessie, the voice inside said, and it was so full of kindness that Jessie was silenced. I looked it up, you know. I figured out what you must have been talking about and I looked it up. I didnt remember anything at all about an eclipse back in the early sixties, but of course I was in Florida at the time, and a lot more interested in snorkeling and the Delray lifeguardI had the most incredible crush on himthan I was in astronomical phenomena. I guess I wanted to make sure the whole thing wasnt some kind of crazy fantasy or somethingmaybe brought on by that girl with the horrible burns on her bazooms. It was no fantasy. There was a total solar eclipse in Maine, and your summer house on Dark Score Lake would have been right in the path of totality. July of 1963. Just a girl and her Dad, watching the eclipse. You wouldnt tell me what good old Dad did to you, but I knew two things, Jessie that he was your father, which was bad, and that you were tengoingoneleven, on the childhood rim of puberty ... and that was worse. Ruth, please stop. You couldnt have picked a worse time to start raking up all that old But Ruth would not be stopped. The Ruth who had once been Jessies roommate had always been determined to have her sayevery single word of itand the Ruth who was now Jessies headmate apparently hadnt changed a bit. The next thing I knew, you were living offcampus with three little Sorority Susiesprincesses in Aline jumpers and Ship n Shore blouses, each undoubtedly owning a set of those underpants with the days of the week sewn on them. I think you made a conscious decision to go into training for the Olympic Dusting and FloorWaxing Team right around then. You unhappened that night at the Neuworth Parsonage, you unhappened the tears and the hurt and the anger, you unhappened me. Oh, we still saw each other once in awhilesplit the occasional pizza and pitcher of Molsons down at Patsbut our friendship was really over, wasnt it? When it came down to a choice between me and what happened to you in July of 1963, you chose the eclipse. The glass of water was trembling harder. Why now, Ruth? she asked, unaware that she was actually mouthing the words in the darkening bedroom. Why now, thats what I want to knowgiven that in this incarnation youre really a part of me, why now? Why at the exact time when I can least afford being upset and distracted? The most obvious answer to that question was also the most unappetizing because there was an enemy inside, a sad, bad bitch who liked her just the way she washandcuffed, aching, thirsty, scared, and miserablejust fine. Who didnt want to see that condition alleviated in the slightest. Who would stoop to any dirty trick to see that it wasnt. The total solar eclipse lasted just over a minute that day, Jessie... except in your mind. In there, its still going on, isnt it? She closed her eyes and focused all her thought and will on steadying the glass in her hand. Now she spoke mentally to Ruths voice without selfconsciousness, as if she really were speaking to another person instead of to a part of her brain that had suddenly decided this was the right time to do a little work on herself, as Nora Callighan would have put it. Let me alone, Ruth. If you still want to discuss these things after Ive taken a stab at getting a drink, okay. But for now, will you please just shut the fuck up, she finished in a low whisper. Yes, Ruth replied at once. I know theres something or someone inside you, trying to throw dirt in the works, and I know it sometimes uses my voiceits a great ventriloquist, no doubt about thatbut its not me. I loved you then, and I love you now. That was why I kept trying to stay in touch as long as I did ... because I loved you. And, I suppose, because us highriding bitches have to stick together. Jessie smiled a little, or tried to, around the makeshift straw. Now go for it, Jessie, and go hard. Jessie waited for a moment, but there was nothing else. Ruth was gone, at least for the time being. She opened her eyes again, then slowly bent her head forward, the rolledup card jutting out of her mouth like FDRs cigarette holder. Please God, Im begging you ... let this work. Her makeshift straw slid into the water. Jessie closed her eyes and sucked. For a moment there was nothing, and clear despair rose up in her mind. Then water filled her mouth, cool and sweet and there, surprising her into a kind of ecstasy. She would have sobbed with gratitude if her mouth hadnt been so strenuously puckered around the end of the rolledup subscription card; as it was, she could make only a foggy hooting sound through her nose. She swallowed the water, feeling it coating her throat like liquid satin, and then began to suck again. She did this as ardently and as mindlessly as a hungry calf working at its mothers teat. Her straw was a long way from perfect, delivering only sips and slurps and rills instead of a steady stream, and most of what she was sucking into the tube was spilling out again from the imperfect seals and crooked folds. On some level she knew this, could hear water pattering to the coverlet like raindrops, but her grateful mind still fervently believed that her straw was one of the greatest inventions ever created by the mind of woman, and that this moment, this drink from her dead husbands waterglass, was the apogee of her life. Dont drink it all, Jesssave some for later. She didnt know which of her phantom companions had spoken this time, and it didnt matter. It was great advice, but so was telling an eighteenyearold boy halfmad with six months of heavy petting that it didnt matter if the girl was finally willing; if he didnt have a rubber, he should wait. Sometimes, she was discovering, it was impossible to take the minds advice, no matter how good it was. Sometimes the body simply rose up and slapped all that good advice aside. She was discovering something else, as wellgiving in to those simple physical needs could be an inexpressible relief. Jessie went on sucking through the rolledup card, tilting the glass to keep the surface of the water brimming over the far end of the soggy, misshapen purple thing, aware in some part of her mind that the card was leaking worse than ever and she was insane not to stop and wait for it to dry out again, but going on anyway. What finally stopped her was the realization that she was sucking nothing but air, and had been for several seconds. There was water left in Geralds glass, but the tip of her makeshift straw could no longer quite touch it. The coverlet beneath the rolledup blowin card was dark with moisture. I could get whats left, though. I could. If I could turn my hand a little farther in that unnatural backward direction when I needed to get hold of the miserable glass in the first place, I think I can stick my neck a little farther forward to get those last few sips of water. Think I can? I know I can. She did know it, and later on she would test the idea, but for now the whitecollar guys on the top floorthe ones with all the good viewshad once again wrested control away from the daylaborers and shop stewards who ran the machinery; the mutiny was over. Her thirst was a long way from being entirely slaked, but her throat had quit throbbing and she felt a lot better ... mentally as well as physically. Sharper in her thoughts and marginally brighter in her outlook. She found she was glad shed left that last little bit in the glass. Two sips of water through a leaky straw probably wouldnt spell the difference between remaining handcuffed to the bed and finding a way to wiggle out of this mess on her ownlet alone between life and deathbut getting those last couple of sips might occupy her mind when and if it tried to turn to its own morbid devices again. After all, night was coming, her husband was lying dead nearby, and it looked like she was camping out. Not a pretty picture, especially when you added the hungry stray who was camping out with her, but Jessie found she was growing sleepy again just the same. She tried to think of reasons to fight her growing drowsiness and couldnt come up with any good ones. Even the thought of waking up with her arms numb to the elbows didnt seem like a particularly big deal. She would simply move them around until the blood was flowing briskly again. It wouldnt be pleasant, but she had no doubt about her ability to do it. Also, you might have an idea while youre asleep, dear, Goodwife Burlingame said. That always happens in books. Maybe you will, Jessie said. After all, youve had the best one so far. She let herself lie down, using her shoulderblades to scrunch the pillow as far up against the head of the bed as she could. Her shoulders ached, her arms (especially the left one) throbbed, and her stomach muscles were still fluttering with the strain of holding her upper body far enough forward to drink through the straw ... but she felt strangely content, just the same. At peace with herself. Content? How can you feel content? Your husband is dead, after all, and you played a part in that, Jessie. And suppose you are found? Suppose you are rescued? Have you thought about how this situation is going to took to whoever finds you? How do you suppose its going to look to Constable Teagarden, as far as that goes? How long do you think it will take him to decide to call the State Police? Thirty seconds? Maybe forty? They think a little slower out here in the country, though, dont theyit might take him all of two minutes. She couldnt argue with any of that. It was true. Then how can you feel content, Jessie? How can you possibly feel content with things like that hanging over you? She didnt know, but she did. Her sense of tranquility was as deep as a featherbed on the night a March gale filled with sleet roars out of the northwest, and as warm as the goosedown comforter on that bed. She suspected that most of this feeling stemmed from causes which were purely physical if you were thirsty enough, it was apparently possible to get stoned on half a glass of water. But there was a mental side, as well. Ten years ago she had reluctantly given up her job as a substitute teacher, finally giving in to the pressure of Geralds persistent (or maybe relentless was the word she was actually looking for) logic. He was making almost a hundred thousand dollars a year by then; next to that, her five to seven grand looked pretty paltry. It was, in fact, an actual annoyance at tax time, when the IRS took most of it and then went sniffing over their financial records, wondering where the rest of it was. When she complained about their suspicious behavior, Gerald had looked at her with a mixture of love and exasperation. It wasnt quite his Why are you girls always so silly? expressionthat one didnt start to show up regularly for another five or six yearsbut it was close. They see what Im making, he told her, they see two large German cars in the garage, they look at the pictures of the place on the lake, and then they look at your tax forms and see youre working for what they think of as chump change. They cant believe itit looks phony to them, a cover for something elseand so they go snooping around, looking for whatever that something else might be. They dont know you like I do, thats all. She had been unable to explain to Gerald what the substitute contract meant to her ... or maybe it was that he had been unwilling to listen. Either way, it came to the same teaching, even on a parttime basis, filled her up in some important way, and Gerald didnt get that. Nor had he been able to get the fact that subbing formed a bridge to the life she had lived before shed met Gerald at that Republican mixer, when shed been a fulltime English teacher at Waterville High, a woman on her own who was working for a living, who was wellliked and respected by her colleagues, and who was beholden to no one. She had been unable to explain (or he had been unwilling to listen) how quitting teachingeven on that final parttime, piecework basismade her feel mournful and lost and somehow useless. That rudderless feelingprobably caused as much by her inability to catch pregnant as by her decision to return her contract unsignedhad departed from the surface of her mind after a year or so, but it had never entirely left the deeper ranges of her heart. She had sometimes felt like a clich to herselfyoung teacherlady weds successful lawyer whose name goes up on the door at the tender (professionally speaking, that is) age of thirty. This young (well, relatively young) woman eventually steps into the foyer of that puzzle palace known as middle age, looks around, and finds she is suddenly all aloneno job, no kids, and a husband who is almost completely focused (one wouldnt want to say fixated; that might be accurate, but it would also be unkind) on climbing that fabled ladder of success. This woman, suddenly faced with forty just beyond the next bend in the road, is exactly the sort of woman most likely to get in trouble with drugs, booze, or another man. A younger man, usually. None of that happened to this young (well ... previously young) woman, but Jessie still found herself with a scary amount of time on her handstime to garden, time to go malling, time to take classes (the painting, the pottery, the poetry ... and she could have had an affair with the man who taught the poetry if shed wanted to, and she had almost wanted to). There had also been time to do a little work on herself, which was how she had happened to meet Nora. Yet not one of those things had left her feeling the way she felt now, as though her weariness and aches were badges of valor and her sleepiness a justly won reward ... the handcuffed ladies version of Miller Time, you might say. Hey, Jessthe way you got that water really was pretty great. It was another UFO, but this time Jessie didnt mind. Just as long as Ruth didnt show up for awhile. Ruth was interesting, but she was also exhausting. A lot of people never would have even gotten the glass, her UFO fan continued, and using the blowin card for a straw ... that was a masterstroke. So go ahead and feel good. Its allowed. A little nap is allowed, too. But the dog, Goody said doubtfully. That dog isnt going to bother you one damned bit ... and you know why. Yes. The reason the dog wasnt going to bother her was lying nearby on the bedroom floor. Gerald was now nothing but a shadow among shadows, for which Jessie was grateful. Outside, the wind gusted again. The sound of it hissing through the pines was comforting, lulling. Jessie closed her eyes. But be careful what you dream! Goody called after her in sudden alarm, but her voice was distant and not terribly compelling. Still, it tried again Be careful what you dream, Jessie! Im serious! Yes, of course she was. The Goodwife was always serious, which meant she was also often tiresome. Whatever I dream, Jessie thought, it wont be that Im thirsty. I havent had many clear victories over the last ten yearsmostly one murky guerrilla engagement after anotherbut getting that drink of water was a clear win. Wasnt it? Yes, the UFO voice agreed. It was a vaguely masculine voice, and she found herself wondering in a sleepy way if perhaps it was the voice of her brother, Will ... Will as hed been as a child, back in the sixties. You bet it was. It was great. Five minutes later Jessie was sleeping deeply, arms up and splayed in a limp Vshape, wrists held loosely to the bedposts by the handcuffs, head lolling against her right shoulder (the less painful one), long, slow snores drifting from her mouth. And at some pointlong after dark had fallen and a white rind of moon had risen in the eastthe dog appeared in the doorway again. Like Jessie, it was calmer now that its most immediate need had been met and the clamor in its stomach had been stilled to some extent. It gazed at her for a long time with its good ear cocked and its muzzle up, trying to decide if she was really asleep or only pretending. It decided (mostly on the basis of smellthe sweat which was now drying, the total absence of the crackling ozone stink of adrenaline) that she was asleep. There would be no kicks or shouts this timenot if it was careful not to wake her up. The dog padded softly to the heap of meat in the middle of the floor. Although its hunger was now less, the meat actually smelled better. This was because its first meal had gone a long way toward breaking down the ancient, inbred taboo against this sort of meat, although the dog did not know this and wouldnt have cared if it did. It lowered its head, first sniffing the nowattractive aroma of dead lawyer with all the delicacy of a gourmet, then closing its teeth gently on Geralds lower lip. It pulled, applying pressure slowly, stretching the flesh further and further. Gerald began to look as if he were deep in some monstrous pout. The lip finally tore off, revealing his bottom teeth in a big dead grin. The dog swallowed this small delicacy in a single gulp, then licked its chops. Its tail began to wag again, this time moving in slow, contented sweeps. Two tiny spots of light danced on the ceiling high above; moonlight reflected from the fillings in two of Geralds lower molars. These fillings had been done only the week before, and they were still as fresh and shiny as newly minted quarters. The dog licked its chops a second time, looking lovingly at Gerald as it did so. Then it stretched its neck forward, almost exactly as Jessie had stretched hers in order to finally plop her straw into the glass. The dog sniffed Geralds face, but it did not just sniff; it allowed its nose to go on a kind of olfactory vacation there, first sampling the faint floorpolishy aroma of brown wax buried deep in the dead masters left ear, then the intermingled odors of sweat and Prell at the hairline, then the sharp, entrancingly bitter smell of clotted blood on the crown of Geralds head. It lingered especially long at Geralds nose, conducting a delicate investigation into those now tideless channels with its scratched, dirty, but ohsosensitive muzzle. Again there was that sense of gourmandizing, a feeling that the dog was choosing among many treasures. At last it sank its sharp teeth deeply into Geralds left cheek, clamped them together, and began to pull. On the bed, Jessies eyes had begun to move rapidly back and forth behind her lids and now she moaneda high, wavering sound, full of terror and recognition. The dog looked up at once, its body dropping into an instinctive cringe of guilt and fear. It didnt last long; already it had begun to see this pile of meat as its private larder, for which it would fightand perhaps dieif challenged. Besides, it was only the bitchmaster making that sound, and the dog was now quite sure that the bitchmaster was powerless. It dipped its head down, seized Gerald Burlingames cheek once more, and yanked backward, shaking its head briskly from side to side as it did so. A long strip of the dead mans cheek came free with a sound like strapping tape being pulled briskly off the dispenser roll. Gerald now wore the ferocious, predatory smile of a man who has just filled a straightflush in a highstakes poker game. Jessie moaned again. The sound was followed by a string of guttural, unintelligible sleeptalk. The dog glanced up at her once more. It was sure she couldnt get off the bed and bother it, but those sounds made it uneasy, just the same. The old taboo had faded, but it hadnt disappeared. Besides, its hunger was sated; what it was doing now wasnt eating but snacking. It turned and trotted out of the room again. Most of Geralds left cheek dangled from its mouth like the scalp of an infant. 11 It is August 14th, 1965a little over two years since the day the sun went out. It is Wills birthday; he has gone around all day solemnly telling people that he has now lived a year for each inning in a baseball game. Jessie is unable to understand why this seems like a big deal to her brother, but it clearly does, and she decides that if Will wants to compare his life to a baseball game, thats perfectly okay. For quite awhile everything that happens at her little brothers birthday party is perfectly okay. Marvin Gaye is on the recordplayer, true, but it is not the bad song, the dangerous song. I wouldnt be doggone, Marvin sings, mockthreatening, Id be long gone ... baybee. Actually sort of a cute song, and the truth is that the day has been a lot better than okay, at least so far; it has been, in the words of Jessies greataunt Katherine, finer than fiddlemusic. Even her Dad thinks so, although he wasnt very keen on coming back to Falmouth for Wills birthday when the idea was first suggested. Jessie has heard him say I guess it was a pretty good idea, after all to her Mom, and that makes her feel good, because it was sheJessie Mahout, daughter of Tom and Sally, sister of Will and Maddy, wife of nobodywho put the idea over. Shes the reason theyre here instead of inland, at Sunset Trails. Sunset Trails is the family camp (although after three generations of haphazard family expansion, it is really big enough to be called a compound) on the north end of Dark Score Lake. This year they have broken their customary nine weeks of seclusion there because Will wantsjust once, he has told his mother and father, speaking in the tones of a nobly suffering old grandee who knows he cannot cheat the reaper much longerto have a birthday party with his restoftheyear friends as well as his family. Tom Mahout vetoes the idea at first. He is a stock broker who divides his time between Portland and Boston, and for years he has told his family not to believe all that propaganda about how guys who go to work wearing ties and shirts with white collars spend their days goofing offeither hanging around the watercooler or dictating lunch invitations to pretty blondes from the steno pool. No hardscrabble spudfarmer in Aroostook County works any harder than I do, he frequently tells them. Keeping up with the market isnt easy, and it isnt particularly glamorous, either, no matter what you may have heard to the contrary. The truth is none of them have heard anything to the contrary, all of them (his wife included, most likely, although Sally would never say so) think his job sounds duller than donkeyshit, and only Maddy has the vaguest idea of what it is he does. Tom insists that he needs that time on the lake to recover from the stresses of his job, and that his son will have plenty of birthdays with his friends later on. Will is turning nine, after all, not ninety. Plus, Tom adds, birthday parties with your pals really arent much fun until youre old enough to have a keg or two. So Wills request to have his birthday at the familys yearround home on the coast would probably have been denied if not for Jessies sudden, surprising support of the plan (and to Will its plenty surprising; Jessie is three years older and lots of times hes not sure she remembers she even has a brother). Following her initial softvoiced suggestion that maybe it would be fun to come homejust for two or three days, of courseand have a lawnparty, with croquet and badminton and a barbecue and Japanese lanterns that would come on at dusk, Tom begins to warm to the idea. He is the sort of man who thinks of himself as a strongwilled son of a bitch and is often thought of as a stubborn old goat by others; whichever way you saw it, he has always been a tough man to move once he has set his feet ... and his jaw. When it comes to moving himto changing his mindhis younger daughter has more luck than the rest of them put together. Jessie often finds a way into her fathers mind by means of some loophole or secret passage denied to the rest of the family. Sally believes with some justificationthat their middle child has always been Toms favorite and Tom has fooled himself into believing none of the others know. Maddy and Will see it in simpler terms they believe that Jessie sucks up to their father and that he in turn spoils her rotten. If Daddy caught Jessie smoking, Will told his older sister the year before, after Maddy had been grounded for that very offense, hed probably buy her a lighter. Maddy laughed, agreed, and hugged her brother. Neither they nor their mother has the slightest idea of the secret which lies between Tom Mahout and his younger daughter like a heap of rotting meat. Jessie herself believes she is just going along with her baby brothers requestthat shes sticking up for him. She has no idea, not on the surface of her mind, anyway, how much she has come to hate Sunset Trails and how eager she is to get away.

She has also come to hate the lake she once passionately lovedespecially its faint, flat mineral smell. By 1965 she can hardly bear to go swimming there, even on the hottest of days. She knows her mother thinks its her shapeJessie began to bud early, as Sally did herself, and at the age of twelve she has most of her womans figurebut its not her shape. Shes gotten used to that, and knows that shes a long way from being a Playboy pinup in either of her old, faded Jantzen tank suits. No, its not her breasts, not her hips, not her can. Its that smell. Whatever reasons and motives may be swirling around beneath, Will Mahouts request is finally approved by the Mahout familys head honcho. They made the trip back to the coast yesterday, leaving early enough for Sally (eagerly assisted by both daughters) to prepare for the party. And now its August 14th, and August 14th is surely the apotheosis of summer in Maine, a day of fadedbluedenim skies and fat white clouds, all of it freshened by a salttangy breeze. Inlandand that includes the Lakes District, where Sunset Trails has stood on the shore of Dark Score Lake since Tom Mahouts grandfather built the original cabin in 1923the woods and lakes and ponds and bogs lie sweltering under temperatures in the midnineties and humidity just below the saturation point, but here on the seacoast its only eighty. The seabreeze is an extra bonus, rendering the humidity negligible and sweeping away the mosquitoes and sandflies. The lawn is filled with children, mostly Wills friends but girls who chum with Maddy and Jessie as well, and for once, mirabile dictu, they all seem to be getting along. There hasnt been a single argument, and around five oclock, as Tom raises the first martini of the day to his lips, he glances at Jessie, who is standing nearby with her croquet mallet propped on her shoulder like a sentrys rifle (and who is clearly within earshot of what sounds like a casual husbandandwife conversation but which may actually be a shrewd bankshot compliment aimed at his daughter), then back at his wife. I guess it was actually a pretty good idea, after all, he says. Better than good, Jessie thinks. Absolutely great and totally monster, if you want to know the truth. Even that isnt what she really means, really thinks, but it would be dangerous to say the rest out loud; it would tempt the gods. What she really thinks is that the day is flawlessa sweet and perfect peach of a day. Even the song blasting out of Maddys portable record player (which Jessies big sister has cheerfully carted out to the patio for this occasion, although it is ordinarily the Great Untouchable Icon) is okay. Jessie is never really going to like Marvin Gayeno more than she is ever going to like that faint mineral smell which rises from the lake on hot summer afternoonsbut this song is okay. Ill be doggone if you aint a pretty thing... baybee silly, but not dangerous. It is August 14th, 1965, a day that was, a day that still is in the mind of a dreaming woman handcuffed to a bed in a house on the shore of a lake forty miles south of Dark Score (but with the same mineral smell, that nasty, evocative smell, on hot, still summer days), and although the twelveyearold girl she was doesnt see Will creeping up behind her as she bends over to address her croquet ball, turning her bottom into a target simply too tempting for a boy who has only lived one year for each inning in a baseball game to ignore, part of her mind knows he is there, and that this is the seam where the dream has been basted to the nightmare. She lines up her shot, concentrating on the wicket six feet away. A hard shot but not an impossible one, and if she drives the ball through, she may well catch Caroline after all. That would be nice, because Caroline almost always wins at croquet. Then, just as she draws her mallet back, the music coming from the recordplayer changes. Oww, listen everybody, Marvin Gaye sings, sounding a lot more than just mockthreatening to Jessie this time, especially you girls ... Chills of gooseflesh run up Jessies tanned arms. ... is it right to be left alone when the one you love is never home? . . . I love too hard, my friends sometimes say ... Her fingers go numb and she loses any sense of the mallet in her hands. Her wrists are tingling, as if bound by (stocks Goodys in the stocks come and see Goody in the stocks come and laugh at Goody in the stocks) unseen clamps, and her heart is suddenly full of dismay. It is the other song, the wrong song, the bad song. ... but I believe ... I believe ... that a woman should be loved that way ... She looks up at the little group of girls waiting for her to make her shot and sees that Caroline is gone. Standing there in her place is Nora Callighan. Her hair is in braids, theres a dab of white zinc on the tip of her nose, shes wearing Carolines yellow sneakers and Carolines locketthe one with the tiny picture of Paul McCartney inside itbut those are Noras green eyes, and they are looking at her with a deep adult compassion. Jessie suddenly remembers that Willundoubtedly egged on by his buddies, who are as jazzed up on Cokes and German chocolate cake as Will himselfis creeping up behind her, that he is preparing to goose her. She will overreact wildly when he does, swinging around and punching him in the mouth, perhaps not spoiling the party completely but certainly putting a ding in its sweet perfection. She tries to let go of the mallet, wanting to straighten and turn around before any of this can happen. She wants to change the past, but the past is heavytrying to do that, she discovers, is like trying to pick up the house by one corner so you can look under it for things that have been lost, or forgotten, or hidden. Behind her, someone has cranked the volume on Maddys little recordplayer and that terrible song blares louder than ever, triumphant and glittery and sadistic IT HURTS ME SO INSIDE... TO BE TREATED SO UNKIND... SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE... TELL HER IT AINT FAIR ... She tries again to get rid of the malletto throw it awaybut she cant do it; its as if someone has handcuffed her to it. Nora! she cries. Nora, you have to help me! Stop him! (It was at this point in the dream that Jessie moaned for the first time, momentarily startling the dog back from Geralds body.) Nora shakes her head, slowly and gravely. I cant help you, Jessie. Youre on your ownwe all are. I generally dont tell my patients that, but I think in your case its best to be honest. You dont understand! I cant go through this again! I CANT! Oh, dont be so silly, Nora says, suddenly impatient. She begins to turn away, as if she can no longer bear the sight of Jessies upturned, frantic face. You will not die; its not poison. Jessie looks around wildly (although she remains unable to straighten up, to stop presenting that tempting target to her impending brother) and sees that her friend Tammy Hough is gone; standing there in Tammys white shorts and yellow halter is Ruth Neary. Shes holding Tammys redstriped croquet mallet in one hand and a Marlboro in the other. Her mouth is hooked up at the corners in her usual sardonic grin, but her eyes are grave and full of sorrow. Ruth, help me! Jessie shouts. You have to help me! Ruth takes a big drag on her cigarette, then grinds it into the grass with one of Tammy Houghs corksoled sandals. Jeeperscreepers, tootsiehes going to goose you, not stick a cattleprod up your ass. You know that as well as I do ; youve been through all this before. So whats the big deal? It isnt just a goose! It isnt, and you know it! The old hootyowl hootyhoos to the goose, Ruth says. What? What does that m It means how can I know anything about ANYTHING? Ruth shoots back. There is anger on the surface of her voice, deep hurt beneath. You wouldnt tell meyou wouldnt tell anybody. You ran away. You ran like a rabbit that sees the shadow of some old hootyowl on the grass. I COULDNT tell! Jessie shrieks. Now she can see a shadow on the grass beside her, as if Ruths words have conjured it up. It is not the shadow of an owl, however; it is the shadow of her brother. She can hear the stifled giggles of his friends, knows he is reaching out to do it, and still she cannot even straighten up, let alone move away. She is helpless to change what is going to happen, and she understands that this is the very essence of both nightmare and tragedy. I COULDNT! she shrieks at Ruth again. I couldnt, not ever! It would have killed my Mom ... or destroyed the family ... or both! He said! Daddy said! I hate to be the one to send you this particular newsflash, tootsiewootsie, but your dear old Dad will have been dead twelve years come December. Also, cant we dispense with at least a little of this melodrama? Its not as if he hung you from the clothesline by the nipples and then set you on fire, you know. But she doesnt want to hear this, doesnt want to considereven in a dreamany reappraisal of her buried past; once the dominos start to fall, who knows where it will all end? So she blocks her ears to what Ruth is saying and continues to fix her old college roommate with that deep, pleading stare that so often caused Ruth (whose toughcookie veneer was never more than frostingdeep, anyway) to laugh and give in, to do whatever it was Jessie wanted her to do. Ruth, you have to help me! You have to! But this time the pleading stare doesnt work. I dont think so, toots. The Sorority Susies are all gone, the time for shutting up is over, running away is out of the question, and waking up is not an option. This is the mystery train, Jessie. Youre the pussycat; Im the owl. Here we goall aboard. Fasten your seatbelt, and fasten it tight. This is an Eticket ride. No! But now, to Jessies horror, the day begins to darken. It could just be the sun going behind a cloud, but she knows it isnt. The sun is going out. Soon the stars will shine in a summer afternoon sky and the old hootyowl will hootyhoo to the dove. The time of the eclipse has come. No! she screams again. That was two years ago! Youre wrong on that one, toots, Ruth Neary says. For you it never ended. For you the sun never came back out. She opens her mouth to deny that, to tell Ruth shes as guilty of wild overdramatization as Nora, who kept shoving her toward doors she didnt want to open, who kept assuring her that the present can be improved by examining the pastas if one could improve the taste of todays dinner by slathering it with the maggoty remains of yesterdays. She wants to tell Ruth, as she told Nora on the day she walked out of Noras office for good, that there is a big difference between living with something and being kept prisoner by it. Dont you two goofs understand that the Cult of Self is just another cult? she wants to say, but before she can do more than open her mouth, the invasion comes a hand between her slightly spread legs, the thumb shoving rudely at the cleft of her buttocks, the fingers pressed against the material of her shorts just above her vagina, and it is not her brothers innocent little hand this time; the hand between her legs is much bigger than Wills and not a bit innocent. The bad song is on the radio, the stars are out at three oclock in the afternoon, and this (you will not die its not poison) is how the big people goose each other. She whirls, expecting to see her father. He did something like this to her during the eclipse, a thing she supposes the whining CultofSelfers, the LiveinthePasters like Ruth and Nora, would call child abuse. Whatever it was, it will be himshes sure of that muchand she is afraid she will exact a terrible punishment for the thing he did, no matter how serious or trivial that thing was she will raise the croquet mallet and drive it into his face, smashing his nose and knocking out his teeth, and when he falls down on the grass the dogs will come and eat him up. Except it isnt Tom Mahout standing there; its Gerald. Hes naked. The Penis of an Attorney pokes out at her from below the soft pink bowl of his belly. He has a set of Kreig police handcuffs in each hand. He holds them out to her in the weird afternoon darkness. Unnatural starlight gleams on the cocked jaws which are stamped M17 because his source could not provide him with any F23s. Come on, Jess, he says, grinning. It isnt as though you dont know the score. Besides, you liked it. That first time you came so hard you almost blew up. I dont mind telling you that was the best piece of ass I ever had in my life, so good I sometimes dream about it. And do you know why it was so good? Because you didnt have to take any of the responsibility. Almost all women like it better when the man takes over completelyits a proven fact of female psychology. Did you come when your father molested you, Jessie? I bet you did. I bet you came so hard you almost blew up. The CultofSelfers may want to argue about these things, but we know the truth, dont we? Some women can say they want it, but some need a man to tell them they want it. Youre one of the latter. But thats okay, Jessie; thats what the cuffs are for. Only they were never really handcuffs at all. Theyre bracelets of love. So put them on, sweetheart. Put them on. She backs up, shaking her head, not knowing if she wants to laugh or cry. The subject itself is new, but the rhetoric is all too familiar. The lawyers tricks dont work on me, GeraldIve been married to one too long. What we both know is that the business with the handcuffs was never about me at all. It was about you ... about waking up your old boozestunned John Thomas a little, to be blunt. So you can just save your fuckedup version of female psychology, okay? Gerald is smiling in a knowing, disconcerting way. Good try, babe. It doesnt wash, but it was still a damned good shot. The best defense is a good offense, right? I think I taught you that. Never mind, though. Right now youve got a choice to make. Either put the bracelets on or swing that mallet and kill me again. She looks around and realizes with dawning panic and dismay that everyone at Wills party is watching her confrontation with this naked (except for his glasses, that is), overweight, sexually aroused man ... and its not just her family and her childhood friends, either. Mrs. Henderson, who will be her Freshman Advisor at college, is standing by the punchbowl; Bobby Hagen, who will take her to the Senior Promand fuck her afterward in the back seat of his fathers Oldsmobile 88is standing on the patio next to the blonde girl from the Neuworth Parsonage, the one whose parents loved her but idolized her brother. Barry, Jessie thinks. Shes Olivia and her brothers Barry. The blonde girl is listening to Bobby Hagen but looking at Jessie, her face calm but somehow haggard. She is wearing a sweatshirt which shows R. Crumbs Mr. Natural hurrying down a city street. The words in the balloon coming out of Mr. Naturals mouth say, Vice is nice, but incest is best. Behind Olivia, Kendall Wilson, who will hire Jessie for her first teaching job, is cutting a piece of chocolate birthday cake for Mrs. Paige, her childhood piano teacher. Mrs. Paige is looking remarkably lively for a woman who died of a stroke two years ago while picking apples at Corrits Orchards in Alfred. Jessie thinks, This isnt like dreaming; its like drowning. Everyone Ive ever known seems to be standing here under this weird starlit afternoon sky, watching my naked husband try to put me in handcuffs while Marvin Gaye sings Can I Get a Witness. If theres any comfort to be had, its this things cant possibly get any worse. Then they do. Mrs. Wertz, her firstgrade teacher, starts to laugh. Old Mr. Cobb, their gardener until he retired in 1964, laughs with her. Maddy joins in, and Ruth, and Olivia of the scarred breasts. Kendall Wilson and Bobby Hagen are bent almost double, and they are clapping each other on the back like men who have heard the granddaddy of all dirty jokes in the local barbershop. Perhaps the one whose punchline is A lifesupport system for a cunt. Jessie looks down at herself and sees that now she is naked, too. Written across her breasts in a shade of lipstick known as Peppermint YumYum are three damning words DADDYS LITTLE GIRL. I have to wake up, she thinks. Ill die of shame if I dont. But she doesnt, at least not right away. She looks up and sees that Geralds knowing, disconcerting smile has turned into a gaping wound. Suddenly the stray dogs bloodsoaked snout pokes out between his teeth. The dog is also grinning, and the head that comes shoving out between its fangs like the onset of some obscene birth belongs to her father. His eyes, always a bright blue, are now gray and haggard above his grin. They are Olivias eyes, she realizes, and then she realizes something else, as well the flat mineral smell of lakewater, so bland and yet so horrible, is everywhere. I love too hard, my friends sometimes say, her father sings from inside the mouth of the dog which is inside the mouth of the husband, But I believe, I believe, that a woman should be loved that way ... She casts the mallet aside and runs, screaming, As she passes the horrible creature with its bizarre chain of nested heads, Gerald snaps one of the handcuffs around her wrist. Got you! he yells triumphantly. Got you, me proud beauty! At first she thinks the eclipse must not have been total yet after all, because the day has begun to grow still darker. Then it occurs to her that she is probably fainting. This thought is accompanied by feelings of deep relief and gratitude. Dont be silly, Jessyou cant faint in a dream. But she thinks she may be doing just that, and in the end it doesnt matter much whether it is a faint or only a deeper cave of sleep toward which she is fleeing like the survivor of some cataclysm. What matters is that she is finally escaping the dream which has assaulted her in a much more fundamental way than her fathers act on the deck that day, she is finally escaping, and gratitude seems like a beautifully normal response to these circumstances. She has almost made it into that comforting cave of darkness when a sound intrudes a splintery, ugly sound like a loud spasm of coughing. She tries to flee the sound and finds she cannot. It has her like a hook, and like a hook it begins to pull her up toward the vast but fragile silver sky that separates sleep from consciousness. 12 The former Prince, who had once been the pride and joy of young Catherine Sutlin, sat in the kitchen entryway for about ten minutes after its latest foray into the bedroom. It sat with its head up, its eyes wide and unblinking. It had been existing on very short commons over the last two months, it had fed well this evening gorged, in factand it should have been feeling logy and sleepy. It had been both for awhile, but now all sleepiness had departed. What replaced it was a feeling of nervousness which grew steadily worse. Something had snapped several of the hairthin tripwires posted in that mystical zone where the dogs senses and its intuition overlapped. The bitchmaster continued to moan in the other room, and to make occasional talking noises, but her sounds were not the source of the strays jitters; they were not what had caused it to sit up when it had been on the verge of drifting placidly off to sleep, and not the reason why its good ear was now cocked alertly forward and its muzzle had wrinkled back far enough to show the tips of its teeth. It was something else ... something not right ... something which was possibly dangerous. As Jessies dream peaked and then began to spiral down into darkness, the dog suddenly scrambled to its feet, unable to bear the steady sizzle in its nerves any longer. It turned, pushed open the loose back door with its snout, and jumped out into the windy dark. As it did, some strange and unidentifiable scent came to it. There was danger in that scent ... almost certainly danger. The dog raced for the woods as fast as its swollen, overloaded belly would allow. When it had gained the safety of the undergrowth, it turned and squirmed a little way back toward the house. It had retreated, true enough, but a great many more alarmbells would have to go off inside before it would consider completely abandoning the wonderful supply of food it had found. Safely hidden, its thin, weary, intelligent face crisscrossed with overlapping ideograms of moonshadow, the stray began to bark, and it was this sound which eventually drew Jessie back to consciousness. 13 During their summers on the lake in the early sixties, before William was able to do much more than paddle in the shallows with a pair of bright orange waterwings attached to his back, Maddy and Jessie, always good friends despite the difference in their ages, often went down to swim at the Neidermeyers. The Neidermeyers had a float equipped with a diving platform, and it was there that Jessie began to develop the form which won her a place first on her high school swimteam and then on the AllState team in 1971. What she remembered secondbest about diving from the board on the Neidermeyers float (firstfor then and for alwayswas the swoop through the hot summer air toward the blue glitter of the waiting water) was how it felt to come up from the depths, through conflicting layers of warm and cold. Coming up from her troubled sleep was like that. First there was a black, roaring confusion that was like being inside a thundercloud. She bumped and yawed her way through it, not having the slightest idea of who she was or when she was, let alone where she was. Then a warmer, calmer layer she had been caught in the most awful nightmare in all of recorded history (at least in her recorded history), but a nightmare was all it had been, and now it was over. As the surface neared, however, she encountered another chilly layer an idea that the reality waiting ahead was almost as bad as the nightmare. Maybe worse. What is it? she asked herself. What could possibly be worse than what Ive just been through? She refused to think about that. The answer was within reach, but if it occurred to her, she might decide to flip over and start finning her way back down into the depths again. To do that would be to drown, and while drowning might not be the worst way to step outnot as bad as running your Harley into a rock wall or parachuting into a cats cradle of highvoltage wires, for instancethe idea of opening her body to that flat mineral smell, which reminded her simultaneously of copper and oysters, was insupportable. Jessie kept stroking grimly upward, telling herself that she would worry about reality when and if she actually broke the surface. The last layer she passed through was as warm and fearful as freshly spilled blood her arms were probably going to be deader than stumps. She just hoped she would be able to command enough movement in them to get the blood flowing again. Jessie gasped, jerked, and opened her eyes. She hadnt the slightest idea of how long she had been asleep, and the clockradio on the dresser, stuck in its own hell of obsessive repetition (twelvetwelvetwelve, it flashed into the darkness, as if time had stopped forever at midnight), was no help. All she knew for sure was that it was full dark and the moon was now shining through the skylight instead of the east window. Her arms were jumping with a nervous jitterjive of pins and needles. She usually disliked that feeling intensely, but not now; it was a thousand times better than the muscle cramps she had expected as the price of waking her dead extremities back up. A moment or two later she noticed a spreading dampness beneath her legs and bottom and realized that her previous need to urinate was gone. Her body had taken care of the problem while she slept. She doubled her fists and cautiously pulled herself up a little, wincing at the pain in her wrists and the deep, sobbing ache the movement caused in the backs of her hands. Most of that pains a result of trying to slip out of the cuffs, she thought. You got nobody to blame but yourself, sweetheart. The dog had begun to bark again. Each shrill cry was like a splinter pounded into her eardrum, and she realized that sound was what had pulled her up and out of her sleep just as she had been about to dive below the nightmare. The location of the sounds told her the dog was back outside. She was glad it had left the house, but a little puzzled, as well. Maybe it just hadnt been comfortable under a roof after spending such a long time outside. That idea made a certain amount of sense ... as much as anything else in this situation, anyway. Get it together, Jess, she advised herself in a solemn, sleepfoggy voice, and maybejust maybeshe was doing that. The panic and the unreasoning shame shed felt in the dream were departing. The dream itself seemed to be drying out, taking on the curiously desiccated quality of an overexposed photograph. Soon, she realized, it would be gone entirely. Dreams on waking were like the empty cocoons of moths or the splitopen husks of milkweed pods, dead shells where life had briefly swirled in furious but fragile stormsystems. There had been times when this amnesiaif that was what it washad struck her as sad. Not now. She had never in her life equated forgetting with mercy so quickly and completely. And it doesnt matter, she thought. It was just a dream after all. I mean, all those heads sticking out of heads? Dreams are supposed to be symbolic, of courseyes, I knowand I suppose there might have been some symbolism in this one ... maybe even some truth. If nothing else, I think that now I understand why I hit Will when he goosed me that day. Nora Callighan would undoubtedly be thrilledshed call it a breakthrough. Probably it is. It doesnt do a thing about getting me out of this fucking jailhouse jewelry, though, and thats still my top priority. Does anyone disagree with that? Neither Ruth nor Goody replied; the UFO voices were likewise silent. The only response, in fact, came from her stomach, which was sorry as hell all this had happened but still felt compelled to protest the cancellation of supper with a long, low rumble. Funny, in a way ... but apt to be less so come tomorrow. By then her thirst would have come raging back, too, and she was under no illusions about how long those last two sips of water would stave it off. Ive got to center my concentrationIve just got to. The problem isnt food, and it isnt water, either. Right now those things matter as little as why I punched Will in the mouth at his ninthbirthday party. The problem is how Im Her thoughts broke off with the clean snap of a knot exploding in a hot fire. Her eyes, which had been wandering aimlessly across the darkened room, locked on the far corner, where the winddriven shadows of the pines danced wildly in the nacreous light falling through the skylight. There was a man standing there. Terror greater than any she had ever known crept over her. Her bladder, which had in fact relieved only the worst of its discomfort, now voided itself in a painless gush of heat. Jessie hadnt the slightest idea of that or anything else. Her terror had blown her mind temporarily clean from wall to wall and ceiling to floor. No sound escaped her, not even the smallest squeak; she was as incapable of sound as she was of thought. The muscles of her neck, shoulders, and arms turned to something that felt like warm water and she slid down the headboard until she hung from the handcuffs in a kind of slack swoon. She didnt black outdidnt even come close to itbut that mental emptiness and the total physical incapacity which accompanied it were worse than a blackout. When thought did attempt to return, it was at first blocked by a dark, featureless wall of fear. A man. A man in the corner. She could see his dark eyes gazing at her with fixed, idiotic attention. She could see the waxy whiteness of his narrow cheeks and high forehead, although the in . truders actual features were blurred by the diorama of shadows which went flying across them. She could see slumped shoulders and dangling apelike arms which ended in long hands; she sensed feet somewhere in the black triangle of shadow thrown by the bureau, but that was all. She had no idea how long she lay in that horrible semiswoon, paralyzed but aware, like a beetle stung by a trapdoor spider. It seemed like a very long time. The seconds dripped by, and she found herself unable to even close her eyes, let alone avert them from her strange guest. Her first terror of him began to abate a little, but what replaced it was somehow worse horror and an unreasoning, atavistic revulsion. Jessie later thought that the wellspring of these feelingsthe most powerful negative emotions she had ever experienced in her life, including those which had swept her only a short time before, as she had watched the stray dog preparing to dine on Geraldwas the creatures utter stillness. It had crept in here while she slept and now merely stood in the corner, camouflaged by the ceaseless ebb and flow of shadows over its face and body, staring at her with its strangely avid black eyes, eyes so large and rapt they reminded her of the sockets in a skull. Her visitor only stood there in the corner; merely that and nothing more. She lay in the handcuffs with her arms stretched above her, feeling like a woman at the bottom of a deep well. Time passed, marked only by the idiot blink of the clock proclaiming it was twelve, twelve, twelve, and at last a coherent thought stole back into her brain, one which seemed both dangerous and vastly comforting. Theres no one here but you, Jessie. The man you see in the corner is a combination of shadows and imaginationno more than that. She fought her way back to a sitting position, pulling with her arms, grimacing at the pain in her overtaxed shoulders, pushing with her feet, trying to dig her bare heels into the coverlet, breathing in harsh little blurts of effort ... and while doing these things, her eyes never left the hideously elongated shape in the corner. Its too tall and too thin to be a real man, Jessyou see that, dont you? Its nothing but wind, shadows, a soupon of moonlight... and a few leftovers from your nightmare, I imagine. Okay? It almost was. She started to relax. Then, from outside, the dog voiced another hysterical volley of barks. And didnt the figure in the cornerthe figure that was nothing but wind, shadows, and a soupon of moonlightdidn t that nonexistent figure turn its head slightly in that direction? No, surely not. Surely that was just another trick of the wind and the dark and the shadows. That might well be; in fact she was almost sure that partthe headturning parthad been an illusion. But the rest of it? The figure itself? She could not quite convince herself that it was all imagination. Surely no figure which looked that much like a man could be just an illusion ... could it? Goodwife Burlingame spoke up suddenly, and although her voice was fearful, there was no hysteria in it, at least not yet; oddly, it was the Ruth part of her which had suffered the most extreme horror at the idea she might not be alone in the room, and it was the Ruth part that was still close to gibbering. If that things not real, Goody said, why did the dog leave in the first place? I dont think it would have done that without a very good reason, do you? Yet she understood that Goody was deeply frightened just the same, and yearning for some explanation of the dogs departure that didnt include the shape Jessie either saw or thought she saw standing in the corner. Goody was begging her to say that her original idea, that the dog had left simply because it no longer felt comfortable in the house, was much more likely. Or maybe, she thought, it had left for the oldest reason of all it had smelled another stray, this one. a bitch in heat.

She supposed it was even possible that the dog had been spooked by some noisea branch knocking against an upstairs window, say. She liked that one the best, because it suggested a kind of rough justice that the dog had also been spooked by some imaginary intruder, and its barks were intended to frighten this nonexistent newcomer away from its pariahs supper. Yes, say any of those things, Goody suddenly begged her, and even if you cant believe any of them yourself, make me believe them. But she didnt think she could do that, and the reason was standing in the corner beside the bureau. There was someone there. It wasnt a hallucination, it wasnt a combination of winddriven shadows and her own imagination, it wasnt a holdover from her dream, a momentary phantom glimpsed in the perceptual nomans land between sleeping and waking. It was a (monster its a monster a boogeymonster come to eat me up) man, not a monster but a man, standing there motionlessly and watching her while the wind gusted, making the house creak and the shadows dance across its strange, halfglimpsed face. This time the thoughtMonster! Boogeymonster!rose from the lower levels of her mind to the more brightly lit stage of her consciousness. She denied it again, but she could feel her terror returning, just the same. The creature on the far side of the room might be a man, but even if it was, she was becoming more and more sure that there was something very wrong with its face. If only she could see it better! You wouldnt want to, a whispery, ominous UFO voice advised her. But I have to talk to ithave to establish contact, Jessie thought, and immediately responded to herself in a nervous, scolding voice that felt like Ruth and Goody mixed together Dont think of it as an it, Jessiethink of it as a he. Think of it as a man, someone whos maybe been lost in the woods, someone whos as scared as you are. Good advice, perhaps, but Jessie found she couldnt think of the figure in the corner as a he, any more than she was able to think of the stray as a he. Nor did she think the creature in the shadows was either lost or frightened. What she felt coming from the corner were long, slow waves of malevolence. Thats stupid! Talk to it, Jessie! Talk to him! She tried to clear her throat and discovered there was nothing to clearit was as dry as a desert and as smooth as a soapstone. Now she could feel her heart pounding in her chest, its beat very light, very fast, very irregular. The wind gusted. The shadows blew whiteandblack patterns across the walls and the ceiling, making her feel like a woman trapped inside a kaleidoscope for the colorblind. For just a moment she thought she saw a nosethin and long and whitebelow those black, motionless eyes. Who At first she could manage only that one tiny whisper which couldnt have been heard on the far side of the bed, let alone across the room. She stopped, licked her lips, and tried again. She was aware that her hands were clamped into painfully tight balls, and she forced her fingers to loosen. Who are you? Still a whisper, but a little better than before. The figure didnt answer, only stood there with its narrow white hands dangling by its knees, and Jessie thought Its knees? Knees? Not possible, Jesswhen a persons hands are hanging at his sides, they stop at the upper thighs. Ruth responded, her voice so hushed and fearful Jessie almost didnt recognize it. A normal persons hands stop at the upper thighs, isns that what you mean? But do you thinka normalperson would creep into someones house in the middle of the night, then just stand in the corner, watching, when he finds the lady of the manor chained to the bed? Just stand there and nothing more? Then it did move one leg ... or perhaps it was only the distracting motion of the shadows again, this time picked up by the lower quadrant of her vision. The combination of shadows and moonlight and wind lent a terrible ambiguity to this entire episode, and again Jessie found herself doubting the visitors reality. The possibility that she was still sleeping occurred to her, that her dream of Wills birthday party had simply veered off in some strange new direction ... but she didnt really believe it. She was awake, all right. Whether or not the leg actually did move (or even if there was a leg), Jessies gaze was momentarily drawn downward. She thought she saw some black object sitting on the floor between the creatures feet. It was impossible to tell what it might be because the bureaus shadow rendered that the darkest part of the room, but her mind suddenly returned to that afternoon, when she had been trying to persuade Gerald that she really meant what she was saying. The only sounds had been the wind, the banging door, the barking dog, the loon, and ... The thing sitting on the floor between her visitors feet was a chainsaw. Jessie was instantly sure of this. Her visitor had been using it earlier, but not to cut firewood. It was people he had been cutting up, and the dog had run because it had smelled the approach of this madman, who had come up the lake path swinging his bloodspattered Stihl saw in one gloved hand Stop it! Goody shouted angrily. Stop this foolishness right this minute and get a grip on yourself! But she discovered she couldnt stop it, because this was no dream and also because she had become increasingly sure that the figure standing in the corner, as silent as Frankensteins monster before the lightningbolts, was real. But even if it was, it hadnt spent the afternoon turning people into porkchops with a chainsaw. Of course notthat was nothing but a movieinspired variation of the simple, gruesome summercamp tales that seemed so funny when you were gathered around the fire, roasting marshmallows with the rest of the girls, and so awful later on, when you lay shivering in your sleeping ig, believing that each snapping twig signalled the approach of the Lakeview Man, that legendary brainblasted survivor of the Korean War. The thing standing in the corner wasnt the Lakeview Man, and it wasnt a chainsaw murderer, either. There was something on the floor (at least she was pretty sure there was), and Jessie supposed it could be a chainsaw, but it could also be a suitcase ... a backpack ... a salesmans sample case ... Or my imagination. Yes. Even though she was looking right at it, whatever it was, she knew she couldnt rule out the possibility of imagination. Yet in some perverse way this only reinforced the idea that the creature itself was real, and it was becoming harder and harder to dismiss the feeling of malevolence which came crawling out of the tangle of black shadows and powdery moonlight like a constant low snarl. It hates me, she thought. Whatever it is, it hates me. It must. Why else would it just stand there and not help me? She looked back up at that halfseen face, at the eyes which seemed to glitter with such feverish avidity in their round black sockets, and she began to weep. Please, is someone there? Her voice was humble, choked with tears. If there is, wont you please help me? Do you see these handcuffs? The keys are right there beside you, on top of the bureau ... Nothing. No movement. No response. It only stood thereif it was there at all, that waslooking out at her from behind its feral mask of shadows. If you didnt want me to tell anyone I saw you, I wouldnt, she tried again. Her voice wavered, blurred, swooped and slid. I sure wouldnt! And Id be so ... so grateful ... It watched her. Only that and nothing more. Jessie felt the tears rolling slowly down her cheeks. Youre scaring me, you know, she said. Wont you say something? Cant you talk? lf youre really there, cant you please talk to me? A thin, terrible hysteria seized her then and flew away with some valuable, irreplaceable part of her caught firmly in its scrawny talons. She wept and pleaded with the fearful figure standing motionless in the corner of the bedroom; she remained conscious throughout but sometimes wavered into that curious blank place reserved for those whose terror has become so great it approaches rapture. She would hear herself asking the figure in a hoarse, weepy voice to please let her out of the handcuffs, to please oh please oh please let her out of the handcuffs, and then she would drop back into that weird blank spot. She knew her mouth was still moving because she could feel it. She could also hear the sounds that were coming out of it, but while she was in the blank place, these sounds were not words but only loose blabbering torrents of sound. She could also hear the wind blowing and the dog barking, aware but not knowing, hearing but not understanding, losing everything in her horror of the halfseen shape, the awful visitor, the uninvited guest. She could not cease her contemplation of its narrow, misshapen head, its white cheeks, its slumped shoulders ... but more and more it was the creatures hands to which her eyes were drawn those dangling, longfingered hands that ended much farther down on the legs than normal hands had any right to do. Some unknown length of time would pass in this blank fashion (twelvetwelvetwelve, the clock on the dresser reported; no help there) and then she would come back a little, would start thinking thoughts instead of experiencing only an endless rush of incoherent images, would start hearing her lips speaking words instead of just babbling sounds. But she had moved on while she was in that blank space; her words now had nothing to do with the handcuffs or the keys on the dresser. What she heard instead was the thin, screamy whisper of a woman reduced to begging for an answer ... any answer. What are you? she sobbed. A man? A devil? What in Gods name are you? The wind gusted. The door banged. Before her, the figures face seemed to change ... seemed to wrinkle upward in a grin. There was something horribly familiar about that grin, and Jessie felt the core of her sanity, which had borne this assault with remarkable strength until now, at last begin to waver. Daddy? she whispered. Daddy, is that you? Dont be silly! the Goodwife cried, but Jessie could now feel even that sustaining voice wavering toward hysteria. Dont be a goose, Jessie! Your father has been dead since 1980! Instead of helping, it made things worse. Much worse. Tom Mahout had been interred in the family crypt in Falmouth, and that was less than a hundred miles from here. Jessies burning, terrified mind insisted upon showing her a hunched figure, its clothes and rotted shoes caked with bluegreen mold, slinking across moondrenched fields and hurrying through tracts of scruffy woods between suburban housing developments; she saw gravity working on the decayed muscles of its arms as it came, gradually stretching them until the hands were swinging beside the knees. It was her father. It was the man who had delighted her with rides on his shoulders at three, who had comforted her at the age of six when a capering circus clown frightened her into tears, who had told her bedtime stories until she was eightold enough, he said, to read them on her own. Her father, who had cobbled together homemade filters on the afternoon of the eclipse and held her on his lap as the moment of totality approached, her father who had.said, Dont worry about anything... dont worry, and dont look around. But she had thought maybe he was worried, because his voice had been all thick and shaky, hardly like his usual voice at all. In the corner, the things grin seemed to widen and suddenly the room was filled with that smell, that flat smell that was halfmetallic and halforganic; a smell that reminded her of oysters in cream, and how your hand smelled after youd been clutching a fistful of pennies, and the way the air smelled just before a thunderstorm. Daddy, is it you? she asked the shadowy thing in the corner, and from somewhere came the distant cry of the loon. Jessie could feel the tears trickling slowly down her cheeks. And now something exceedingly odd was happening, something she never would have expected in a thousand years. As she became increasingly sure that it was her father, that it was Tom Mahout standing in the corner, twelve years gone in death or not, her terror began to leave her. She had drawn her legs up, but now she let them slip back down and fall open. As she did, a fragment of her dream recurredDADDYS LITTLE GIRL printed across her breasts in Peppermint YumYum lipstick. All right, go ahead, she told the shape. Her voice was a little hoarse but otherwise steady. Its why you came back, isnt it? So go ahead. How could I stop you, anyway? Just promise youll unlock me afterward. That youll unlock me and let me go. The figure made no response of any kind. It only stood within its surreal jackstraws of moonlight and shadow, grinning at her. And as the seconds passed (twelvetwelvetwelve, the clock on the dresser said, seeming to suggest that the whole idea of time passing was an illusion, that time had in fact frozen solid), Jessie thought that perhaps she had been right in the first place, that there was really no one in here with her at all. She had begun to feel like a weathervane in the grip of those prankish, contradictory gusts of wind that sometimes blow just before a severe thunderstorm or a tornado. Your father cannot come back from the dead, Goodwife Burlingame said in a voice that strove to be firm and failed miserably. Still, Jessie saluted her effort. Come hell or high water, the Goodwife stayed right in there and kept pitching. This isnt a horror movie or an episode of The Twilight Zone, Jess; this is real life. But another part of hera part which was perhaps the home of those few voices inside which were the real UFOs, not just the wiretaps her subconscious had patched into her conscious mind at some pointinsisted that there was a darker truth here, something that trailed from the heels of logic like an irrational (and perhaps supernatural) shadow. This voice insisted that things changed in the dark. Things especially changed in the dark, it said, when a person was alone. When that happened, the locks fell off the cage which held the imagination, and anythingany thingsmight be set free. It can be your Daddy, this essentially alien part of her whispered, and with a chill of fear Jessie recognized it as the voice of madness and reason mingled together. It can be, never doubt it. People are almost always safe from ghosts and ghouls and the living dead in daylight, and theyre usually safe from them at night if theyre with others, but when a person is alone in the dark, all bets are off. Men and women alone in the dark are like open doors, Jessie, and if they call out or scream for help, who knows what dread things may answer? Who knows what some men and women have seen in the hour of their solitary deaths? Is it so hard to believe that some of them may have died of fear, no matter what the words on the death certificates say? I dont believe that, she said in a blurry, wavering voice. She spoke louder, striving for a firmness she didnt feel. Youre not my father! I dont think youre anyone ! I think youre only made of moonlight! As if in answer, the figure bent forward in a kind of mocking bow, and for one moment its facea face which seemed too real to doubtslipped out of the shadows. Jessie uttered a rusty shriek as the pallid rays falling through the skylight painted its features with tawdry carnival gilt. It wasnt her father; compared with the evil and the lunacy she saw in the face of her visitor, she would have welcomed her father, even after twelve years in a cold coffin. Redrimmed, hideously sparkling eyes regarded her from deep eyesockets wrapped in wrinkles. Thin lips twitched upward in a dry grin, revealing discolored molars and jagged canines which seemed almost as long as the stray dogs fangs. One of its white hands lifted the object she had half seen and halfintuited sitting by its feet in the darkness. At first she thought it had taken Geralds briefcase from the little room he used as a study down here, but when the creature lifted the boxshaped thing into the light, she saw it was a lot bigger than Geralds briefcase and much older. It looked like the sort of oldfashioned sample case travelling salesmen had once carried. Please, she whispered in a strengthless, wheezing little voice. Whatever you are, please dont hurt me. You dont have to let me go if you dont want to, thats all right, but please dont hurt me. Its grin grew, and she saw tiny twinkles far back in its mouthher visitor apparently had gold teeth or gold fillings in there, just like Gerald. It seemed to laugh soundlessly, as if gratified by her terror. Then its long fingers were unsnapping the catches of its bag (I am dreaming, I think, now it does feel like a dream, oh thank God it does) and holding it open to her. The case was full of bones and jewelry. She saw fingerbones and rings and teeth and bracelets and ulnae and pendants; she saw a diamond big enough to choke a rhino glittering milky trapezoids of moonlight from within the stiff, delicate curves of an infants ribcage. She saw these things and wanted them to be a dream, yes, wanted them to be, but if it was, it was like no dream shed ever had before. It was the situationhandcuffed to the bed while a halfseen maniac silently showed off his treasuresthat was dreamlike. The feeling, however ... The feeling was reality. There was no getting around it. The feeling was reality. The thing standing in the corner held the open case out for her inspection, one hand supporting the bottom. It plunged its other hand into the tangle of bones and jewelry and stirred it, producing a tenebrous click and rustle that sounded like dirtclogged castanets. It stared at her as it did this, the somehow unformed features of its strange face wrinkled upward in amusement, its mouth gawping in that silent grin, its slumped shoulders rising and falling in strangled chuffs of laughter. No! Jessie screamed, but no sound came out. Suddenly she felt someonemost likely the Goodwife, and boy, had she ever underestimated the intestinal fortitude of that ladyrunning for the switches which governed the circuitbreakers in her head. Goody had seen tendrils of smoke starting to seep out through the cracks in the closed doors of those panels, had understood what they meant, and was making a final, desperate effort to shut down the machinery before the motors overheated and the bearings froze. The grinning figure across the room reached deeper into the case and held out a handful of bones and gold to Jessie in the moonlight. There was an intolerably bright flash inside her head and then the lights went out. She did not faint prettily, like the heroine in a florid. stage play, but was snapped brutally backward like a condemned murderer who has been strapped into the hotseat and has just gotten his first jolt of the juice. All the same it was an end to the horror, and for the time being that was enough. Jessie Burlingame went into the darkness without a murmur of protest. 14 She struggled briefly back to consciousness some time later, aware of only two things the moon had made it around to the west windows, and she was terribly afraid ... of what she at first didnt know. Then it came to her Daddy had been here, was perhaps here still. The creature hadnt looked like him, that was true, but that was only because Daddy had been wearing his eclipse face. Jessiestruggled up, pushing with her feet so hard she shoved the coverlet down beneath her. She wasnt able to do much with her arms, however. The jittering pins and needles had stolen away while shed been unconscious, and they had no more feeling than a couple of chairlegs. She stared into the corner by the bureau with wide, moonsilvered eyes. The wind had died and the shadows were, at least for the time being, still. There was nothing in the corner. Her dark visitor had gone. Maybe not, Jessmaybe hes just changed location. Maybe hes hiding under the bed, hows that for a thought? If he is, he could reach up at any second and put one of his hands on your hip. The wind stirredonty a puff, not a gustand the back door banged weakly. Those were the only sounds. The dog had fallen silent, and it was this more than anything else which convinced her that the stranger was gone. She had the house to herself. Jessies gaze dropped to the large dark blob on the floor. Correction, she thought. Theres Gerald. Cant forget about him. She put her head back and closed her eyes, aware of a steady low pulse in her throat, not wanting to wake up enough for that pulse to transform itself into what it really was thirst. She didnt know if she could go from black unconsciousness to ordinary sleep or not, but she knew that was what she wanted; more than anything elseexcept perhaps for someone to drive down here and rescue hershe wanted to sleep. There was no one here, Jessieyou know that, dont you? It was, absurdity of absurdities, Ruths voice. Toughtalking Ruth, whose stated motto, cribbed from a Nancy Sinatra song, was One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you. Ruth, who had been reduced to a pile of quivering jelly by the shape in the moonlight. Go ahead, toots, Ruth said. Make fun of me all you wantmaybe I even deserve itbut dont kid yourself. There was no one here. Your imagination put on a little slideshow, thats all. Thats all there was to it. Youre wrong, Ruth, Goody responded calmly. Someone was here, all right, and Jessie and I both know who it was. It didnt exactly look like Daddy, but that was only because he had his eclipse face on. The face wasnt the important part, though, or how tall he lookedhe might have had on boots with special high heels, or maybe he was wearing shoes with lifts in them. For all I know, he could have been on Stilts. Stilts Ruth cried, amazed. Oh dear God, now Ive heard evvverything! Never mind the fact that the man died before Reagans Inauguration Day tux got back from the cleaners; Tom Mahout was so clumsy he should have had walkingdownstairs insurance. Stilts? Oh babe, you have got to be putting me on! That part doesnt matter, Goody said with a kind of serene stubbornness. It was him. Id know that smell anywherethat thick, bloodwarm smell. Not the smell of oysters or pennies. Not even the smell of blood. The smell of... The thought broke up and drifted away. Jessie slept. 15 She ended up alone with her father at Sunset Trails on the afternoon of July 20th, 1963, for two reasons. One was a cover for the other. The cover was her claim that she was still a little frightened of Mrs. Gilette, even though it had been at least five years (and probably closer to six) since the incident of the cookie and the slapped hand. The real reason was simple and uncomplicated it was her Daddy she wanted to be with during such a special, onceinalifetime event. Her mother had suspected as much, and being moved around like a chesspiece by her husband and her tenyearold daughter hadnt pleased her, but by then the matter was practically a fait accompli. Jessie had gone to her Daddy first. She was still four months away from her eleventh birthday, but that didnt make her a fool. What Sally Mahout suspected was true Jessie had launched a conscious, carefully thoughtout campaign which would allow her to spend the day of the eclipse with her father. Much later Jessie would think that this was yet another reason to keep her mouth shut about what had happened on that day; there might be those her mother, for instancewho would say that she had no right to complain; that she had in fact gotten about what she deserved. On the day before the eclipse, Jessie had found her father sitting on the deck outside his den and reading a paperback copy of Profiles in Courage while his wife, son, and elder daughter laughed and swam in the lake below. He smiled at her when she took the seat next to him, and Jessie smiled back. She had brightened her mouth with lipstick for this interviewPeppermint YumYum, in fact, a birthday present from Maddy. Jessie hadnt liked it when she first tried it onshe thought it a baby shade, and that it tasted like Pepsodentbut Daddy had said he thought it was pretty, and that had transformed it into the most valuable of her few cosmetic resources, something to be treasured and used only on special occasions like this one. He listened carefully and respectfully as she spoke, but he made no particular attempt to disguise the glint of amused skepticism in his eyes. Do you really mean to tell me youre still afraid of Adrienne Gilette ? he asked when she had finished rehashing the ofttold tale of how Mrs. Gilette had slapped her hand when she had reached for the last cookie on the plate. That must have been back in ... I dont know, but I was still working for Dunninger, so it must have been before 1959. And youre still spooked all these years later? How absolutely Freudian, my dear! Welllll ... you know ... just a little. She widened her eyes, trying to communicate the idea that she was saying a little but meaning a lot. In truth she didnt know if she was still scared of old PoohPooh Breath or not, but she did know she considered Mrs. Gilette a boring old bluehaired booger, and she had no intention of spending the only total eclipse of the sun shed probably ever see in her company if she could possibly work things around so she could watch it with her Daddy, whom she adored beyond the power of words to tell. She evaluated his skepticism and concluded with relief that it was friendly, perhaps even conspiratorial. She smiled and added But I also want to stay with you. He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers like a French monsieur. He hadnt shaved that dayhe often didnt when he was at campand the rough scrape of his whiskers sent a pleasurable shiver of goosebumps up her arms and back. Comme tu es douce, he said. Ma jolie mademoiselle. Je taime. She giggled, not understanding his clumsy French but suddenly sure it was all going to work out just the way she had hoped it would. It would be fun, she said happily. Just the two of us. I could make an early supper and we could eat it right here, on the deck. He grinned. Eclipse Burgers deux? She laughed, nodding and clapping her hands with delight. Then he had said something that struck her as a little odd even at the time, because he was not a man who cared much about clothes and fashions You could wear your pretty new sundress. Sure, if you want, she said, although she had already made a mental note to ask her mother to try and exchange the sundress. It was pretty enoughif you werent offended by red and yellow stripes almost bright enough to shout, that wasbut it was also too small and too tight. Her mother had ordered it from Sears, going mostly by guess and by gosh, filling in a single size larger than that which had fit Jessie the year before. As it happened, she had grown a little faster than that, in a number of ways. Still, if Daddy liked it ... and if he would come over to her side of this eclipse business and help her push ... He did come over to her side, and pushed like Hercules himself. He began that night, suggesting to his wife after dinner (and two or three mellowing glasses of vin rouge) that Jessie be excused from tomorrows eclipsewatch outing to the top of Mount Washington. Most of their summer neighbors were going; just after Memorial Day theyd begun having informal meetings on the subject of how and where to watch the upcoming solar phenomenon (to Jessie these meetings had seemed like ordinary runofthemill summer cocktail parties), and had even given themselves a nameThe Dark Score Sun Worshippers. The Sun Worshippers had rented one of the school districts minibuses for the occasion and were planning to voyage to the top of New Hampshires tallest mountain equipped with box lunches, Polaroid sunglasses, specially constructed reflectorboxes, specially filtered cameras ... and champagne, of course. Lots and lots of champagne. To Jessies mother and older sister, all this had seemed to be the very definition of frothy, sophisticated fun. To Jessie it had seemed the essence of all that was boring ... and that was before you added PoohPooh Breath into the equation. She had gone out on the deck after supper on the evening of the 19th, presumably to read twenty or thirty pages of Mr. C. S. Lewiss Out of the Silent Planet before the sun went down. Her actual purpose was a good deal less intellectual she wanted to listen as her father made histheirpitch, and to silently root him on. She and Maddy had been aware for years that the combination living roomdining room of the summer house had peculiar acoustical qualities, probably caused by its high, steeply angled ceiling; Jessie had an idea that even Will knew about the way sound carried from in there to out here on the deck. Only their parents seemed unaware that the room might as well have been bugged, and that most of the important decisions they had made in that room as they sipped afterdinner cognac or cups of coffee were known (to their daughters, at least) long before the marching orders were handed down from staff headquarters. Jessie noticed she was holding the Lewis novel upside down and made haste to rectify that situation before Maddy happened by and gave her a big, silent horselaugh. She felt a little guilty about what she was doingit was a lot closer to eavesdropping than to rooting, when you got right down to itbut not quite guilty enough to stop. And in fact she considered herself still to be on the right side of a thin moral line. After all, it wasnt as if she were hiding in the closet, or anything; she was sitting right out here in full view, bathed in the bright light of the westering sun. She was sitting out here with her book, and wondering if there were ever eclipses on Mars, and if there were Martians up there to watch them if there were. If her parents thought no one could hear what they were saying just because they were sitting at the table in there, was that her fault? Was she supposed to go in and tell them? I dont theenk so, my deah, Jessie whispered in her snottiest Elizabeth Taylor Cat on a Hot Tin Roof voice; and then cupped her hands over a big, goofy grin. And she guessed she was also safe from her big sisters interference, at least for the time being; she could hear Maddy and Will below her in the rumpus room, squabbling goodnaturedly over a game of Cootie or Parcheesi or something like that. I really dont think it would hurt her to stay here with me tomorrow, do you? her father was asking in his most winning, goodhumored voice. No, of course not, Jessies mother replied, but it wouldnt exactly kill her to go someplace with the rest of us this summer, either. Shes turned into a complete Daddys girl. She went down to the puppet show in Bettel with you and Will last week. In fact, didnt you tell me that she stayed with Willeven bought him an ice cream out of her own allowancewhile you went into that auction barn? That was no sacrifice for our Jessie, Sally replied. She sounded almost grim. What do you mean? I mean she went to the puppet show because she wanted to, and she took care of Will because she wanted to. Grimness had given way to a more familiar tone exasperation. How can you understand what I mean? that tone asked. How can you possibly, when youse a man? This was a tone Jessie had heard more and more frequently in her mothers voice these last few years. She knew that was partly because she herself heard more and saw more as she grew up, but she was pretty sure it was also because her mother used that tone more frequently than she once had. Jessie couldnt understand why her fathers brand of logic always made her mother so crazy. All of a sudden the fact that she did something because she wanted to is a cause for concern? Tom was now asking.

Maybe even a mark against her? What do we do if she develops a social conscience as well as a family one, Sal? Put her in a home for wayward girls? Dont patronize me, Tom. You know perfectly well what I mean. Nope; this time youve lost me in the dust, sweet one. This is supposed to be our summer vacation, remember? And Ive always sort of had the idea that when people are on vacation, theyre supposed to do what they want to do, and be with who they want to be with. In fact, I thought that was the whole idea. Jessie smiled, knowing it was all over but the shouting. When the eclipse started tomorrow afternoon, she was going to be here with her Daddy instead of on top of Mount Washington with PoohPooh Breath and the rest of The Dark Score Sun Worshippers. Her father was like some worldclass chessmaster who had given a talented amateur a run for her money and was now polishing her off. You could come, too, TomJessie would come if you did. That was a tricky one. Jessie held her breath. Cant, my loveIm expecting a call from David Adams on the Brookings Pharmaceuticals portfolio. Very important stuff... also very risky stuff. At this stage, handling Brookings is like handling blasting caps. But let me be honest with you even if I could, Im not really sure I would. Im not nuts about the Gilette woman, but I can get along with her. That asshole Sleefort, on the other hand Hush, Tom! Dont worryMaddy and Will are downstairs and Jessies way out on the front deck ... see her? At that moment, Jessie suddenly became sure that her father knew exactly what the acoustics of the living roomdining room were like; he knew that his daughter was hearing every word of this discussion. Wanted her to hear every word. A warm little shiver traced its way up her back and down her legs. I should have knourn it came down to Dick Sleefort! Her mother sounded angrily amused, a combination that made Jessies head spin. It seemed to her that only adults could combine emotions in so many daffy waysif feelings were food, adult feelings would be things like chocolatecovered steak, mashed potatoes with pineapple bits, Special K with chili powder sprinkled on it instead of sugar. Jessie thought that being an adult seemed more like a punishment than a reward. This is really exasperating, Tomthe man made a pass at me six years ago. He was drunk. Back in those days he was always drunk, but hes cleaned up his act. Polly Bergeron told me he goes to A. A., and Bully for him, her father said dryly. Do we send him a getwell card or a meritbadge, Sally? Dont be flip. You almost broke the mans nose Yes, indeed. When a fellow comes into the kitchen to freshen his drink and finds the rumdum from up the road with one hand on his wifes behind and the other down the front of her Never mind, she said primly, but Jessie thought that for some reason her mother sounded almost pleased. Curiouser and curiouser. The point is, its time you discovered that Dick Sleefort isnt a demon from the deeps and its time Jessie discovered Adrienne Gilette is just a lonely old woman who once slapped her hand at a lawnparty as a little joke. Now please dont get all crazy on me, Tom; Im not claiming it was a good joke; it wasnt. Im just saying that Adrienne didnt know that. There was no bad intent. Jessie looked down and saw her paperback novel was bent almost double in her right hand. How could her mother, a woman whod graduated cum laude (whatever that meant) from Vassar, possibly be so stupid? The answer seemed clear enough to Jessie she couldnt be. Either she knew better or she refused to see the truth, and you arrived at the same conclusion no matter which answer you decided was the right one when forced to choose between believing the ugly old woman who lived up the road from them in the summertime and her own daughter, Sally Mahout had chosen PoohPooh Breath. Good deal, huh? If Im a Daddys girl, thats why. That and all the Other stuff she says thats like that. Thats why, but I could never tell her and shell never see it on her own. Never in a billion years. Jessie forced herself to relax her grip on the paperback. Mrs. Gilette had meant it, there had been bad intent, but her fathers suspicion that she had ceased being afraid of the old crow had probably been more right than wrong, just the same. Also, she was going to get her way about staying with her father, so none of her mothers essaitcheyetee really mattered, did it? She was going to be here with her Daddy, she wouldnt have to deal with old PoohPooh Breath, and these good things were going to happen because ... Because he sticks up for me, she murmured. Yes; that was the bottom line. Her father stuck up for her, and her mother stuck it to her. Jessie saw the evening star glowing mildly in the darkening sky and suddenly realized she had been out on the deck, listening to them circle the subject of the eclipseand the subject of herfor almost threequarters of an hour. She discovered a minor but interesting fact of life that night time speeds by fastest when you are eavesdropping on conversations about yourself. With hardly a thought, she raised her hand and curled it into a tube, simultaneously catching the star and sending it the old formula wish I may, wish I might. Her wish, already well on the way to being granted, was that she be allowed to stay here tomorrow with her Daddy. To stay with him no matter what. Just two folks who knew how to stick up for each other, sitting out on the deck and eating Eclipse Burgers deux ... like an old married couple. As for Dick Sleefort, he apologized to me later, Tom. I dont remember if I ever told you that or not You did, but I dont remember him ever apologizing to me. He was probably afraid youd knock his block off, or at least try to, Sally replied, speaking again in that tone of voice Jessie found so peculiarit seemed to be an uneasy mixture of happiness, good humor, and anger. Jessie wondered for just a moment if it was possible to sound that way and be completely sane, and then she squashed the thought quickly and completely. Also, I want to say one more thing about Adrienne Gilette before we leave the subject entirely ... Be my guest. She told mein 1959, this was, two whole summers laterthat she went through the change that year. She never specifically mentioned Jessie and the cookie incident, but I think she was trying to apologize. Oh. It was her fathers coolest, most lawyerly Oh. And did either of you ladies think to pass that information on to Jessie... and explain to her what it meant? Silence from her mother. Jessie, who still had only the vaguest notion of what going through the change meant, looked down and saw she had once again gripped the book tight enough to bend it and once again forced herself to relax her hands. Or to apologize? His tone was gentle ... caressing ... deadly. Stop crossexamining me! Sally burst out after another long, considering silence. This is your home, not Part Two of Superior Court, in case you hadnt noticed! You brought the subject up, not me, he said. I just asked Oh, I get so tired of the way you twist everything around, Sally said. Jessie knew from her tone of voice that she was either crying or getting ready to. For the first time that she could remember, the sound of her mothers tears called up no sympathy in her own heart, no urge to run and comfort (probably bursting into tears herself in the process). Instead she felt a queer, stony satisfaction. Sally, youre upset. Why dont we just Youre damned tooting I am. Arguments with my husband have a way of doing that, isnt that strange? Isnt that just the weirdest thing you ever heard? And do you know what were arguing about? Ill give you a hint, Tomits not Adrienne Gilette and its not Dick Sleefort and its not the eclipse tomorrow. Were arguing about Jessie, about our daughter, and what else is new? She laughed through her tears. There was a dry hiss as she scratched a match and lit a cigarette. Dont they say its the squeaky wheel that always gets the grease? And thats our Jessie, isnt it? The squeaky wheel. Never quite satisfted with the arrangements until she gets a chance to put on the finishing touches. Never quite happy with someone elses plans. Never able to let well enough alone. Jessie was appalled to hear something very close to hate in her mothers voice. Sally Never mind, Tom. She wants to stay here with you? Fine. She wouldnt be pleasant to have along, anyway; all shed do is pick fights with her sister and whine about having to watch out for Will. All shed do is squeak, in other words. Sally, Jessie hardly ever whines, and shes very good aboutOh, you dont see her! Sally Mahout cried, and the spite in her voice made Jessie cringe back in her chair. I swear to God, sometimes you behave as if she were your girlfriend instead of your daughter! This time the long pause belonged to her father, and when he spoke, his voice was soft and cold. Thats a lousy, underhanded, unfair thing to say, he finally replied. Jessie sat on the deck, looking at the evening star and feeling dismay deepening toward something like horror. She felt a sudden urge to cup her hand and catch the star againthis time to wish everything away, beginning with her request to her Daddy that he fix things so she could stay at Sunset Trails with him tomorrow. Then the sound of her mothers chair being pushed back came. I apologize, Sally said, and although she still sounded angry, Jessie thought she now sounded a little afraid, as well. Keep her tomorrow, if thats what you want! Fine! Good! Youre welcome to her! Then the sound of her heels, tapping rapidly away, and a moment later the snick of her fathers Zippo as he lit his own cigarette. On the deck, Jessie felt warm tears spring to her eyestears of shame, hurt, and relief that the argument had ended before it could get any worse ... for hadnt both she and Maddy noticed that their parents arguments had gotten both louder and hotter just lately? That the coolness between them afterward was slower to warm up again? It wasnt possible, was it, that they No, she interrupted herself before the thought could be completed. No, its not. Its not possible at all, so just shut up. Perhaps a change of scene would induce a change of thought. Jessie got up, trotted down the deck steps, then walked down the path to the lakefront. There she sat, throwing pebbles into the water, until her father came out to find her, half an hour later. Eclipse Burgers for two on the deck tomorrow, he said, and kissed the side of her neck. He had shaved and his chin was smooth, but that small, delicious shiver went up her back again just the same. Its all fixed. Was she mad? Nope, her father said cheerfully. Said it was fine by her either way, since youd done all your chores this week and She had forgotten her earlier intuition that he knew a lot more about the acoustics of the living roomdining room than he had ever let on, and the generosity of his lie moved her so deeply that she almost burst into tears. She turned to him, threw her arms around his neck, and covered his cheeks and lips with fierce little kisses. His initial reaction was surprise. His hands jerked backward, and for just a moment they were cupping the tiny nubs of her breasts. That shivery feeling passed through her again, but this time it was much strongeralmost strong enough to be painful, like a shockand with it, like some weird dj vu, came that recurring sense of adulthoods strange contradictions a world where you could order blackberry meatloaf or eggs fried in lemonjuice whenever you wanted to ... and where some people actually did. Then his hands slipped all the way around her, they were pressed safely against her shoulderblades, hugging her warmly against him, and if they had stayed where they shouldnt have been a moment longer than they should have done, she barely noticed. I love you, Daddy. Love you, too, Punkin. A hundred million bunches. 16 The day of the eclipse dawned hot and muggy but relatively clearthe weather forecasters warnings that lowhanging clouds might obscure the phenomenon were going to prove groundless, it seemed, at least in western Maine. Sally, Maddy, and Will left to catch The Dark Score Sun Worshippers bus at around ten oclock (Sally gave Jessie a stiff, silent peck on the cheek before leaving, and Jessie responded in kind), leaving Tom Mahout with the girl his wife had called the squeaky wheel the night before. Jessie changed out of her shorts and Camp Ossippee teeshirt and into her new sundress, the one which was pretty (if you werent offended by red and yellow stripes almost bright enough to shout, that was) but too tight. She put on a dab of Maddys My Sin perfume, a little of her mothers Yodora deodorant, and a fresh application of Peppermint YumYum lipstick. And although she had never been one to linger before the mirror, fussing with herself (that was her mothers term, as in Maddy, stop fussing with yourself and come out of there!), she took time to put her hair up that day because her father had once complimented her on that particular style. When she had put the last pin into place, she reached for the bathroom lightswitch, then paused. The girl looking back at her from the mirror didnt seem like a girl at all, but a teenager. It wasnt the way the sundress accentuated the tiny swellings that wouldnt really be breasts for another year or two, and it wasnt the lipstick, and it wasnt her hair, held up in a clumsy but oddly fetching chignon; it was all of these things together, a sum greater than its parts because of ... what? She didnt know. Something in the way the upsweep of her hair accented the shape of her cheekbones, perhaps. Or the bare curve of her neck, so much sexier than. either the mosquitobumps on her chest or her hipless tomboys body. Or maybe it was just the look in her eyessome sparkle that either had been hidden before today or had never been there at all. Whatever it was, it made her linger a moment longer, looking at her reflection, and suddenly she heard her mother saying I swear to God, sometimes you behave as if she were your girlfriend insteadof your daughter! She bit her pink lower lip, brow furrowing a little, remembering the night beforethe shiver that had gone through her at his touch, the feel of his hands on her breasts. She could feel that shiver trying to happen again, and she refused to let it. There was no sense shivering over stupid stuff you couldnt understand. Or even thinking about it. Good advice, she thought, and turned off the bathroom light. She found herself growing more and more excited as noon passed and the afternoon drew along toward the actual time of the eclipse. She turned the portable radio to WNCH, the rockandroll station in North Conway. Her mother abhorred NCH, and after thirty minutes of Del Shannon and Dee Dee Sharp and Gary U.S. Bonds, would make whoever had tuned it in (usually Jessie or Maddy, but sometimes Will) change to the classical music station which broadcast from the top of Mount Washington, but her father actually seemed to enjoy the music today, snapping his fingers and humming along. Once, during The Duprees version of You Belong to Me, he swept Jessie briefly into his arms and danced her along the deck. Jessie got the barbecue going around threethirty, with the onset of the eclipse still an hour away, and went to ask her father if he wanted two burgers or just one. She found him on the south side of the house, below the deck on which she stood. He was wearing only a pair of cotton shorts (YALE PHY ED was printed on one leg) and a quilted ovenmitt. He had tied a bandanna around his forehead to keep the sweat out of his eyes. He was crouched over a small, smoky sod fire. The combination of the shorts and the bandanna gave him an odd but pleasant look of youth; Jessie could for the first time in her life see the man with whom her mother had fallen in love during her senior summer. Several squares of glasspanes cut carefully out of the crumbling putty in an old shed windowwere piled up beside him. He was holding one in the smoke rising from the fire, using the barbecue tongs to turn the glass square this way and that like some sort of weird camp delicacy. Jessie burst out laughingit was mostly the ovenmitt that struck her funnyand he turned around, also grinning. The thought that the angle made it possible for him to look up her dress crossed her mind, but only fleetingly. He was her father, after all, not some cute boy like Duane Corson from down at the marina. What are you doing? she giggled. I thought we were having hamburgers for lunch, not glass sandwiches! Eclipseviewers, not sandwiches, Punkin, he said. If you put two or three of these together, you can look at the eclipse for the whole period of totality without damaging your eyes. You have to be really careful, Ive read ; you can burn your retinas and not even know youve done it until later. Ag! Jessie said, shivering a little. The idea of burning yourself without knowing you were doing it struck her as incredibly gross. How long will it be total, Daddy? Not long. A minute or so. Well, make some more of those glass whatchamacallumsI dont want to burn my eyes. One Eclipse Burger or two? One will be fine. If its a big one. Okay. She turned to go. Punkin? She looked back at him, a small, compact man with fine beads of sweat standing out on his forehead, a man with as little body hair as the man she would later marry, but without either Geralds thick glasses or his paunch, and for a moment the fact that this man was her father seemed the least important thing about him. She was struck again by how handsome he was, and how young he looked. As she watched, a bead of sweat rolled slowly down his stomach, tracked just east of his navel, and made a small dark spot on the elastic waistband of his Yale shorts. She looked back at his face and was suddenly, exquisitely aware of his eyes on her. Even narrowed against the smoke as they were now, those eyes were absolutely gorgeous, the brilliant gray of daybreak on winter water. Jessie found she had to swallow before she could answer; her throat was dry. Possibly it was the acrid smoke from his sod fire. Or possibly not. Yes, Daddy? For a long moment he said nothing, only went on looking up at her with sweat running slowly down his cheeks and forehead and chest and belly, and Jessie was suddenly frightened. Then he smiled again and all was well. You look very pretty today, Punkin. In fact, if it doesnt sound too yucky, you look beautiful. Thank youit doesnt sound yucky at all. His comment pleased her so much (especially after her mothers angry editorial comments of the night before, or perhaps because of them) that a lump rose in her throat and she felt like crying for a moment. She smiled instead, and sketched a curtsey in his direction, and then hurried back to the barbecue with her heart pounding a steady drumroll in her chest. One of the things her mother had said, the most awful thing, tried to rise into her mind (you behave as if she were your) and Jessie squashed it as ruthlessly as she would have squashed a badtempered wasp. Still, she felt gripped by one of those crazy adult mixes of emotionice cream and gravy, roast chicken stuffed with sourballsand could not seem to entirely escape it. Nor was she sure she even wanted to. In her mind she kept seeing that single drop of sweat tracking lazily down his stomach, being absorbed by the soft cotton of his shorts, leaving that tiny dark place. It was from that image that the emotional turmoil seemed chiefly to arise. She kept seeing it and seeing it and seeing it. It was crazy. Well, so what? It was a crazy day, that was all. Even the sun was going to do something crazy. Why not leave it at that? Yes, the voice that would one day masquerade as Ruth Neary agreed. Why not? The Eclipse Burgers, garnished with sauted mushrooms and mild red onion, were nothing short of fabulous. They certainly eclipse the last batch your mother made, her father told her, and Jessie giggled wildly. They ate on the deck outside Tom Mahouts den, balancing metal trays on their laps. A round decktable, littered with condiments, paper plates, and eclipsewatching paraphernalia, stood between them. The observation gear included Polaroid sunglasses, two homemade cardboard reflectorboxes of the sort which the rest of the family had taken with them to Mount Washington, panes of smoked glass, and a stack of hotpads from the drawer beside the kitchen stove. The panes of smoked glass werent hot anymore, Tom told his daughter, but he wasnt terribly competent with the glasscutter, and he was afraid there still might be nicks and jagged spots along the edges of some of the panes. The last thing I need, he told her, is for your mother to come home and find a note saying Ive taken you to the Emergency Room at Oxford Hills Hospital so they can try to sew a couple of your fingers back on. Mom really wasnt exactly crazy about this idea, was she? Jessie asked. Her Daddy gave her a brief hug. No, he said, but I was. I was crazy enough about it for both of us. And he gave her a smile so bright she just had to smile back. It was the reflectorboxes they used first as the onset of the eclipse429 P.M., EDTneared. The sun lying in the center of Jessies reflectorbox was no bigger than a bottlecap, but it was so fiercely bright that she groped a pair of the sunglasses from the table and put them on. According to her Timex, the eclipse should have already startedit said 430. I guess my watch is fast, she said nervously. Either that or theres a bunch of astronomers all over the world with egg on their faces. Check again, Tom said, smiling. When she looked back into the reflectorbox, she saw that the brilliant circle was no longer a perfect circle; a crescent of darkness now dented the righthand side. A shiver slipped down her neck. Tom, who had been watching her instead of the image inside his own reflectorbox, saw it. Punkin? All right? Yes, but ... its a little scary, isnt it? Yes, he said. She glanced at him and was deeply relieved to see he meant it. He looked almost as scared as she felt, and this only added to his winning boyishness. The idea that they might be afraid of different things never entered her mind. Want to sit on my lap, Jess? Can I? You bet. She slipped onto his lap, still holding her own reflectorbox in her hands. She wiggled around to get comfortable against him, liking the smell of his faintly sweaty, sunwarmed skin and a faint trace of some aftershaveRedwood, she thought it was called. The sundress rode up on her thighs (it could hardly do anything else, as short as it was), and she barely noticed when he put his hand on one of her legs. This was her father, after allDaddynot Duane Corson from down at the marina, or Richie Ashlocke, the boy she and her friends moaned and giggled over at school. The minutes passed slowly. Every now and then she squirmed around, trying to get comfortablehis lap seemed strangely full of angles this afternoonand at one point she must have dozed off for three or four minutes. It might have been even longer, because the puff of breeze that came strolling down the deck and woke her up was surprisingly cold against her sweaty arms, and the afternoon had changed somehow; colors which had seemed bright before she leaned back against his shoulder and closed her eyes were now pale pastels, and the light itself had weakened somehow. It was as if, she thought, the day had been strained through cheesecloth. She looked into her reflectorbox and was surprisedalmost stunned, actuallyto see that only half the sun was there now. She looked at her watch and saw it was nine minutes past five. Its happening, Daddy! The suns going out! Yes, he agreed. His voice was odd, somehowdeliberate and thoughtful on top, somehow blurry down below. Right on schedule. She noticed in a vague sort of way that his hand had slipped higherquite a bit higher, actuallyon her leg while she had been dozing. Can I look through the smoked glass yet, Dad? Not yet, he said, and his hand slid higher still along her thigh. It was warm and sweaty but not unpleasant. She put her own hand over it, turned to him, and grinned. Its exciting, isnt it? Yes, he said in that same odd blurry tone. Yes it is, Punkin. Quite a bit more than I thought it would be, actually. More time passed. In the reflectorbox, the moon continued to nibble away at the sun as fivetwentyfive passed, and then fivethirty. Almost all of her attention was now focused on the diminishing image in the reflectorbox, but some faint part of her became aware once again of how oddly hard his lap was this afternoon. Something was pressing against her bottom. It wasnt painful, but it was insistent. To Jessie, it felt like the handle of some toota screwdriver, or maybe her mothers tackhammer. Jessie wriggled again, wanting to find a more comfortable spot on his lap, and Tom drew in a quick hissing mouthful of air over his bottom lip Daddy? Am I too heavy? Did I hurt you? No. Youre fine. She glanced at her watch. Fivethirtyseven now; four minutes to totality, maybe a little more if her watch was running fast. Can I look at it through the glass yet? Not yet, Punkin. But very soon. She could hear Debbie Reynolds singing something from the Dark Ages, courtesy of WNCH The old hootyowl ... hootyhoos to the dove ... Tammy... Tammy ... Tammys in love. It finally drowned in a sticky swirl of violins and was replaced by the disc jockey, who told them it was getting dark in Ski Town, U.S.A. (this was the way the NCH deejays almost always referred to North Conway), but that the skies were too cloudy over on the New Hampshire side of the border to actually see the eclipse. The deejay told them there were a lot of disappointed folks wearing sunglasses across the street on the town common. Were not disappointed folks, are we, Daddy? Not a bit, he agreed, and shifted beneath her again. Were about the most happy folks in the universe, I guess. Jessie peered into the reflectorbox again, forgetting everything except the tiny image which she could now look at without narrowing her eyes down to protective slits behind the heavily tinted Polaroid sunglasses. The dark crescent on the right which had signalled the onset of the eclipse had now become a blazing crescent of sunlight on the left. It was so bright it almost seemed to float over the surface of the reflectorbox. Look out on the lake, Jessie! She did, and behind the sunglasses her eyes widened. In her rapt examination of the shrinking image in the reflectorbox, she had missed what was going on all around her. Pastels had now faded to ancient watercolors. A premature twilight, both entrancing and horrifying to the tenyearold girl, was slipping across Dark Score Lake. Somewhere in the woods, an old hootyowl cried out softly, and Jessie felt a sudden hard shudder bend its way through her body On the radio, an Aamco Transmission ad ended and Marvin Gaye began to sing Oww, listen everybody, especially you girls, is it right to be left alone when the one you love is never home? The owl hooted again in the woods to the north of them. It was a scarysound, Jessie suddenly realizeda very scary sound. This time when she shivered, Tom slipped an arm around her. Jessie leaned gratefully back against his chest. Its creepy, Dad. It wont last long, honey, and youll probably never see another one. Try not to be too scared to enjoy it. She looked into her reflectorbox. There was nothing there. I love too hard, my friends sometimes say ... Dad? Daddy? Its gone. Can I Yes. Now its okay. But when I say you have to stop, you have to stop. No arguments, understand? She understood, all right. She found the idea of retinal bumsburns you apparently didnt even know you were getting until it was too late to do anything about thema lot scarier than the hootyowl off in the woods. But there was no way she wasnt going to at least have a peek, now that it was actually here, actually happening. No way. But I believe, Marvin sang with the fervor of the converted, Yes I believe... that a woman should be loved that way ... Tom Mahout gave her one of the oven potholders, then three panes of smoked glass in a stack. He was breathing fast, and Jessie suddenly felt sorry for him. The eclipse had probably given him the creeps, too, but of course he was an adult and wasnt supposed to let on. In a lot of ways adults were sad creatures. She thought about turning around to comfort him, then decided that would probably make him feel even worse. Make him feel stupid. Jessie could sympathize. She hated to feel stupid worse than anything. Instead, she held the smoked panes of glass up in front of her, then slowly raised her head from her reflectorbox to look through them. Now you chicks should all agree, Marvin sang, this aint the way its sposed to be, So lemme hear ya! Lemme hearya say YEAH YEAH! What Jessie saw when she looked through the makeshift viewer 17 At this point the Jessie handcuffed to the bed in the summer house on the north shore of Kashwakamak Lake, the Jessie who was not ten but thirtynine and a widow of almost twelve hours, suddenly realized two things that she was asleep, and that she was not so much dreaming about the day of the eclipse as reliving it. She had gone on awhile thinking it was a dream, only a dream, like her dream of Wills birthday party, where most of the guests had either been dead or people she wouldnt actually meet for years. This new mindmovie had the surrealbutsensible quality of the earlier one, but that was an untrustworthy yardstick because that whole day had been surreal and dreamlike. First the eclipse, and then her father No more, Jessie decided. No more, Im getting out of this. She made a convulsive effort to rise out of the dream or recollection or whatever it was. Her mental effort translated into a wholebody twitch, and the handcuff chains jingled mutedly as she twisted violently from side to side. She almost made it; for a moment she was almost out. And she could have made it, would have made it, if she hadnt thought better of it at the last moment. What stopped her was an inarticulate but overwhelming terror of a shapesome waiting shape that might make what had happened that day on the deck seem insignificant by comparison ... if she had to face it, that was. But maybe I dont have to. Not yet. And perhaps the urge to hide in sleep wasnt allthere might have been something else, as well. Some part of her that intended to have this out in the open once and for all, no matter what the cost. She sank back down on the pillow, eyes closed, arms held up and sacrificially spread, her face pale and tight with strain. Especially you girls, she whispered into the darkness. Especially all you girls. She sank back on the pillow, and the day of the eclipse claimed her again. 18 What Jessie saw through her sunglasses and her homemade filter was so strange and so awesome that at first her mind refused to grasp it. There seemed to be a vast round beauty mark, like the one below the corner of Anne Franciss mouth, hanging there in the afternoon sky. If I talk in my sleep... cause I havent seen my baby all week ... It was at this point that she first felt her fathers hand on the nub of her right breast. It squeezed gently for a moment, drifted across to the left one, then returned to the right again, as if he were making a size comparison. He was breathing very fast now; the respiration in her ear was like a steam engine, and she was again aware of that hard thing pressing against her bottom. Can I get a witness? Marvin Gaye, that auctioneer of soul, was shouting. Witness, witness? Daddy? Are you all right? She felt a delicate tingle in her breasts againpleasure and pain, roast turkey with a Nehi glaze and chocolate gravybut this time she also felt alarm and a kind of startled confusion.

Yes, he said, but his voice sounded almost like the voice of a stranger. Yes, fine, but dont look around. He shifted. The hand which had been on her breasts went somewhere else; the one on her thigh moved up farther, pushing the hem of the sundress ahead of it. Daddy, what are you doing? Her question was not exactly fearful; mostly it was curious. Still, there was an undertone of fear there, something like a length of fine red thread. Above her, a furnace of strange light glowed fiercely around the dark circle hanging in the indigo sky. Do you love me, Punkin? Yes, sure Then dont worry about anything. Id never hurt you. I want to be sweet to you. Just watch the eclipse and let me be sweet to you. Im not sure I want to, Daddy. That sense of confusion was growing deeper, the red thread was fattening. Im afraid of burning my eyes. Burning my watchamacallums. But I believe, Marvin sang, a womans a mans best friend... and Im gonna stick by her... to the very end. Dont worry. He was panting now. You have another twenty seconds. At least that. So dont worry. And dont look around. She heard the snap of elastic, but it was his, not hers; her underpants were where they were supposed to be, although she realized that if she looked down she would be able to see themthat was how far up he had pushed her dress. Do you love me? he asked again, and although she was gripped by a terrible premonition that the right answer to this question had become the wrong one, she was ten years old and it was still the only answer she had to give. She told him that she did. Witness, witness, Marvin pleaded, fading out now. Her father shifted, pressing the hard thing more firmly against her bottom. Jessie suddenly realized what it wasnot the handle of a screwdriver or the tackhammer from the toolbox in the pantry, that was for sureand the alarm she felt was matched by a momentary spiteful pleasure which had more to do with her mother than with her father. This is what you get for not sticking up for me, she thought, looking at the dark circle in the sky through the layers of smoked glass, and then I guess this is what we both get. Her vision suddenly blurred, and the pleasure was gone. Only the mounting sense of alarm was left. Oh jeez, she thought. Its my retinas... it must be my retinas starting to burn. The hand on her thigh now moved between her legs, slid up until it was stopped by her crotch, and cupped her firmly there. He shouldnt be doing that, she thought. It was the wrong place for his hand. Unless Hes goosing you, a voice inside suddenly spoke up. In later years that voice, which she eventually came to think of as that of the Goodwife, frequently filled her with exasperation; it was sometimes the voice of caution, often the voice of blame, and almost always the voice of denial. Unpleasant things, demeaning things, painful things ... they would all go away eventually if you ignored them enthusiastically enough, that was the Goodwifes view. It was a voice apt to stubbornly insist that even the most obvious wrongs were actually rights, parts of a benign plan too large and complex for mere mortals to grasp. There would be times (mostly during her eleventh and twelfth years, when she called that voice Miss Petrie, after her secondgrade teacher) when she would actually raise her hands to her ears to try and blot out that quacking, reasonable voiceuseless, of course, since it originated on the side of her ears she couldnt get tobut in that moment of dawning dismay while the eclipse darkened the skies over western Maine and reflected stars burned in the depths of Dark Score Lake, that moment when she realized (sort of) what the hand between her legs was up to, she heard only kindness and practicality, and she seized upon what the voice was saying with panicky relief. Its just a goose, thats all it is, Jessie. Are you sure? she cried back. Yes, the voice replied firmlyas the years went by, Jessie would discover that this voice was almost always sure, wrong or right. He means it as a joke, thats all. He doesnt know hes scaring you, so dont open your mouth and spoil a lovely afternoon. This is no big deal. Dont you believe it, toots! the other voicethe tough voiceresponded. Sometimes he behaves as if youre his goddamned girlfriend instead of his daughter, and thats what hes doing right now! Hes not goosing you, Jessie! Hes fucking you! She was almost positive that was a lie, almost positive that strange and forbidden schoolyard word referred to an act that could not be accomplished with just a hand, but doubts remained. With sudden dismay she remembered Karen Aucoin telling her not to ever let a boy put his tongue in her mouth, because it could start a baby in her throat. Karen said it sometimes happened that way, but that a woman who had to vomit her baby to get it out almost always died, and usually the baby died, too. I aint ever going to let a boy Frenchkiss me, Karen said. I might let one feel me on top, if I really loved him, but I dont ever want a baby in my throat. How would you EAT? At the time, Jessie had found this concept of pregnancy so crazy it was almost charmingand who but Karen Aucoin, who worried about whether or not the light stayed on when you shut the refrigerator door, could have come up with such a thing? Now, however, the idea shimmered with its own weird logic. Suppose just supposeit was true? If you could get a baby from a boys tongue, if that could happen, then And there was that hard thing pressing into her bottom. That thing that wasnt the handle of a screwdriver or her mothers tackhammer. Jessie tried to squeeze her legs together, a gesture that was ambivalent to her but apparently not to him. He gaspeda painful, scary soundand pressed his fingers harder against the sensitive mound just beneath the crotch of her underpants. It hurt a little. She stiffened against him and moaned. It occurred to her much later that her father very likely misinterpreted that sound as passion, and it was probably just as well that he did. Whatever his interpretation, it signalled the climax of this strange interlude. He arched suddenly beneath her, sending her smoothly upward. The movement was both terrifying and strangely pleasurable ... that he should be so strong, that she should be so moved. For one moment she almost understood the nature of the chemicals at work here, dangerous yet compelling, and that control of them might lie within her graspif she wanted to control them, that was. I dont, she thought. I dont want anything to do with it. Whatever it is, its nasty and horrible and scary. Then the hard thing pressed against her buttock, the thing that wasnt the handle of a screwdriver or her mothers tackhammer, was spasming, and some liquid was spreading there, soaking a hot spot through her pants. Its sweat, the voice which would one day belong to the Goodwife said promptly. Thats what it is. He sensed you were afraid of him, afraid to be on his lap, and that made him nervous. You ought to be sorry. Sweat, my eye! the other voice, the one which would one day belong to Ruth, returned. It spoke quietly, forcefully, fearfully. You know what it is, Jessieits the stuff you heard Maddy and those other girls talking about the night Maddy had her slumber party, after they thought you were finally asleep. Cindy Lessard called it spunk. She said it was white and that it squirts out of a guys thing like toothpaste. Thats the stuff that makes babies, not French kissing. For a moment she balanced up there on the stiff lift of his wave, confused and afraid and somehow excited, listening to him snatch one harsh breath after another out of the humid air. Then his hips and thighs slowly relaxed and he lowered her back down. Dont look at it any longer, Punkin, he said, and although he was still panting, his voice was almost normal again. That scary excitement had gone out of it, and there was no ambivalence about what she felt now deep simple relief. Whatever had happenedif anything really hadit was over. Daddy Nope, dont argue. Your time is up. He took the stack of smoked glass panes gently from her hand. At the same time he kissed her neck, even more gently. Jessie stared out at the weird darkness cloaking the lake as he did it. She was faintly aware that the owl was still calling, and that the crickets had been fooled into beginning their evensongs two or three hours early. An afterimage floated in front of her eyes like a round black tattoo surrounded by an irregular halo of green fire and she thought If I looked at it too long, if I burned my retinas, Ill probably have to look at that for the rest of my life, like what you see after someone shoots off a flashbulb in your eyes. Why dont you go inside and change into jeans, Punkin ? I guess maybe the sundresswasnt such a good idea, after all. He spoke in a dull, emotionless voice that seemed to suggest that wearing the sundress had been all her idea (Even if it wasnt, you should have known better, the Miss Petrie voice said instantly), and a new idea suddenly occurred to her What if he decided he had to tell Mom about what had happened? The possibility was so horrifying that Jessie burst into tears. Im sorry, Daddy, she wept, throwing her arms around him and pressing her face into the hollow of his neck, smelling the vague and ghostly aroma of his aftershave or cologne or whatever it was. If I did something wrong, Im really, really, really sorry. God, no, he said, but he still spoke in that dull, preoccupied voice, as if trying to decide if he should tell Sally what Jessie had done, or if it could perhaps be swept under the rug. You didnt do anything wrong, Punkin. Do you still love me? she persisted. It occurred to her that she was mad to ask, mad to risk an answer which might devastate her, but she had to ask. Had to. Of course, he replied at once. A little more animation came into his voice as he said it, enough to make her understand that he was telling the truth (and oh what a relief that was), but she still suspected things had changed, and all because of something she barely understood. She knew the (goose it was a goose just a kind of goose) had had something to do with sex, but she had no idea just how much or how serious it might have been. It probably wasnt what the girls at the slumber party had called going all the way (except for the strangely knowledgeable Cindy Lessard; she had called it deepsea diving with the long white pole, a term which had struck Jessie as both horrible and hilarious), but the fact that he hadnt put his thing in her thing still might not mean she was safe from being what some of the girls, even at her school, called peegee. What Karen Aucoin had told her last year when they were walking home from school recurred to her, and Jessie tried to shut it out. It almost certainly wasnt true, and he hadnt stuck his tongue in her mouth even if it was. In her mind she heard her mothers voice, loud and angry Dont they say its the squeaky wheel that always gets the grease? She felt the hot wet spot against her buttocks. It was still spreading. Yes, she thought. I guess thats right. I guess the squeaky wheel does get the grease. Daddy He raised his hand, a gesture he often made at the dinner table when her mother or Maddy (usually her mother) started getting hot under the collar about something. Jessie couldnt remember Daddy ever making this gesture to her, and it reinforced her feeling that something had gone horribly awry here, and that there were apt to be fundamental, unappealable changes as. the result of some terrible error (probably agreeing to wear the sundress) she had made. This idea caused a feeling of sorrow so deep that it felt like invisible fingers working ruthlessly inside her, sifting and winnowing her guts. In the corner of her eye, she noticed that her fathers gym shorts were askew. Something was poking out, something pink, and it sure as hell wasnt the handle of a screwdriver. Before she could look away, Tom Mahout caught the direction of her glance and quickly adjusted his shorts, causing the pink thing to disappear. His face contracted in a momentary moue of disgust, and Jessie cringed inside again. He had caught her looking, and had mistaken her random glance for unseemly curiosity. What just happened, he began, then cleared his throat. We need to talk about what just happened, Punkin, but not right this minute. Dash inside and change your clothes, maybe take a quick shower while youre at it. Hurry up so you dont miss the end of the eclipse. She had lost all interest in the eclipse, although she would never tell him that in a million years. She nodded instead, then turned back. Daddy, am I all right? He looked surprised, unsure, warya combination which increased the feeling that angry hands were at work inside her, kneading her guts ... and she suddenly understood that he felt as bad as she did. Perhaps worse. And in an instant of clarity untouched by any voice save her own, she thought You ought to! Jeepers, you started it! Yes, he said ... but his tone did not entirely convince her. Right as rain, Jess. Now go on inside and fix yourself up. All right. She tried to smitetried hardand actually succeeded a little. Her father looked startled for a moment, and then he returned her smile. That relieved her somewhat, and the hands which had been working inside her temporarily loosened their grip. By the time she had reached the big upstairs bedroom she shared with Maddy, however, the feelings had begun to return. The worst by far was the fear that he would feel he had to tell her mother about what had happened. And what would her mother think? Thats our Jessie, isnt it? The squeaky wheel. The bedroom had been divided off girlsatcampstyle with a clothesline strung down the middle. She and Maddy had hung some old sheets on this line, and then colored bright designs on them with Wills Crayolas. Coloring the sheets and dividing the room had been great fun at the time, but it seemed stupid and kiddish to her now, and the way her overblown shadow danced on the center sheet was actually scary; it looked like the shadow of a monster. Even the fragrant smell of pine resin, which she usually liked, seemed heavy and cloying to her, like an airfreshener you sprayed around heavily to cover up some unpleasant stink. Thats our Jessie, never quite satisfied with the arrangements until she gets a chance to put on the finishing touches. Never quite happy with someone elses plans. Never able to let well enough alone. She hurried into the bathroom, wanting to outrun that voice, rightly guessing she wouldnt be able to. She turned on the light and pulled the sundress over her head in one quick jerk. She threw it into the laundry hamper, glad to be rid of it. She looked at herself in the mirror, wideeyed, and saw a little girls face surrounded by a big girls hairdo ... one which was now coming loose from the pins in strands and puffs and locks. It was a little girls body, tooflatchested and slimhippedbut it wouldnt be that way for long. It had already started to change, and it had done something to her father it had no business doing. I never want boobs and curvy hips, she thought dully. If they make things like this happen, who would? The thought made her aware of that wet spot on the seat of her underpants again. She slipped out of them cotton pants from Sears, once green, now so faded they were closer to grayand held them up curiously, her hands inside the waistband. There was something on the back of them, all right, and it wasnt sweat. Nor did it look like any kind of toothpaste she had ever seen. What it looked like was pearlygray dish detergent. Jessie lowered her head and sniffed cautiously. She smelled a faint odor which she associated with the lake after a run of hot, still weather, and with their wellwater all the time. She once took her father a glass of water which smelled particularly strong to her and asked if he could smell it. He had shaken his head. Nope, hed said cheerfully, but that doesnt mean it isnt there. It just means I smoke too damn much. My guess is that its the smell of the aquifer, Punkin. Trace minerals, thats all. A little smelly, and it means your mother has to spend a fortune on fabric softener, but it wont hurt you. Swear to God. Trace minerals, she thought now, and sniffed that bland aroma again. She was unable to think why it fascinated her, but it did. The smell of the aquifer, thats all. The smell of Then the more assertive voice spoke up. On the afternoon of the eclipse it sounded a bit like her mothers voice (it called her toolsie, for one thing, as Sally sometimes did when she was irritated with Jessie for shirking some chore or forgetting some responsibility), but Jessie had an idea it was really the voice of her own adult self. If its combative bray was a little distressing, that was only because it was too early for that voice, strictly speaking. It was here just the same, though. It was here, and it was doing the best it could to put her back together again. She found its brassy loudness oddly comforting. Its the stuff Cindy Lessard was talking about, thats what it isits his spunk, tootsie. I suppose you ought to be grateful it ended up on your underwear instead of someplace else, but dont go telling yourself any fairytales about how its the lake you smell, or trace minerals from deep down in the aquifer, or anything else. Karen Aucoin is a dipshit, there was never a woman in the history of the world who grew a baby in her throat and you know it, but Cindy Lessard is no dipshit. I think shes seen this stuff, and now youve seen it, too. Mansstuff. Spunk. Suddenly revettednot so much by what it was as from whom it had originatedJessie threw the underpants into the hamper on top of the sundress. Then she had a vision of her mother, who emptied the hampers and did the wash in the dank basement laundry room, fishing this particular pair of panties out of this particular hamper and finding this particular deposit. And what would she think? Why, that the familys troublesome squeaky wheel had gotten the grease, of course what else? Her revulsion turned to guilty horror, and Jessie quickly fished the underpants back out. All at once the flat odor seemed to fill her nose, thick and bland and sickening. Oysters and copper, she thought, and that was all it took. She fell on her knees in front of the toilet, the underpants wadded up in one clenched hand, and vomited. She flushed quickly, before the smell of partly digested hamburger could get into the air, then turned on the cold sinktap and rinsed her mouth out. Her fear that she was going to spend the next hour or so in here. kneeling in front of the toilet and puking, began to subside. Her stomach seemed to be settling. If she could just keep from getting another whiff of that bland coppercreamy smell ... Holding her breath, she thrust the panties under the cold tap, rinsed them, wrung them out, and Hung them back in the hamper. Then she took a deep breath, pushing her hair away from her temples with the backs of her damp hands at the same time. If her mother asked her what a damp pair of panties was doing in the dirty clothes Already youre thinking like a criminal, the voice that would one day belong to the Goodwife mourned. Do you see what being a badgirl gets you, Jessie? Do you? I certainly hope you d Be quiet, you little creep, the other voice snarled back. You can nag all you want later on, but right now were trying to take care of a little business here, if you dont mind. Okay? No answer. That was good. Jessie brushed nervously at her hair again, although very little of it had fallen back down against her temples. If her mother asked what the damp panties were doing in the dirtyclothes hamper, Jessie would simply say it was so hot she went for a dip without changing out of her shorts. All three of them had done that on several occasions this summer. Then you better remember to run your shorts and shirt under the tap, too. Right, toots? Right, she agreed. Good point. She slipped into the robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door and returned to the bedroom to get the shorts and the teeshirt shed been wearing when her mother, brother, and older sister left that morning ... a thousand years ago, it now seemed. She didnt see them at first, and got down on her knees to look under the bed. The other woman is on her knees, too, a voice remarked, and she smells that same smell. That smell thats like copper and cream. Jessie heard but didnt hear. Her mind was on her shorts and teeshirton her cover story. As she had suspected, they were under the bed. She reached for them. Its coming out of the well, the voice remarked further. The smell from the well. Yes, yes, Jessie thought, grabbing the clothes and starting back to the bathroom. The smell from the well, very good, youre a poet and you dont know it. She made him fall down the well, the voice said, and that finally got through. Jessie came to a dead stop in the bathroom doorway, her eyes widening. She was suddenly afraid in some new and deadly way. Now that she was actually listening to it, she realized that this voice was not like any of the others; this one was like a voice you might pick up on the radio late at night, when conditions were exactly righta voice that might come from far, far away. Not that far, Jessie; she is in the path of the eclipse, too. For one moment, the upper hallway of the house on Dark Score Lake seemed to be gone. What replaced it was a tangle of blackberry bushes, shadowless under the eclipsedarkened sky, and a clear smell of seasalt. Jessie saw a skinny woman in a housedress with her saltandpepper hair put up in a bun. She was kneeling by a splintered square of boards. There was a puddle of white fabric beside her. Jessie was quite sure it was the skinny womans slip. Who are you? Jessie asked the woman, but she was already gone ... if she had ever been there in the first place, that was. Jessie actually glanced over her shoulder to see if perhaps that spooky skinny woman had gotten behind her. But the upstairs hallway was deserted; she was alone. She looked down at her arms and saw they were rippled with gooseflesh. Youre losing your mind, the voice that would one day be Goodwife Burlingame mourned. Oh Jessie, youve been bad, youve been very bad, and now youre going to have to pay by losing your mind. Im not, she said. She looked at her pale, strained face in the bathroom mirror. Im not! She waited for a moment in a kind of horrified suspension to see if any of the voicesor the image of the woman kneeling by the splintered boards with her slip puddled on the ground beside herwould come back, but she neither heard nor saw anything. That creepy other who had told Jessie some she had pushed some he down some well was apparently gone. Strain, toots, the voice that would one day be Ruth advised, and Jessie had a clear idea that while the voice didnt exactly believe that, it had decided Jessie had better get moving again, and right away. You thought about a woman with a slip beside her because youve got underwear on the brain this afternoon, thats all. Id forget the whole thing, if I were you. That was great advice. Jessie quickly dampened her shorts and shirt under the tap, wrung them out, and then stepped into the shower. She soaped, rinsed, dried, hurried back to the bedroom. She ordinarily wouldnt have bothered with the robe again for the quick dash across the hall, but this time she did, only holding it shut instead of taking time to belt it closed. She paused in the bedroom again, biting her lip, praying that the weird other voice wouldnt come back, praying that she wouldnt have another of those crazy hallucinations or illusions or whatever they were. Nothing came. She dropped the robe on her bed, hurried across to her bureau, pulled on fresh underwear and shorts. She smells that same smell, she thought. Whoever that woman is, she smells the same smell coming out of the well she made the man fall into, and its happening now, during the eclipse. Im sure She turned, a fresh blouse in one hand, and then froze. Her father was standing in the doorway, watching her. 19 Jessie awoke in the mild, milky light of dawn with the perplexing and ominous memory of the woman still filling her mindthe woman with her graying hair pulled back in that tight countrywomans bun, the woman who had been kneeling in the blackberry tangles with her slip puddled beside her, the woman who had been looking down through broken boards and smelling that awful bland smell. Jessie hadnt thought of that woman in years, and now, fresh from her dream of 1963 that hadnt been a dream but a recollection, it seemed to her that she had been granted some sort of supernatural vision on that day, a vision that had perhaps been caused by stress and then lost again for the same reason. But it didnt matternot that, not what had happened with her father out on the deck, not what had happened later, when she had turned around to see him standing in the bedroom door. All that had happened a long time ago, and as for what was happening right now Im in trouble. I think Im in very serious trouble. She lay back against the pillows and looked up at her suspended arms. She felt as dazed and helpless as a poisoned insect in a spiders web, wanting no more than to be asleep againdreamlessly this time, if possiblewith her dead arms and dry throat in another universe. No such luck. There was a slow, somnolent buzzing sound somewhere close by. Her first thought was alarm clock. Her second, after two or three minutes of dozing with her eyes open, was smoke detector. That idea caused a brief, groundless burst of hope which brought her a little closer to real waking. She realized that what she was hearing didnt really sound very much like a smoke detector at all. It sounded like...well ... like . Its flies, toots, okay? The nobullshit voice now sounded tired and wan. Youve heard about the Boys of Summer, havent you? Well, these are the Flies of Autumn, and their version of the World Series is currently being played on Gerald Burlingame, the noted attorney and handcufffetishist. Jesus, I gotta get up, she said in a croaking, husky voice she barely recognized as her own. What the hell does that mean? she thought, and it was the answerNot a goddam thing, thanks very muchthat finished the job of bringing her back to full wakefulness. She didnt want to be awake, but she had an idea that she had better accept the fact that she was and do as much with it as she could, while she could. And you probably better start by waking up your hands and arms. If they will wake up, that is. She looked at her right arm, then turned her head on the rusty armature of her neck (which was only partially asleep) and looked at her left. Jessie realized with sudden shock that she was looking at them in a completely new waylooking at them as she might have looked at pieces of furniture in a showroom window. They seemed to have no business with Jessie Burlingame at all, and she supposed there was nothing so odd about that, not really; they were, after all, utterly without feeling. Sensation only started a little below her armpits. She tried to pull herself up and was dismayed to find the mutiny in her arms had gone further than she had suspected. Not only did they refuse to move her; they refused to move themselves. Her brains order was totally ignored. She looked up at them again, and they no longer looked like furniture to her. Now they looked like pallid cuts of meat hanging from butchers hooks, and she let out a hoarse cry of fear and anger. Never mind, though. The arms werent happening, at least for the time being, and being mad or afraid or both wasnt going to change that a bit. How about the fingers? If she could curl them around the bedposts, then maybe ... ... or maybe not. Her fingers seemed as useless as her arms. After nearly a full minute of effort, Jessie was rewarded only by a single numb twitch from her right thumb. Dear God, she said in her grating dustinthecracks voice. There was no anger in it now, only fear. People died in accidents, of courseshe supposed she had seen hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of deathclips on the TV news during her lifetime. Bodybags carried away from wrecked cars or winched out of the jungle in MediVac slings, feet sticking out from beneath hastily spread blankets while buildings burned in the background, whitefaced, stumblevoiced witnesses pointing to pools of sticky dark stuff in alleys or on barroom floors. She had seen the whiteshrouded shape that had been John Belushi toted out of the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Los Angeles; she had seen aerialist Karl Wallenda lose his balance, fall heavily to the cable he had been trying to cross (it had been strung between two resort hotels, she seemed to remember), clutch it briefly, and then plunge to his death below. The news programs had played that one over and over as if obsessed with it. So she knew people died in accidents, of course she knew it, but until now she had somehow never realized there were people inside those people, people just like her, people who hadnt had the slightest idea they would never eat another cheeseburger, watch another round of Final Jeopardy (and please make sure your answer is in the form of a question), or call their best friends to say that penny poker on Thursday night or shopping on Saturday afternoon seemed like a great idea. No more beer, no more kisses, and your fantasy of making love in a hammock during a thunderstorm was never going to be fulfilled, because you were going to be too busy being dead. Any morning you rolled out of bed might be your last. Its a lot more than a case of might this morning, Jessie thought. I think now its a case of probably. The houseour nice quiet lakeside housemay very well be on the news Friday or Saturday night. Itll be Doug Rowe wearing that white trenchcoat of his I hate so much and talking into his microphone and calling it the house where prominent Portland lawyer Gerald Burlingame and his wife Jessie died. Then hell send it back to the studio and Bill Green will do the sports, and that isnt being morbid, Jessie, that isnt the Goodwife moaning or Ruth ranting. Its But Jessie knew. It was the truth. It was just a silly little accident, the kind of thing you shook your head over when you saw it reported in the paper at breakfast; you said Listen to this, honey, and read the item to your husband while he ate his grapefruit. Just a silly little accident, only this time it was happening to her. Her minds constant insistence that it was a mistake was understandable but irrelevant. There was no Complaint Department where she could explain that the handcuffs had been Geralds idea and so it was only fair that she should be let off. If the mistake was going to be rectified, she would have to be the one to do it. Jessie cleared her throat, closed her eyes, and spoke to the ceiling. God? Listen a minute, would You? I need some help here, I really do. Im in a mess and Im terrified. Please help me get out of this, okay? I ... um ... I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. She struggled to amplify this prayer and could only come up with something Nora Callighan had taught her, a prayer which now seemed to be on the lips of every selfhelp huckster and dipshit guru in the world God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen. Nothing changed. She felt no serenity, no courage, most certainly no wisdom. She was still only a woman with dead arms and a dead husband, cuffed to the posts of this bed like a curdog chained to a ringbolt and left to die unremarked and unlamented in a dusty back yard while his tosspot master serves thirty days in the county clink for driving without a license and under the influence.

Oh please dont let it hurt, she said in a low, trembling voice. If Im going to die, God, please dont let it hurt. Im such a baby about pain. Thinking about dying at this point is probably a really bad idea, toots. Ruths voice paused, then added On second thought, strike the probably. Okay, no argumentthinking about dying was a bad idea. So what did that leave? Living. Ruth and Goodwife Burlingame said it at the same time. All right, living. Which brought her around full circle to her arms again. Theyre asleep because Ive been hanging on them all night. Im still hanging on them. Getting the weight off is step one. She tried to push herself backward and upward with her feet again, and felt a sudden weight of black panic when they at first also refused to move. She lost herself for a few moments then, and when she came back she was pistoning her legs rapidly up and down, pushing the coverlet, the sheets, and the mattresspad down to the foot of the bed. She was gasping for breath like a bicycleracer topping the last steep hill in a marathon race. Her butt, which had also gone to sleep, sang and zipped with wakeup needles. Fear had gotten her fully awake, but it took the halfassed aerobics which accompanied her panic to kick her heart all the way up into passing gear. At last she began to feel tingles of sensationbonedeep and as ominous as distant thunderin her arms. If nothing else works, toots, keep your mind on those last two or three sips of water. Keep reminding yourself that youre never going to get hold of that glass again unless your hands and arms are in good working order, let alone drink from it. Jessie continued to push with her feet as the morning brightened. Sweat plastered her hair against her temples and streamed down her cheeks. She was awarevaguelythat she was deepening her waterdebt every moment she persisted in this strenuous activity, but she saw no choice. Because there is none, tootsnone at all. Toots this and toots that, she thought distractedly. Would you please put a sock in it, you mouthy bitch? At last her bottom began to slide up toward the head of the bed. Each time it moved, Jessie tensed her stomach muscles and did a mini situp. The angle made by her upper and lower body slowly began to approach ninety degrees. Her elbows began to bend, and as the drag of her weight began to leave her arms and shoulders, the tingles racing through her flesh increased. She didnt stop moving her legs when she was finally sitting up but continued to pedal, wanting to keep her heartrate up. A drop of stinging sweat ran into her left eye. She flicked it away with an impatient shake of her head and went on pedaling. The tingles continued to increase, darting upward and downward from her elbows, and about five minutes after shed reached her current slumped position (she looked like a gawky teenager draped over a movie theater seat), the first cramp struck. It felt like a blow from the dull side of a meatcleaver. Jessie threw her head back, sending a fine mist of perspiration flying from her head and hair, and shrieked. As she was drawing breath to repeat the cry, the second cramp struck. This one was much worse. It felt as if someone had dropped a glassencrusted noose of cable around her left shoulder and then yanked it tight. She howled, her hands snapping shut into fists with such sudden savagery that two of her fingernails splintered away from the quick and began to bleed. Her eyes, sunk into brown hollows of puffy flesh, were squeezed tightly shut, but tears escaped nevertheless and went trickling down her cheeks, mixing with the runnels of sweat from her hairline. Keep pedaling, tootsdont stop now. Dont you call me toots! Jessie screamed. The stray dog had crept back to the rear stoop just before first light, and at the sound of her voice, its head jerked up. There was an almost comical expression of surprise on its face. Dont you call me that, you bitch! You hateful bi Another cramp, this one as sharp and sudden as a thunderbolt coronary, punched through her left triceps all the way to the armpit, and her words dissolved into a long, wavering scream of agony. Yet she kept on pedaling. Somehow she kept on pedaling. 20 When the worst of the cramps had passedat least she hoped the worst of them hadshe took a breather, leaning back against the slatted mahogany crossboards which formed the head of the bed, her eyes closed and her breath gradually slowing downfirst to a lope, then a trot, and finally to a walk. Thirst or no thirst, she felt surprisingly good. She supposed part of the reason lay in that old joke, the one with the punchline that went It feels so good when I stop. But she had been an athletic girl and an athletic woman until five years ago (well, all right, maybe it was closer to ten), and she could still recognize an endorphin rush when she was having one. Absurd, given the circumstances, but also very nice. Maybe not so absurd, Jess. Maybe useful. Those endorphins clear the mind, which is one reason why people work better after theyve taken some exercise. And her mind was clear. The worst of her panic had blown away like industrial smogs before a strong wind, and she felt more than rational; she felt wholly sane again. She never would have believed it possible, and she found this evidence of the minds tireless adaptability and almost insectile determination to survive a little spooky. All of this and I havent even had my morning coffee, she thought. The image of coffeeblack, and in her favorite cup with the blue flowers around its middlemade her lick her lips. It also made her think of the Today program. If her interior clock was right, Today would be coming on just about now. Men and women all over America unhandcuffed, for the most partwere sitting at kitchen tables, drinking juice and coffee, eating bagels and scrambled eggs (or maybe one of those cereals that are supposed to simultaneously soothe your heart and excite your bowels). They were watching Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric yuck it up with Joe Garagiola. A little later they would watch Willard Scott wish a couple of centenarians a happy day. There would be guestsone who would talk about something called the prime rate and something else called the Fed, one who would show viewers how they could keep their pet Chows from chewing up their slippers, and one who would plug his latest movieand none of them would realize that over in western Maine there was an accident in progress; that one of their moreorlessloyal viewers was unable to tune in this morning because she was handcuffed to a bed less than twenty feet from her naked, dogchewed, flyblown husband. She turned her head to the right and looked up at the glass Gerald had set down carelessly on his side of the shelf shortly before the festivities had commenced. Five years ago, she reflected, that glass probably wouldnt have been there, but as Geralds nightly Scotch consumption increased, so had his daily intake of all other liquidsmostly water, but he also drank tons of diet soda and iced tea. For Gerald, at least, the phrase drinking problem seemed to have been no euphemism but the literal truth. Well, she thought drearily, if he did have a drinking problem, its certainly cured now, isnt it? The glass was exactly where she had left it, of course; if her visitor of the previous night had not been a dream (Dont be silly, of course it was a dream, the Goodwife said nervously), it must not have been thirsty. Im going to get that glass, Jessie thought. Im also going to be extremely careful, in case there are more musclecramps. Any questions? There werent, and this time getting the glass turned out to be a cakewalk, because it was a lot easier to reach; there was no need for the balancing act. She discovered an added bonus when she picked up her makeshift straw. As it dried, the blowin card had curled up along the folds she had made. This strange geometrical construct looked like freeform origami and worked much more efficiently than it had the previous night. Getting the last of the water was even easier than getting the glass, and as Jessie listened to the Malt Shoppe crackle from the bottom of the glass as her weird straw tried to suck up the last couple of drops, it occurred to her that she would have lost a lot less water to the coverlet if she had known she could cure the straw. Too late now, though, and no use crying over spilled water. The few sips did little more than wake up her thirst, but she would have to live with that. She put the glass back on the shelf, then laughed at herself. Habit was a tough little beast. Even under bizarre circumstances such as these, it was a tough little beast. She had risked cramping up all over again to return the empty glass to the shelf instead of just bombing it over the side of the bed to shatter on the floor. And why? Because Neatness Counts, that was why. That was one of the things Sally Mahout had taught her tootsie, her little squeaky wheel who never got quite enough grease and who was never able to let well enough aloneher little tootsie who had been willing to go to any lengths, including seducing her own father, to make sure that things would continue to go the way she wanted them to go. In the eye of her memory, Jessie saw the Sally Mahout she had seen so often back then cheeks flushed with exasperation, lips pressed tightly together, hands rolled into fists and planted on her hips. And you would have believed it, too, Jessie said softly. Wouldnt you, you bitch? Not fair, part of her mind responded uneasily. Not fair, Jessie! Except it was fair, and she knew it. Sally had been a long way from the ideal mother, especially during those years when her marriage to Tom had been laboring along like an old car with dirt in the transmission. Her behavior during those years had often been paranoid, and sometimes irrational. Will had for some reason been almost completely spared her tirades and suspicions, but she had sometimes frightened both of her daughters badly. That dark side was gone now. The letters Jessie got from Arizona were the banal, boring notes of an old lady who lived for Thursday Night Bingo and saw her childrearing years as a peaceful, happy time. She apparently did not remember screaming at the top of her lungs that the next time Maddy forgot to wrap her used tampons in toilet paper before throwing them in the trash she would kill her, or the Sunday morning when she had for no reason Jessie had ever been able to understandstormed into Jessies bedroom, thrown a pair of highheeled shoes at her, and then stormed out again. Sometimes when she got her mothers notes and postcardsAll well here, sweetheart, heard from Maddy, she writes so faithfully, my appetites a little better since it cooled offJessie felt an urge to snatch up the telephone and call her mother and scream Did you forget everything, Mom? Did you forget the day you threw the shoes at me and broke my favorite vase and I cried because I thought you must know, that he must have finally broken down and told you, even though it had been three years since the day of the eclipse by then? Did you forget how often you scared us with your screams and your tears? Thats unfair, Jessie. Unfair and disloyal. Unfair it might be, but that did not make it untrue. If she had known what happened that day The image of the woman in stocks recurred to Jessie again, there and gone almost too fast to be recognized, like subliminal advertising the pinned hands, the hair covering the face like a penitents shroud, the little knot of pointing, contemptuous people. Mostly women. Her mother might not have come right out and said so, but yesshe would have believed it was Jessies fault, and she really might have thought it was a conscious seduction. It wasnt that much of a stretch from squeaky wheel to Lolita, was it? And the knowledge that something sexual had happened between her husband and her daughter very likely would have caused her to stop thinking about leaving and actually do it. Believed it? You bet she would have believed it. This time the voice of propriety didnt bother with even a token protest, and a sudden insight came to Jessie her father had grasped instantly what it had taken her almost thirty years to figure out. He had known the true facts just as he had known about the odd acoustics of the living roomdining room in the lake house. Her father had used her in more ways than one on that day. Jessie expected a flood of negative emotions at this sorry realization; she had, after all, been played for a sucker by the man whose primary jobs had been to love and protect her. No such flood came. Perhaps this was partly because she was still flying on endorphins, but she had an idea it had more to do with relief no matter how rotten that business had been, she had finally been able to get outside it. Her chief emotions were amazement that she had held onto the secret for as long as she had, and a kind of uneasy perplexity. How many of the choices she had made since that day had been directly or indirectly influenced by what had happened during the final minute or so she had spent on her Daddys lap, looking at a vast round mole in the sky through two or three pieces of smoked glass? And was her current situation a result of what had happened during the eclipse? Oh, thats too much, she thought. If hed raped me, maybe it would be different. But what happened on the deck that day was really just another accident, and not a very serious one, at thatif you want to know what a serious accident is, Jess, look at the situation youre in here. I might as well blame old Mrs. Gilette for slapping my hand at that lawnparty, the summer I was four. Or a thought I had coming down the birthcanal. Or sins from some past life that still needed expiation. Besides, what he did to me on the deck wasnt anything compared to what he did to me in the bedroom. And there was no need to dream that part of it; it was right there, perfectly clear and perfectly accessible. 21 When she looked up and saw her father standing in the bedroom doorway, her first, instinctive gesture had been to cross her arms over her breasts. Then she saw the sad and guilty look on his face and dropped them again, although she felt heat rising in her cheeks and knew that her own face was turning the unlovely, patchy red that was her version of a maidenly blush. She had nothing to show up there (well, almost nothing), but she still felt more naked than naked, and so embarrassed she could almost swear she felt her skin sizzling. She thought Suppose the others come back early? Suppose she walked in right now and saw me like this, with my shirt off? Embarrassment became shame, shame became terror, and still, as she shrugged into the blouse and began to button it, she felt another emotion underlying these. That feeling was anger, and it was not much different from the drilling anger she would feel years later when she realized that Gerald knew she meant what she was saying but was pretending he didnt. She was angry because she didnt deserve to feel ashamed and terrified. After all, he was the grownup, he was the one who had left that funnysmelling crud on the back of her underpants, he was the one who was supposed to be ashamed, and that wasnt the way it was working. That wasnt the way it was working at all. By the time her blouse was buttoned and tucked into her shorts, the anger was gone, orsame differencebanished back to its cave. And what she kept seeing in her mind was her mother coming back early. It wouldnt matter that she was fully dressed again. The fact that something bad had happened was on their faces, just hanging out there, big as life and twice as ugly. She could see it on his face and feel it on her own. Are you all right, Jessie? he asked quietly. Not feeling faint, or anything? No. She tried to smile, but this time she couldnt quite manage it. She felt a tear slip down one cheek and wiped it away quickly, guiltily, with the heel of her hand. Im sorry. His voice was trembling, and she was horrified to see tears standing in his eyesoh, this just got worse and worse and worse. Im so sorry. He turned abruptly, ducked into the bathroom, grabbed a towel off the rack, and wiped his face with it. While he did this, Jessie thought fast and hard. Daddy? He looked at her over the towel. The tears in his eyes were gone. If she hadnt known better, she would have sworn they had never been there at all. The question almost stuck in her throat, but it had to be asked. Had to be. Do we ... do we have to tell Mom about it? He took a long, sighing, trembling breath. She waited, her heart in her mouth, and when he said I think we have to, dont you? it sank all the way to her feet. She crossed the room to him, staggering a littleher legs seemed to have no feeling in them at alland wrapped her arms around him. Please, Daddy. Dont. Please dont tell. Please dont. Please ... Her voice blurred, collapsed into sobs, and she pressed her face against his bare chest. After a moment he slipped his arms around her, this time in his old, fatherly way. I hate to, he said, because things have been pretty tense between the two of us just lately, hon. Id be surprised if you didnt know that, actually. A thing like this could make them a lot worse. She hasnt been very ... well, very affectionate lately, and that was most of the problem today. A man has ... certain needs. Youll understand about that somed But if she finds out, shell say it was my fault! Oh, noI dont think so, Tom said, but his tone was surprised, considering... and, to Jessie, as dreadful as a deathsentence. Noooo ... Im surewell, fairly surethat she... She looked up at him, her eyes streaming and red. Please dont tell her, Daddy! Please dont! Please dont! He kissed her brow. But Jessie ... I have to. We have to. Why? Why, Daddy? Because 22 Jessie shifted a little. The chains jingled; the cuffs themselves rattled on the bedposts. The light was now streaming in through the east windows. Because you couldnt keep it a secret, she said dully. Because if its going to come out, Jessie, its better for both of us that it should come out now, rather than a week from now, or a month from now, or a year from now. Even ten years from now. How well he had manipulated herfirst the apology, then the tears, and finally the hattrick turning his problem into her problem. Brer Fox, Brer Fox, whatever else yall do, dont thow me in dat briar patch! Until, finally, she had been swearing to him that she would keep the secret forever, that torturers couldnt drag it out of her with tongs and hot coals. She could in fact remember promising him something just like that through a rain of hot, frightened tears. Finally he had stopped shaking his head and had only looked across the room with his eyes narrowed and his lips pressed tightly togetherthis she saw in the mirror, as he almost surely knew she would. You could never tell anyone, hed said at last, and Jessie remembered the swooning relief shed felt at those words. What he was saying was less important than the tone in which he was saying it. Jessie had heard that tone a good many times before, and knew it drove her mother crazy that she, Jessie, could cause him to speak that way more often than Sally herself. Im changing my mind, it said. Im doing it against my better judgment, but I am changing it; Im swinging around to your side. No, she had agreed. Her voice was wavery, and she had to keep gulping back tears. I wouldnt tell, Daddynot ever. Not just your mother, he said, but anyone. Ever. Thats a big responsibility for a little girl, Punkin. You might be tempted. For instance, if you were studying with Caroline Cline or Tammy Hough after school, and one of them told you a secret of hers, you might want to tell Them? NeverNeverNever! And he must have seen the truth of it on her face the thought of either Caroline or Tammy finding out that her father had touched her had filled Jessie with horror. Satisfied on that score, he had pushed on to what she now guessed must have been his chief concern. Or your sister. He pushed her back from him and looked sternly down into her face for a long moment. There could come a time, you see, when you wanted to tell her Daddy, no, Id never He gave her a gentle shake. Keep quiet and let me finish, Punkin. You two are close, I know that, and I know that girls sometimes feel an urge to share things they ordinarily wouldnt tell. If you felt that way with Maddy, could you still manage to keep quiet? Yes! In her desperate need to convince him, she had begun to cry once more. Of course it was more likely that she would tell Maddyif there was anyone in the world to whom she might one day confide such a desperate secret, it would be her big sister ... except for one thing. Maddy and Sally shared the same sort of closeness Jessie and Tom had shared, and if Jessie ever told her sister about what had happened on the deck, the chances that their mother would know before the day was out were very good. Given that insight, Jessie thought she could quite easily withstand the temptation to tell Maddy. Are you really sure? he had asked doubtfully. Yes! Really! Hed begun to shake his head again in a regretful way that terrified her all over again. I just think, Punkin, that it might be better to get it out in the open right away. Take our medicine. I mean, she cant kill us Jessie, however, had heard her anger when Daddy had asked that she be excused from the trip to Mount Washington ... and anger wasnt all. She didnt like to think of it, but at this point she could not afford the luxury of denial. There had been jealousy and something very close to hatred in her mothers voice, as well. A vision, momentary but of paralyzing clarity, had come to Jessie as she stood with her father in the bedroom doorway, trying to persuade him to hold his peace the two of them cast out on the road like Hansel and Gretel, homeless, tramping back and forth across America ... ... and sleeping together, of course. Sleeping together at night. She had broken down utterly then, weeping hysterically, begging him not to tell, promising him she would be a good girl forever and ever if he just wouldnt tell. He had let her cry until he must have felt the moment was exactly right, and then he had said gravely You know, youve got an awful lot of power for a little girl, Punkin. She had looked up at him, cheeks wet and eyes full of fresh hope. He nodded slowly, then began to dry her tears with the towel he had used on his own face. Ive never been able to refuse you anything that you really wanted, and I cant this time, either. Well try it your way. She threw herself into his arms and began covering his face with kisses. Somewhere far back in her mind she had been afraid this might (get him going) start trouble again, but her gratitude had completely overwhelmed such caution, and there had been no trouble. Thank you! Thank you, Daddy! Thank you! He had taken her by the shoulders and held her at arms length again, smiling instead of grave this time. But that sadness had still been on his face, and now, almost thirty years later, Jessie didnt think that expression had been part of the show. The sadness had been real, and that somehow made the terrible thing he had done worse instead of better. I guess we have a bargain, he said. I say nothing, you say nothing. Right? Right! Not to anyone else, not even to each other. Forever and ever, amen. When we walk out of this room, Jess, it never happened. Okay? She had agreed at once, but at the same time the memory of that smell had recurred to her, and she had known there was at least one question she had to ask him before it never happened. And theres something I need to say once more. I need to say Im sorry, Jess. I did a shabby, shameful thing. He had looked away when he said that, she remembered. All the time he had been deliberately driving her into hysterics of guilt and fear and impending doom, all the time he had been making sure she would never say anything by threatening to tell everything, he had looked right at her. When he offered that last apology, however, his gaze had shifted to the crayon designs on the sheets which divided the room. This memory filled her with something that felt simultaneously like grief and rage. He had been able to face her with his lies; it was the truth which had finally caused him to look away. She remembered opening her mouth to tell him he didnt have to say that, then closing it againpartly because she was afraid anything she said might cause him to change his mind back again, but mostly because, even at ten, she had realized she had a right to an apology. Sallys been coldits the truth, but as an excuse its pretty sad shit. I dont have the slightest idea what came over me. He had laughed a little, still not looking at her. Maybe it was the eclipse. If it was, thank God well never see another one. Then, as if speaking to himself Christ, if we keep our mouths shut and she finds out anyway, later on Jessie had put her head against his chest and said, She wont. Ill never tell, Daddy. She paused, then added, What could I tell, anyway? Thats right. He smiled. Because nothing happened. And Im not . . . I mean, I couldnt be . . . She had looked up, hoping he might tell her what she needed to know without her asking, but he only looked back at her, eyebrows raised in a silent interrogative. The smile had been replaced by a wary, waiting expression. I couldnt be pregnant, then? she blurted. He winced, and then his face had tensed as he worked to suppress some strong emotion. Horror or grief, shed thought then; it was only all these years later that it occurred to her that what he might actually have been trying to control was a burst of wild, relieved laughter. At last he had gotten himself under control and kissed the tip of her nose. No, honey, of course not. The thing that makes women pregnant didnt happen. Nothing like that happened. I was wrestling with you a little, thats ait And you goosed me. She remembered saying that very clearly now. You goosed me, thats what you did. He had smiled. Yep. Thats close enough. Youre just as fine as ever, Punkin. Now, what do you think? Does that close the subject? She had nodded. Nothing like this is ever going to happen againyou know that, dont you? She nodded again, but her own smile had faltered. What he was saying should have relieved her, and it did, a little, but something in the gravity of his words and the sorrow on his face had almost sparked her panic again. She remembered taking his hands and squeezing them as hard as she could. You love me, though, dont you, Daddy? You still love me, right? He had nodded and told her he loved her more than ever. Then hug me! Hug me hard! And he did, but now Jessie could remember something else his lower body had not touched hers. Not then and never again, Jessie thought. Not that I remember, anyway. Even when I graduated from college, the only other time I saw him cry over me, he gave me one of those funny oldmaid hugs, the kind you do with your ass poaching out so there isnt even a chance you can bump crotches with the person youre hugging. Poor, poor man. I wonder if any of the people he did business with over the years ever saw him as rattled as I saw him on the day of the eclipse. All that pain, and over what? A sexual accident about as serious as a stubbed toe. Jesus, what a life it is. What a fucking life. She began to pump her arms slowly up and down again almost without being aware of it, only wanting to keep the blood flowing into her hands, wrists, and forearms. She guessed it was probably eight oclock by now, or almost. She had been chained to this bed for eighteen hours. Incredible but true. Ruth Nearys voice spoke up so suddenly that it made her jump. It was filled with disgusted wonder. Youre still making excuses for him, arent you? Still letting him off the hook and blaming yourself, after all these years. Even now. Amazing. Quit it, she said hoarsely. None of that has the slightest goddam thing to do with the mess Im in now What a piece of work you are, Jessie! and even if it did, she went on, raising her voice slightly, even if it did, it doesnt have the slightest goddam thing to do with getting out of the mess Im in now. so just give it a rest! You werent Lolita, Jessie, no matter what he might have made you think. You were about nine country miles from Lolita. Jessie refused to reply. Ruth went one better; she refused to shut up. If you still think your dear old Daddy was a parfit gentle knight who spent most of his time shielding you from the firebreathing mommydragon, you better think again. Shut up. Jessie began to pump her arms up and down faster. The chains jingled; the cuffs rattled. Shut up, youre horrible. He planned it, Jessie. Dont you understand? It wasnt just some spurofthemoment thing, a sexstarved father copping a quick feel; he planned it. You lie, Jessie snarled. Sweat rolled down from her temples in large clear droplets. Do I? Well, ask yourself thiswhose idea was it for you to wear the sundress? The one that was both too small and too tight? Who knew youd be listeningand admiringwhile he maneuvered around your mother? Who had his hands on your tits the night before, and who was wearing gymshorts and nothing else on the day of? Suddenly she imagined Bryant Gumbel in the room with her, natty in a threepiece suit and gold wristchain, standing here by the bed while a guy with a Minicam stood beside him, panning slowly up her almost naked body before focusing on her sweaty, blotchy face. Bryant Gumbel doing a live remote with The Incredible Handcuffed Woman, leaning forward with a microphone to ask her, When did you first realize your father might have had the hots for you, Jessie? Jessie stopped pumping her arms and closed her eyes. There was a closed, stubborn look on her face. No more, she thought. I guess I can live with the voices of Ruth and the Goodwife if I have to ... even with the assorted UFOs who chip in their two cents worth every once in awhile ... but I draw the line at doing a live interview with Bryant Gumbel while dressed in nothing but a pair of peestained panties. Even in my imagination I draw the line at that. Just tell me one thing, Jessie, another voice said. No UFO here; it was the voice of Nora Callighan. One thing and well consider the subject closed, at least for now and probably forever. Okay? Jessie was silent, waiting, wary. When you finally lost your temper yesterday afternoonwhen you finally kicked outwho were you kicking at? Was it Gerald? Of course it was Ger she began, and then broke off as a single image, perfectly clear, filled her mind. It was the white string of drool which had been hanging from Geralds chin. She saw it elongate, saw it fall to her midriff just above the navel. Only a little spit, that was all, no big deal after all the years and all the passionate kisses with their mouths open and their tongues duelling; she and Gerald had swapped a fair amount of lubrication, and the only price theyd ever paid was a few shared colds. No big deal, that was, until yesterday, when hed refused to let her go when she wanted, needed, to be let go. No big deal until shed smelled that flat sad mineral smell, the one she associated with the wellwater at Dark Score, and with the lake itself on hot summer days . . . days like July 20th, 1963, for instance. She had seen spit; she had thought spunk. No, thats not true, she thought, but she didnt need to summon Ruth to play devils advocate this time; she knew it was true. Its his goddam spunkthat had been her exact thought, and after that she had ceased thinking altogether, at least for awhile. Instead of thinking she had launched that reflexive countering movement, driving one foot into his stomach and the other into his balls.

Not spit but spunk; not some new revulsion at Geralds game but that old stinking horror suddenly surfacing like a seamonster. Jessie glanced at the huddled, mutilated body of her husband. Tears pricked her eyes for a moment, and then the sensation passed. She had an idea that the Survival Department had decided tears were a luxury she could not afford, at least for the time being. Still, she was sorrysorry Gerald was dead, yes, of course, but even sorrier she was here, in this situation. Her eyes shifted to thin air a little above Gerald, and Jessie produced a shabby, pained smile. I guess thats all Ive got to say right now, Bryant. Give my best to Willard and Katie, and by the waywould you mind unlocking these handcuffs before you go? Id really appreciate it. Bryant didnt answer. Jessie wasnt all that surprised. 23 If youre going to live through this experience, Jess, I suggest you stop rehashing the past and start deciding what youre going to do with the future . . . starting with the next ten minutes or so. I dont think that dying of thirst on this bed would be very pleasant, do you? No, not very pleasant . . . and she thought that thirst would be far from the worst of it. Crucifixion had been in the back of her mind almost since shed awakened, floating up and down like some nasty drowned thing which is just a little too waterlogged to come all the way to the surface. She had read an article about this charming old method of torture and execution for a college history class, and had been surprised to learn that the old nailsthroughthehandsandfeet trick was only the beginning. Like magazine subscriptions and pocket calculators, crucifixion was the gift that kept on giving. The real hardships began with cramps and musclespasms. Jessie reluctantly recognized that the pains she had suffered so far, even the paralyzing Charley horse which had put an end to her first panicattack, were only tweaks compared to the ones which were waiting. They would rack her arms, diaphragm, and abdomen, growing steadily worse, more frequent, and more widespread as the day passed. Numbness would eventually begin to creep into her extremities no matter how hard she worked to keep the blood flowing, but numbness would bring no relief; by then she would almost certainly have begun suffering excruciating chest and stomach cramps. There were no nails in her hands and feet and she was lying down instead of hanging from a cross at the side of the road like one of the defeated gladiators in Spartacus, but those variations might only draw out her agony. So what are you going to do right now, while youre still pretty much free of pain and able to think? Whatever I can, she croaked, so why dont you just shut up and let me think about it for a minute? Go aheadbe my guest. She would start with the most obvious solution and work her way down from there . . . if she had to. And what was the most obvious solution? The keys, of course. They were still lying on top of the bureau, where he had left them. Two keys, but both exactly the same. Gerald, who could be almost endearingly corny, had often referred to them as the Primary and the Backup (Jessie had clearly heard those capital letters in her husbands voice). Suppose, just for the sake of argument, she could somehow slide the bed across the room to the bureau. Would she be able to actually get hold of one of those keys and put it to use? Jessie reluctantly realized that there were two questions there, not one. She supposed she might be able to pick up one of the keys in her teeth, but then what? She still wouldnt be able to get it into the lock; her experience with the waterglass suggested there was going to be a gap no matter how much she stretched. Okay; scratch the keys. Descend to the next rung on the ladder of probability. What might that be? She thought about it for almost five minutes without success, turning it around and around in her mind like the sides of a Rubiks Cube, pumping her arms up and down as she did so. At some point during her ruminations, her eyes wandered to the phone sitting on the low table by the east window. She had dismissed it earlier as being in another universe, but perhaps she had been too hasty. The table, after all, was closer than the bureau, and the phone was a lot bigger than a handcuff key. If she could move the bed over to the telephone table, might she not be able to lift the receiver off the cradle with her foot? And if she could do that, maybe she could use her big toe to push the Operator button at the bottom, between the keys marked and . It sounded like some crazy sort of vaudeville act, but Push the button, wait, then start screaming my head off. Yes, and half an hour later either the big blue Medcu van from Norway or the big orange one marked Castle County Rescue would turn up and trundle her off to safety. A crazy idea, all right, but so was turning a magazine subscription card into a straw. It could work, crazy or notthat was the point. It certainly had more potential than somehow pushing the bed all the way across the room and then trying to find a way to get one of the keys into one of the handcuff locks. There was one big problem with the idea, however she would somehow have to find a way to move the bed to the right, and that was a heavy proposition. She guessed that, with its mahogany head and footboards, it had to weigh at least three hundred pounds, and that estimate might be conservative. But you can at least try it, babe, and you might get a big surprisethe floors been waxed since Labor Day, remember. If a stray dog with its ribs sticking out can move your husband, maybe you can move this bed. You havent got anything to lose by trying, do you? A good point. Jessie worked her legs toward the left side of the bed, shifting her back and shoulders patiently to the right as she did so. When she got as far as she was going to using that method, she pivoted on her left hip. Her feet went over the side . . . and suddenly her legs and torso were not just moving to the left but sliding to the left, like an avalanche trying to happen. A horrible cramp jigjagged up her left side as her body stretched in ways it hadnt been meant to even under the best of conditions. It felt as if someone had given her a fast, harsh scrape with a hot poker. The short chain between the righthand set of cuffs yanked taut, and for a moment the news from her left side was blotted out by fresh agony pulsing out of her right arm and shoulder. It felt as if someone were trying to twist that arm completely off. Now I know what a turkey drumstick feels like, she thought. Her left heel thumped onto the floor; her right hung three inches above it. Her body was twisted unnaturally to the left with her right arm cast strenuously back behind her in a kind of frozen wave. The taut chain gleamed heartlessly above its rubber sleeve in the earlymorning sun. Jessie was suddenly sure she was going to die in this position, with her left side and right arm screaming. She would have to lie here, gradually growing numb as her flagging heart lost the battle to pump blood to all parts of her stretched and twisted body. Panic overtook her again and she howled for help, forgetting there was no one in the neighborhood but one raggedyass stray with a bellyful of lawyer. She flailed frantically for the bedpost with her right hand, but she had slid just a little too far; the darkstained mahogany was half an inch beyond the tips of her straining fingers. Help! Please! Help! Help! No answer. The only sounds in this silent sunny bedroom were her sounds hoarse, screaming voice, rasping breath, pounding heart. No one here but her, and unless she was able to get back onto the bed, she was going to die like a woman hung on a meathook. Nor was the situation done getting worse her butt was still sliding toward the edge of the bed, pulling her right arm steadily backward at an angle which was becoming more and more extreme. Without thinking about it or planning it (unless the body, goaded by pain, sometimes thinks for itself), Jessie braced her bare left heel on the floor and shoved backward with all her might. It was the only bracepoint remaining to her painfully slued body, and the maneuver worked. Her lower body arched, the chain between the cuffs binding her right hand grew slack, and she seized the bedpost with the panicky zeal of a drowning woman seizing a lifering. She used it to yank herself backward, ignoring the scream of her back and biceps. When her feet were up again, she paddled frantically back from the edge, as if she had dipped into a swimming pool filled with baby sharks and had noticed just in time to save her toes. At last she regained her former slumped sitting position against the crossboards, arms outstretched, the small of her back resting on the sweatsoaked pillow in its badly wrinkled cotton case. She let her head loll back against the mahogany slats, breathing rapidly, her bare breasts oiled with sweat she couldnt afford to lose. She closed her eyes and laughed weakly. Say, that was pretty exciting, wasnt it, Jessie? I tkink its the fastest and hardest your heart has beat since 1985, when you came within a Christmas party kiss or so of going to bed with Tommy Delguidace. Nothing to lose by trying, isnt that what you thought? Well now you know better. Yes. And she knew something else, as well. Oh? And whats that, toots? I know that fucking phone is out of reach, she said. Yes indeed. When she had pushed off with her left heel just now, she had shoved with all the enthusiasm of total, assfreezing panic. The bed hadnt moved an iota, and now that she had a chance to think about it, she was glad it hadnt. If it had jigged to the right, she would still be hanging off it. And even if she had been able to push it all the way across to the telephone table that way, why . . . Idve been hanging over the wrong fucking side, she said, halflaughing and halfsobbing. Jesus, somebody shoot me. Doesnt look good, one of the UFO voicesone she definitely could have done withouttold her. In fact, it sort of looks like the Jessie Burlingame Show just got its cancellation notice. Pick another choice, she said huskily. I dont like that one. There arent any others. There werent that many to begin with, and youve researched them all. She closed her eyes again and for the second time since this nightmare began, she saw the playground behind the old Falmouth Grammar School on Central Avenue. Only this time it wasnt the image of two little girls balancing on a seesaw that filled her mind; instead she saw one little boyher brother Willskinning the cat on the monkeybars. She opened her eyes, slumped down, and bent her head to look more closely at the headboard. Skinning the cat meant hanging from a bar, then curling your legs up and over your own shoulders. You finished with a quick little pivot which enabled you to land on your feet again. Will had been so adept at this neat and economical movement that it had looked to Jessie as if he were turning somersaults inside his own hands. Suppose I could do that? Just skin the cat right over the top of this goddam headboard. Swing over the top and ... And land on my feet, she whispered. For several moments this seemed dangerous but feasible. She would have to move the bed out from the wall, of courseyou couldnt skin the cat if you didnt have a place to landbut she had an idea she could manage that. Once the bedshelf was removed (and it would be easy to knock it off its support brackets, unanchored as it was), she would do a backover roll and plant her bare feet against the wall above the top of the headboard. She hadnt been able to move the bed sideways, but with the wall to push against Same weight, ten times the leverage, she muttered. Modern physics at its finest. She was reaching for the shelf with her left hand, meaning to tip it up and off the Lbrackets, when she took another good look at Geralds goddam police handcuffs with their suicidally short chains. If he had clipped them onto the bedposts a little higherbetween the first and second crossboards, sayshe might have chanced it; the maneuver would probably have resulted in a pair of broken wrists, but she had reached a point where a pair of broken wrists seemed an entirely acceptable price to pay for escape . . . after all, they would heal, wouldnt they? Instead of between the first and second crossboards, however, the cuffs were attached between the second and third, and that was just a little too far down. Any attempt to skin the cat over the headboard would do more than break her wrists; it would result in a pair of shoulders not just dislocated but actually ripped out of their sockets by her descending weight. And try moving this goddam bed anywhere with a pair of broken wrists and two dislocated shoulders. Sound like fun? No, she said huskily. Not too much. Lets cut through it, Jessyoure stuck here. You can call me the voice of despair if it makes you feel better, or if it helps you to hold onto your sanity for a little while longerGod knows Im all for sanitybut what I really am is the voice of truth, and the truth of this situation is that youre stuck here. Jessie turned her head sharply to one side, not wanting to hear this selfstyled voice of truth, and found she was no more able to shut it out than she had been able to shut out the other ones. Those are real handcuffs youre wearing, not the cute little bondage numbers with the padding inside the wristlets and a hidden escapelever you can push if someone gets carried away and starts going a little too far. Youre forreal locked up, and you dont happen to be either a fakir from the Mysterious East, capable of twisting your body. up like a pretzel, or an escape artist like Harry Houdini or David Copperfield. Im just telling it the way I see it, okay? And the way I see it, youre toast. She suddenly remembered what had happened after her father had left her bedroom on the day of the eclipsehow she had thrown herself on her bed and cried until it had seemed her heart would either break or melt or maybe just seize up for good. And now, as her mouth began to tremble, she looked remarkably as she had then tired, confused, frightened, and lost. That last most of all. Jessie began to cry, but after the first few tears, her eyes would produce no more; stricter rationing measures had apparently gone into effect. She cried anyway, tearlessly, her sobs as dry as sandpaper in her throat. 24 In New York City, the regulars of the Today program had signed off for another day. On the NBC affiliate which served southern and western Maine, they were replaced first by a local chatshow (a large, motherly woman in a gingham apron showed how easy it was to slowcook beans in your Crockpot), then by a gameshow where celebrities cracked jokes and contestants uttered loud, orgasmic screams when they won cars and boats and bright red Dirt Devil vacuum cleaners. In the Burlingame home on scenic Kashwakamak Lake, the new widow dozed uneasily in her restraints, and then began to dream once more. It was a nightmare, one made more vivid and somehow more persuasive by the very shallowness of the dreamers sleep. In it Jessie was lying in the dark again, and a man or a manlike thingwas once more standing across from her in the corner of the room. The man wasnt her father; the man wasnt her husband; the man was a stranger, the stranger, the one who haunts all our sickest, most paranoid imaginings and deepest fears. It was the face of a creature Nora Callighan, with her good advice and sweet, practical nature, had never taken into account. This black being could not be conjured away by anything with an ology suffix. It was a cosmic wildcard. But you do know me, the stranger with the long white face said. It bent down and grasped the handle of its bag. Jessie noted, with no surprise at all, that the handle was a jawbone and the bag itself was made of human skin. The stranger picked it up, flicked the clasps, and opened the lid. Again she saw the bones and the jewels; again it reached its hand into the tangle and began to move it in slow circles, producing those ghastly clickings and clackings and rappings and tappings. No I dont, she said. I dont know who you are, I dont, I dont, I dont! Im Death, of course, and Ill be back tonight. Only tonight I think Ill do a little more than just stand in the corner; tonight I think Ill jump out at you, just . . . like . . . this! It leaped forward, dropping the case (bones and pendants and rings and necklaces spilled out toward where Gerald lay sprawled with his mutilated arm pointing toward the hallway door) and shooting out its hands. She saw its fingers ended in dark filthy nails so long they were really claws, and then she shook herself awake with a gasp and a jerk, the handcuff chains swinging and jingling as she made wardingoff gestures with her hands. She was whispering the word No over and over again in aslurry monotone. It was a dream! Stop it, Jessie, it was just a dream! She slowly lowered her hands, letting them dangle limply inside the cuffs once more. Of course it had beenjust a variation of the bad dream shed had last night. It had been realistic, thoughJesus, yes. Far worse, when you got right down to it, than the one of the croquet party, or even the one in which she had recalled the furtive and unhappy interlude with her father during the eclipse. It was passing strange that she had spent so much time this morning thinking about those dreams and so little thinking about the far scarier one. In fact, she really hadnt thought of the creature with the weirdly long arms and the gruesome souvenir case at all until shed dozed off and dreamed of him just now. A snatch of song occurred to her, something from the Latter Psychedelic Age Some people call me the space cowboy . . . yeah . . . some call me the gangster of love ... Jessie shuddered. The space cowboy. That was somehow just right. An outsider, someone who had nothing to do with anything, a wildcard, a A stranger, Jessie whispered, and suddenly remembered the way its cheeks had wrinkled when it began to grin. And once that detail had fallen into place, others began falling into place around it. The gold teeth twinkling far back in the grinning mouth. The pouty, poochy lips. The livid brow and the blade of nose. And there was the case, of course, like something you might expect to see banging against a travelling salesmans leg as he ran to catch his train Stop it, Jessiestop giving yourself the horrors. Dont you have enough problems without worrying about the boogeyman? She most certainly did, but she found that, now that she had begun thinking about the dream, she couldnt seem to stop. Worse than that was the fact that the more she thought about it, the less dreamlike it became. What if I was awake? she thought suddenly, and once the idea was articulated, she was horrified to discover some part of her had believed just that all along. It had only been waiting for the rest of her to catch up. No, oh no, it was just a dream, thats all But what if it wasnt? What if it wasnt? Death, the whitefaced stranger agreed. It was Death you saw. Ill be back tonight, Jessie. And tomorrow night Ill have your rings in my case with the rest of my pretty things . . . my souvenirs. Jessie realized she was shivering violently, as if she had caught a chill. Her wide eyes looked helplessly into the empty corner where the (space cowboy gangster of love) had stood, the corner which was now bright with morning sunshine but would be dark with tangles of shadow tonight. Knots of gooseflesh had begun to pop up on her skin. The inescapable truth came again she was probably going to die here. Eventually someone will find you, Jessie, but it might take a long time. The first assumption will be that the two of you are off on some wild romantic fling, Why not? Didnt you and Gerald give every outward appearance of seconddecade wedded bliss? It was only the two of you who knew that, at the end, Gerald could get it up with any reliability only if you were handcuffed to the bed. Sort of makes you wonder if someone played a few little games with him on the day of the eclipse, doesnt it? Stop talking, she muttered. All of you, stop talking. But sooner or later people will get nervous and start hunting for you. Itll probably be Geralds colleagues who actually get the wheels turning, dont you think? I mean, there are a couple of women in Portland you call friends, but youve never really let them inside your life, have you? Acquaintances is really all they are, ladies to have tea with and swap catalogues with. None of them are going to worry much if you drop out of sight for a week or ten days. But Gerald will have appointments, and when he doesnt show up by Friday noon, I think some of his bullpen buddies will start making phone calls and asking questions. Yes, thats the way it will probably start, but I think itll probably be the caretaker who actually discovers the bodies, dont you? I bet hell turn his face away while hes throwing the spare blanket from the closet shelf over you, Jessie. He wont want to see the way your fingers stick out of the handcuffs, as stiff as pencils and as white as candles. He wont want to look at your frozen mouth, or the foam long since dried to scales on your lips. Most of all he wont want to look at the expression of horror in your eyes, so hell shift his own eyes to the side while he covers you up. Jessie moved her head from side to side in a slow, hopeless gesture of negation. Bill will call the police and theyll show up with the forensics unit and the County Coroner. Theyll all stand around the bed smoking cigars (Doug Rowe, undoubtedly wearing his awful white trenchcoat, will be standing outside with his filmcrew, of course), and when the coroner pulls off the blanket, theyll wince. YesI think even the most hardened of them are going to wince a little, and some of them may actually leave the room. Their buddies will razz them about it later. And the ones who stay will nod and tell each other that the person on the bed died hard. You only have to look at her to see that, theyll say. But they wont know the half of it. They wont know that the real reason your eyes are staring and your mouth is frozen in a scream is because of what you saw at the end. What you saw coming out of the dark. Your father may have been your first lover, Jessie, but your last is going to be the stranger with the long white face and the travelling bag made out of human skin. Oh please, cant you quit? Jessie moaned. No more voices, please, no more voices. But this voice wouldnt stop; wouldnt even acknowledge her. It just went on and on, whispering directly into her mind from someplace far down on her brainstem. Listening to it was like having a mudslimed piece of silk drawn lightly back and forth across her face. Theyll take you to Augusta and the State Medical Examiner will cut you open so he can inventory your guts. Thats the rule in cases of unattended or questionable death, and yours is going to be both. Hell have a peek at whats left ofyour last mealthe salamiandcheese sub from Amatos in Gorhamand take a little section of brain to look at under his microscope, and in the end hell call it death by misadventure. The lady and gentleman were playing an ordinarily harmless game, hell say, only the gentleman had the bad taste to have a heart attack at a critical moment and the woman was left to ... well, its best not to go into it. Best not to even think about it any more than is strictly necessary. Suffice it to say that the lady died hardyou only have to look at her to see that. Thats how its going to shake out, Jess. Maybe someone will notice your wedding ring is gone, but they wont hunt for it long, if at all. Nor will the ME notice that one of your bonesan unimportant one, the third phalange in your right foot, lets sayis gone. But well know, wont we, Jessie? In fact, we know already. Well know that it took them. The cosmic stranger; the space cowboy. Well know Jessie drove her head back against the headboard hard enough to send a school of big white fish exploding across her field of vision. It hurtit hurt a lotbut the mindvoice cut out like a radio in a powerfailure, and that made it worth it. There, she said. And if you start up again, Ill do that again. Im not kidding, either. Im tired of listening to Now it was her own voice, speaking unselfconsciously aloud in the empty room, that cut out like a radio in a powerfailure. As the spots before her eyes began to fade, she saw the morning sunlight glinting off something which lay about eighteen inches beyond Geralds outstretched hand. It was a small white object with a narrow thread of gold twisting up through the center, making it look like the yinyang symbol. At first Jessie thought it was a fingerring, but it was really too small for that. Not a fingerring but a pearl earring. It had dropped to the floor while her visitor had been stirring the contents of its case around, showing them off to her. No, she whispered. No, not possible. But it was there, glinting in the morning sunshine and every bit as real as the dead man who seemed almost to be pointing at it a pearl earring spliced with a delicate glint of gold. Its one of mine! It spilled out of my jewelry box, its been there since the summer, and Im just noticing it now! Except that she only owned one set of pearl earrings, they had no gold highlights, and they were back in Portland, anyway. Except that the men from Skips had been in to wax the floors the week after Labor Day, and if there had been an earring left on the floor, one of them would have picked it up and put it either on the dresser or in his own pocket. Except there was something else, too. No theres not. Theres not, and dont you dare say there is. It was just beyond the orphan earring. Even if there was, I wouldnt look at it. Except she couldnt not look at it. Her eyes moved past the earring of their own accord and fixed on the floor just inside the door to the front hall. There was a little spot of dried blood there, but it wasnt the blood which had caught her attention. The blood belonged to Gerald. The blood was all right. It was the footprint beside it that worried her. If there was a track there, it was there before! Much as Jessie wished she could believe that, the track had not been there before. Yesterday there hadnt been a single scuff on this floor, let alone a foottrack. Nor had she or Gerald left the one she was looking at. That was a shoeshaped ring of dried mud, probably from the overgrown path that meandered along the shore of the lake for a mile or so before cutting back into the woods and heading south, toward Motton. Someone had been in the bedroom with her last night after all, it seemed. As this thought settled inexorably into Jessies overstrained mind, she began to scream. Outside, on the back stoop, the stray lifted its scuffed, scratched muzzle from its paws for a moment. It cocked its good ear. Then it lost interest and lowered its head again. It wasnt as if the noise were being made by anything dangerous, after all; it was only the bitchmaster. Besides, the smell of the dark thing which had come in the night was on her now. It was one the stray was very familiar with. It was the smell of death. The former Prince closed its eyes and went back to sleep. 25 At last she began to get herself under some kind of control again. She did this, absurdly enough, by reciting Nora Callighans little mantra. One is for feet, she said, her dry voice cracking and wavering in the empty bedroom, ten little toes, cute little piggies, all in a row. Two is for legs, lovely and long, three is my sex, where everythings wrong. She pushed steadily on, reciting the couplets she could remember, skipping the ones she couldnt, keeping her eyes closed. She went through the whole thing half a dozen times. She was aware that her heartbeat was slowing down and the worst of her terror was once more draining away, but she had no conscious awareness of the radical change she had made in at least one of Noras jangly little couplets. After the sixth repetition she opened her eyes and looked about the room like a woman who has just awakened from a short, restful nap. She avoided the corner by the bureau, however. She didnt want to look at the earring again, and she most certainly didnt want to look at the footprint. Jessie? The voice was very soft, very tentative. Jessie thought it was the voice of the Goodwife, now drained of both its shrill ardor and its feverish denial. Jessie, can I say something? No, she responded immediately in her harsh dustinthecracks voice. Take a hike. I want to be done with all you bitches. Please, Jessie. Please listen to me. She closed her eyes and found she could actually see that part of her personality she had come to call Goody Burlingame. Goody was still in the stocks, but now she raised her headan act that couldnt have been easy with the cruel wooden restraint pressing into the back of her neck. Her hair fell away from her face momentarily, and Jessie was surprised to see not the Goodwife but a young girl. Yeah, but shes still me, Jessie thought, and almost laughed. If this wasnt a case of comicbook psychology, she didnt know what was. She had just been thinking about Nora, and one of Noras favorite hobbyhorses was about how people had to care for the child inside. Nora claimed that the most common reason for unhappiness was failure to feed and nurture that interior child. Jessie had nodded solemnly at all this, keeping her belief that the idea was mostly sentimental Aquarian New Age slop to herself. She had liked Nora, after all, and although she thought Nora had held onto a few too many sets of mental lovebeads from the late sixties and early seventies, she was clearly seeing Noras child inside now, and that seemed perfectly all right. Jessie supposed that the concept might even have some symbolic validity, and under the circumstances, the stocks made a hell of an apt image, didnt they? The person in them was the Goodwifeinwaiting, the Ruthinwaiting, the Jessieinwaiting. She was the little girl her father had called Punkin. So talk, Jessie said. Her eyes were still closed, and a combination of stress, hunger, and thirst had combined to make the vision of the girl in the stocks almost exquisitely real. Now she could see the words FOR SEXUAL ENTICEMENT written on a sheet of vellum nailed above the girls head. The words were written in candypink Peppermint YumYum lipstick, of course. Nor was her imagination done yet. Next to Punkin was another set of stocks, with another girl in them. This one was perhaps seventeen, and fat. Her complexion was blotched with pimples. Behind the prisoners, a town common appeared, and after a moment Jessie could see a few cows grazing on it. Someone was ringing a bellover the next hill, it sounded likewith monotonous regularity, as if the ringer intended to keep it up all day . . . or at least until the cows came home. Youre losing your mind, Jess, she thought faintly, and she supposed this was true but unimportant. She might even count it among her blessings before much longer. She pushed the thought away and turned her attention back to the girl in the stocks. As she did, she found her exasperation had been replaced by tenderness and anger. This version of Jessie Mahout was older than the one who had been molested during the eclipse, but not much oldertwelve, perhaps, fourteen at the outside. At her age she had no business being in stocks on the town common for any crime, but sexual enticement? Sexual enticement, for heavens sake? What kind of bad joke was that? How could people be so cruel? So willfully blind? What do you want to tell me, Punkin? Only that its real, the girl in the stocks said.

Her face was pale with pain, but her eyes were grave and concerned and lucid. Its real, you know it is, and it will be back tonight. I think that this time it will do more than just look. You have to get out of the handcuffs before the sun goes down, Jessie. You have to be out of this house before it comes back. Once again she wanted to cry, but there were no tears; there was nothing but that dry, sandpapery sting. I cant! she cried. Ive tried everything! I cant get out on my own! You forgot one thing, the girl in the stocks told her. I dont know if its important or not, but it might be. What? The girl turned her hands over inside the holes which held them, exposing her clean pink palms. He said there were two kinds, remember? M17 and F23. You almost remembered yesterday, I think. He wanted F23s, but they dont make many and theyre hard to get, so he had to settle for two pairs of M17s. You do remember, dont you? He told you all about it on the day he brought the handcuffs home. She opened her eyes and looked at the cuff which enclosed her right wrist. Yes, he certainly had told her all about it; had, in fact, babbled like a coke addict on a twopipe high, beginning with a latemorning call from the office. Hed wanted to know if the house was emptyhe could never remember which days the housekeeper had offand when she assured him it was, he had asked her to slip into something comfortable. Something thats almost there was the way hed put it. She remembered being intrigued. Even over the phone, Gerald had sounded ready to blow a fuse, and she had suspected he was thinking kinky. That was all right with her; they were closing in on their forties, and if Gerald wanted to experiment a little, she was willing enough to accommodate him. He had arrived in record time (he must have left all three miles of the 295 city bypass smoking behind him, she thought), and what Jessie remembered best about that day was how he had gone bustling about the bedroom, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling. Sex wasnt the first thing that came to her mind when she thought of Gerald (in a wordassociation test, security would probably have popped out first), but that day the two things had been all but interchangeable. Certainly sex had been the only thing on his mind; Jessie believed his usually polite attorneys pecker would have ripped the fly out of his natty pinstripe trousers if hed been any slower getting them off. Once they and the shorts beneath had been discarded, he had slowed down a little, ceremoniously opening the Adidas sneaker box hed brought upstairs with him. He brought out the two sets of handcuffs which had been inside and held them up for her inspection. A pulse had been fluttering in his throat, a flickery little movement almost as fast as a hummingbirds wing. She remembered that, too. Even then his heart must have been under a strain. You would have done me a big favor, Gerald, if youd popped your cork right then and there. She wanted to be horrified at this unkind thought about the man with whom she had shared so much of her life, and found the most she could manage was an almost clinical selfdisgust. And when her thoughts returned to how hed looked that daythose flushed cheeks and sparkling eyesher hands curled quietly into hard little fists. Why couldnt you leave me alone? she asked him now. Why did you have to be such a prick about it? Such a bully? Never mind. Dont think about Gerald; think about the cuffs. Two sets of Kreig Security Hand Restraints, size M17. The M designation for Male; the 17 for the number of notches on the latchlocks. A sensation of bright heat bloomed in her stomach and chest. Dont feel that, she told herself, and if you absolutely have to feel it, pretend its indigestion. That was impossible, however. It was hope she felt, and it wouldnt be denied. The best she could do was balance it with reality, keep reminding herself of her first failed attempt to squeeze out of the cuffs. Yet in spite of her efforts to remember the pain and the failure, what she found herself thinking about was how close how fucking closeshe had come to escape. Another quarter of an inch might have been enough to turn the trick, she had thought then, and a half would have done it for sure. The bony outcrops below her thumbs were a problem, yes, but was she actually going to die on this bed because she was unable to bridge a gap not much wider than her upper lip? Surely not. Jessie made a strong effort to set these thoughts aside and return her mind to the day Gerald had brought the cuffs home. To how he had held them up with the wordless awe of a jeweler displaying the finest diamond necklace to ever pass through his hands. She had been fairly impressed with them herself, come to that. She remembered how shiny they had been, and how the light from the window had pricked gleams of light off the blued steel of the cuffs and the notched curves of the latchlocks which allowed one to adjust the handcuffs to wrists of various sizes. Shed wanted to know where he had gotten them it was a matter of simple curiosity, not accusationbut all he would tell her was that one of the courthouse sharpies had helped him out. He dropped her a hazy little halfwink when he said it, as if there were dozens of these shifty fellows drifting through the various halls and antechambers of the Cumberland County Courthouse, and he knew them all. In fact, hed behaved that afternoon as if it had been a couple of Scud missiles hed scored instead of two pairs of handcuffs. She had been lying on the bed, dressed in a white lace teddy and matching silk hose, an ensemble which was most definitely almost there, watching him with a mixture of amusement, curiosity, and excitement . . . but amusement had held the pole position that day, hadnt it? Yes. Seeing Gerald, who always tried so hard to be Mr. Cool, go striding around the room like a horse in heat had struck her as very amusing indeed. His hair had been frizzed up in the wild corkscrews Jessies kid brother used to call chickens, and hed still been wearing his black nylon dressforsuccess socks. She remembered biting the insides of her cheeksand quite hard, tooto keep her smile from showing. Mr. Cool had been talking .faster than an auctioneer at a bankruptcy sale that afternoon. Then, all at once, he had stopped in midspiel. An expression of comic surprise had overspread his face. Gerald, whats wrong? she had asked. I just realized that I dont know if you even want to consider this, he had replied. Ive been prattling on and on, Im just about frothing at the youknowwhat, as you can plainly see, and I never once asked you if She had smiled then, partially because shed gotten very bored with the scarves and hadnt known how to tell him, but mostly just because it was good to see him excited about sex again. All right, it was maybe a little weird to get turned on by the idea of locking your wife up in handcuffs before going deepsea diving with the long white pole. So what? It was just between the two of them, wasnt it, and it was all in funreally no more than an Xrated comic opera. Gilbert and Sullivan Do Bondage, Im just a handcuffed laydee in the Kings Nayvee. Besides, there were weirder kinks; Frieda Soames from across the street had once confessed to Jessie (after two drinks before lunch and half a bottle of wine during) that her exhusband had enjoyed being powdered and diapered. Biting the insides of her cheeks hadnt worked the second time, and she had burst out laughing. Gerald had looked at her with his head cocked slightly to the right and a little smile tilting up the left corner of his mouth. It was an expression she had come to know well over the last seventeen yearsit meant he was either preparing to be angry or to laugh along with her. It was usually impossible to tell which way he would tip. Want to share? hed asked. She hadnt replied immediately. She stopped laughing instead and fixed him with what she hoped was an expression worthy of the meanest Nazi bitchgoddess ever to grace the cover of a Mans Adventure magazine. When she felt she had achieved the right degree of icy hauteur, she raised her arms and said five uncalculated words which had brought him leaping across to the bed, obviously dizzy with excitement Get over here, you bastard. In no time at all he had been fumbling the cuffs onto her wrists and then attaching them to the bedposts. There were no slats on the headboard in the master bedroom of the Portland house; if he had suffered his heart attack there, she could have slipped the cuffs right off the tops of the posts. As he panted and fussed over the cuffs, one knee rubbing delightfully against her down below while he did it, he talked. And one of the things he had told her was about M and F, and how the latchlocks worked. He had wanted Fs, he told her, because the female cuffs had latchlocks with twentythree notches instead of seventeen, the number most male cuffs had. More notches meant the female cuffs would close smaller. They were hard to come by, though, and when his courthouse friend had told Gerald he could get him two sets of mens hand restraints at a very reasonable price, Gerald had jumped at the chance. Some women can pull right out of mens cuffs, hed told her, but youre fairly bigboned. Besides, I didnt want to wait. Now ... lets just see . . . He had snapped the cuff on her right wrist, pushing the latchlock in fast at first but slowing down as he approached the end, asking her if he was hurting her as each notch clicked past. It was fine all the way to the last notch, but when he had asked her to try and get out, she hadnt been able to do so. Her wrist had slipped most of the way through the cuff, all right, and Gerald had told her later that not even that was supposed to happen, but when it bound up along the back of her hand and at the base of her thumb, his comical expression of anxiety had faded. I think theyre going to do just fine, he had said. She remembered that very well, and she remembered what hed said next even more clearly Were going to have a lot of fun with these. With the memory of that day still vivid in the front of her mind, Jessie once again began to apply downward pressure, trying to somehow shrink her hands enough so she could yank them through the cuffs. The pain struck sooner this time, starting not in her hands but in the overtaxed muscles of her shoulders and arms. Jessie squeezed her eyes shut, bore down harder, and tried to shut out the hurt. Now her hands joined the chorus of outrage, and as she once more approached the outer limit of her muscular leverage and the cuffs began to dig into the scant flesh which covered the backs of her hands, they began to scream. Posterior ligament, she thought, head cocked, lips drawn back in a wide, spitless grin of pain. Posterior ligament, posterior ligament, motherfucking posterior ligament! Nothing. No give. And she began to suspectto strongly suspectthat there was more involved than ligaments. There were bones there as well, a couple of pukey little bones running along the outsides of her hands below the lower thumbjoint, a couple of pukey little bones that were probably going to get her killed. With a final shriek of mingled pain and disappointment, Jessie let her hands go limp once more. Her shoulders and upper arms quivered with exhaustion. So much for sliding out of the cuffs because they were M17s instead of F23s. The disappointment was almost worse than the physical pain; it stung like poisoned nettles. Shit and fuck! she cried at the empty room. Shit and fuck, shitandfuck, shittenfuck! Somewhere along the lakefarther off today, by the soundthe chainsaw started up, and that made her even angrier. The guy from yesterday, back for more. Just some swinging dick in a redandblackchecked flannel shirt from L. L. Beans, out there playing Paul KissMyAss Bunyan, roaring away with his Stihl and dreaming about crawling into bed with his little honey at the end of the day ... or maybe it was football he was dreaming of, or just a few frosty cold ones down at the marina bar. Jessie saw the dork in the checked flannel shirt as clearly as she had seen the young girl in the stocks, and if thoughts alone could have killed him, his head would have exploded out through his asshole at that very moment. Its not fair! she screamed. Its just not f A kind of dry cramp seized her throat and she fell silent, grimacing and afraid. She had felt the hard splinters of bone which barred her escapeoh God, had shebut she had been close, just the same. That was the real wellspring of her bitternessnot the pain, and certainly not the unseen woodcutter with his blatting chainsaw. It was knowing that she had gotten close, but nowhere near close enough. She could continue to grit her teeth and endure the pain, but she no longer believed it would do her the slightest bit of good. That last quarter to half an inch was going to remain mockingly out of her reach. The only thing she would manage to do if she kept on pulling was to cause edema and swelling in her wrists, worsening her situation instead of bettering it. And dont you tell me Im toast, dont you dare, she said in a whispery, scolding voice. I dont want to hear that. You have to get out of them somehow, the young girls voice whispered back. Because heitreally is going to come again. Tonight. After the sun goes down. I dont believe it, she croaked. I dont believe that man was real. I dont care about the footprint and the earring. I just dont believe it. Yes, you do. No, I dont! Yes, you do. Jessie let her head droop to one side, hair hanging almost down to the mattress, mouth quivering abjectly. Yes, she did. 26 She started to doze off again in spite of her worsening thirst and throbbing arms. She knew it was dangerous to sleepthat her strength would continue to ebb while she was out of itbut what difference did it really make? She had explored all her options and she was still Americas Handcuffed Sweetheart. Besides, she wanted that lovely oblivioncraved it, in fact, the way a hophead craves his drug. Then, just before she drifted off, a thought which was both simple and shockingly direct lit up her confused, drifting mind like a flare. The face cream. The jar of face cream on the shelf above the bed. Dont get your hopes up, Jessiethat would be a bad mistake. If it didnt fall right off onto the floor when you tipped the shelf up, it probably slid to a place.where you havent got a snowballs chance in hell of getting hold of it. So dont get your hopes up. The thing was, she couldnt not get them up, because if the face cream was still there and still in a place. where she could get hold of it, it might provide just enough slip to free one hand. Maybe both, although she didnt think that would be necessary. If she could pull out of one cuff, she would be able to get off the bed, and if she could get off the bed, she thought she would have it made. It was just one of those small plastic sample jars they send through the mail, Jessie. It must have slid off onto the floor. It hadnt, though. When Jessie had turned her head as far to the left as it would go without popping her neck out of joint, she was able to see a dark blue blob at the farthest edge of her vision. Its not really there, the hateful, doommongering part of her whispered. You think its there, perfectly understandable, but its really not. Its just a hallucination, Jessie, just you seeing what most of your mind wants you to see, orders you to see. Not me, though; Im a realist. She looked again, straining a tiny bit farther to the left in spite of the pain. Instead of disappearing, the blue blob grew momentarily clearer. It was the sample jar, all right. There was a readinglamp on Jessies side of the bed, and this hadnt slid off onto the floor when she tilted the shelf because the base was fastened to the wood. A paperback copy of The Valley of Horses which had been lying on the shelf since midJuly had slid against the base of the lamp, and the jar of Nivea cream had slid against the book. Jessie realized it was possible that her life was going to be saved by a readinglamp and a bunch of fictional cavepeople with names like Ayla and Oda and Uba and Thonolan. It was more than amazing; it was surreal. Even if its there, youll never be able to reach it, the doommonger told her, but Jessie barely heard it. The thing was, she thought she could reach the jar. She was almost sure of it. She turned her left hand within its restraint and reached slowly up to the shelf, moving with infinite care. It would not do to make a mistake now, to nudge the jar of Nivea cream out of reach along the shelf, or knock it backward against the wall. For all she knew, there might now be a gap between the shelf and the wall, a gap a small samplesized jar could easily drop through. And if that happened, she was quite sure her mind would break. Yes. She would hear the jar hit the floor down there, landing among the mouseturds and dust bunnies, and then her mind would just ... well, break. So she had to be careful. And if she was, everything might yet be all right. Because ... Because maybe there is a God, she thought, and He doesnt want me to die here on this bed like an animal in a leghold trap. It makes sense, when you stop to think about it. I picked that jar up off the shelf when the dog started chewing on Gerald, and then I saw it was too small and too light to do any damage even if I managed to hit the dog with it. Under those circumstancesrevolted, confused, and scared out of my mindthe most natural thing in the world would have been to drop it before feeling around on the shelf for something heavier. Instead of doing that, I put it back on the shelf. Why would I or anyone else do such an illogical thing? God, thats why. Thats the only answer I can think of, the only one that fits. God saved it for me because He knew Id need it. She whispered her cuffed hand gently along the wood, trying to turn her splayed fingers into a radar dish. There must be no slipups. She understood that, questions of God or fate or providence aside, this was almost certainly going to be both her best chance and her last one. And as her fingers touched the smooth, curved surface of the jar, a snatch of talking blues occurred to her, a little dustbowl ditty probably composed by Woody Guthrie. She had first heard it sung by Tom Rush, back in her college days If you want to go to heaven Let me tell you how to do it, You gotta grease your feet With a little mutton suet. You just slide out of the devils hand And ooze on over to the Promised Land; Take it easy, Go greasy. She slipped her fingers around the jar, ignoring the rusty pull of her shoulder muscles, moving with a slow, caressing care, and hooked the jar gently toward her. Now she knew how safecrackers felt when they were using nitro. Take it easy, she thought, go greasy. Had truer words ever been spoken in the whole history of the world? I dont theeenk so, my deah, she said in her snottiest Elizabeth Taylor Cat on a Hot Tin Roof voice. She did not hear herself do this, did not even realize she had spoken. Already she could feel the blessed balm of relief stealing over her; it was as sweet as that first drink of fresh, cool water was going to be when she poured it over the rusty razorwire embedded in her throat. She was going to slide out of the devils hand and ooze on over to the Promised Land; absolutely no doubt about it. As long as she oozed carefully, that was. She had been tested; she had been tempered in the fire; now she would reap her reward. She had been a fool to ever doubt. I think you better stop thinking that way, the Goodwife said in a worried tone. It will make you careless, and I have an idea that very few careless people ever manage to slide out of the devils hand. Probably true, but she hadnt the slightest intention of being careless. She had spent the last twentyone hours in hell, and no one knew any better than she did how much was riding on this one. No one could know, not ever. Ill be careful, Jessie crooned. Ill think out every step. I promise I will. And then I ... Ill ... She would what? Why, she would go greasy, of course. Not just until she got out of the handcuffs, but from now on. Jessie suddenly heard herself talking to God again, and this time she did it with an easy fluency. I want to make You a promise, she told God. I promise to go right on oozing. Im going to start by having a big spring cleaning inside my head and throwing out all the broken stuff and the toys I outgrew a long time agoall the stuff that isnt doing anything but taking up space and contributing to the firehazard, in other words. I might call Nora Callighan and ask her if she wants to help. I think I might call Carol Symonds, too . . . Carol Rittenhouse these days, of course. If theres anyone in our old bunch who still knows where Ruth Neary is, itll be Carol. Listen to me, LordI dont know if anyone ever gets to the Promised Land or not, but I promise to stay greasy and keep trying. Okay? And she saw (almost as though it were an approving answer to her prayer) exactly how it was supposed to go. Getting the top off the jar would be the toughest part; it would require patience and great care, but she would be helped by its unusually small size. Plant the jars base on the palm of her left hand; brace the top with her fingers; use her thumb to do the actual unscrewing. It would help if the cap was loose, but she was pretty sure she would be able to get it off in any case. Youre damn right IIl get it off, toots, Jessie thought grimly. The most dangerous moment would probably come when the cap actually started to turn. If it happened all at once and she wasnt ready for it, the jar might shoot right out of her hand. Jessie voiced a croaky little laugh. Fat chance, she told the empty room. Fat fucking chance, my deah. Jessie held the jar up, looking at it fixedly. It was hard to see through the translucent blue plastic, but the container appeared to be at least half full, maybe a little more. Once the cap was off, she would simply turn the jar over in her hand and let the goo seep out onto her palm. When shed gotten as much as she could, she would tilt her hand up to the vertical, letting the cream slide down to her wrist. Most of it would pool between her flesh and the cuff. She would spread it by rotating her hand back and forth. She already knew where the vital spot was, anyway the area just below the thumb. And when she was as greasy as she could get, shed give one last pull, hard and steady. She would block out all pain and keep pulling until her hand slid through the cuff and she was free at last, free at last, Great God Almighty, free at last. She could do it. She knew she could. But carefully, she murmured, letting the base of the jar settle onto her palm and spacing the pads of her fingers and her thumb at intervals around the cap. And Its loose! she cried in a hoarse, trembling voice. Oh my and pumpkin pie, it really is! She could hardly believe itand the doommonger buried somewhere deep inside refused tobut it was true. She could feel the cap rock a little on its spiral groove when she pressed the tips of her fingers gently up and down against it. Carefully, Jessoh so carefully. Just the way you saw it. Yes. In her mind she now saw something elsesaw herself, sitting at her desk in Portland, wearing her best black dress, the fashionably short one she had bought herself last spring as a present for sticking to her diet and losing ten pounds. Her hair, freshly washed and smelling of some sweet herbal shampoo instead of old sour sweat, was held in a simple gold clip. The top of the desk was flooded with friendly afternoon sunshine from the bow windows. She saw herself writing to The Nivea Corporation of America, or whoever it was that made Nivea face cream. Dear Sirs, she would write, I just had to let you know what a lifesaver your product really is ... When she applied pressure to the jars cap with her thumb, it began to turn smoothly, without a single jerk. All according to plan. Like a dream, she thought. Thank You, God. Thank You. Thank You so very, very, very m Sudden movement snagged the corner of her eye and her first thought was not that someone had found her and she was saved but that the space cowboy had come back to take her for itself before she could get away. Jessie voiced a shrill, startled cry. Her gaze leaped up from its intent focuspoint on the jar. Her fingers clutched it in an involuntary spasm of fright and surprise. It was the dog. The dog had returned for a latemorning snack and was standing in the doorway, checking out the bedroom before coming in. At the same instant Jessie realized this, she also realized that she had squeezed the small blue jar much too hard. It was squirting through her fingers like a freshly peeled grape. No! She clutched for it and almost reinstated her grip. Then it tumbled out of her hand, struck her hip, and bounced off the bed. There was a mild and stupid clacking sound as the jar struck the wooden floor. This was the very sound which she had believed, less than three minutes ago, would drive her mad. It did not, and now she discovered a newer, deeper terror in spite of everything which had happened to her, she was still a very long way from insanity. It seemed to her that, no matter what horrors might lie ahead for her now that this last door to escape had been barred, she must face them sane. Why do you have to come in now, you bastard? she asked the former Prince, and something in her grating, deadly voice made it pause and look at her with a caution all her screams and threats had not been able to inspire. Why now, God damn you? Why now? The stray decided the bitchmaster was probably still harmless in spite of the sharp edges which now glinted in her voice, but it still kept a wary eye on her as it trotted over to its supply of meat. It was better to be safe. It had suffered greatly in the course of learning that simple lesson, and it wasnt one it would forget easily, or soonit was always better to be safe. It gave her one final look with its bright and desperate eyes before dipping its head, seizing one of Geralds lovehandles, and tearing a large portion of it away. Seeing this was bad, but for Jessie it was not the worst. The worst was the cloud of flies which rose from their feeding and nestingground when the stray locked its teeth and yanked. Their somnolent buzz finished the job of demolishing some vital, survivaloriented part of her, some part that had to do with both hope and heart. The dog stepped back as delicately as a dancer in a movie musical, its good ear cocked, the meat dangling from its jaws. Then it turned and trotted quickly from the room. The flies were beginning resettlement operations even before it was out of sight. Jessie leaned her head back against the mahogany crossboards and closed her eyes. She began praying again, but this time it was not escape she prayed for. This time she prayed that God would take her quickly and mercifully, before the sun went down and the whitefaced stranger came back. 27 The next four hours were the worst of Jessie Burlingames life. The cramps in her muscles grew steadily more frequent and more intense, but it wasnt intramuscular pain that made the hours between eleven and three so terrible; it was her minds stubborn, gruesome refusal to relinquish its hold on lucidity and go into the dark. She had read Poes The TellTale Heart in junior high school, but not until now had she grasped the real horror of its opening lines Nervous! True, very nervous I am and have been, but why will you say I am mad? Madness would be a relief, but madness would not come. Neither would sleep. Death might beat them both, and dark certainly would. She could only lie on the bed, existing in a dull olivedrab reality shot through with occasional gaudy blasts of pain as her muscles cramped up. The cramps mattered, and so did her horrible, tiresome sanity, but little else seemed tocertainly the world outside this room had ceased to hold any real meaning for her. In fact, she came strongly to believe that there was no world outside this room, that all the people who had once filled it had gone back to some existential Central Casting office, and all the scenery had been packed away like stageflats after one of Ruths beloved college drama society productions. Time was a cold sea through which her consciousness forged like a waddling, graceless icebreaker. Voices came and went like phantoms. Most spoke inside her head, but for awhile Nora Callighan talked to her from the bathroom, and at another point Jessie had a conversation with her mother, who seemed to be lurking in the hall. Her mother had come to tell her that Jessie never would have gotten into a mess like this if she had been better about picking up her clothes. If I had a nickel for every slip I ever fished out of the corner and turned rightsideout, her mother said, I could buy the Cleveland Gas Works. This had been a favorite saying of her mothers, and Jessie realized now that none of them had ever asked her why she would want the Cleveland Gas Works. She continued to exercise weakly, pedaling with her feet and pumping her arms up and down as far as the handcuffsand her own flagging strengthwould allow. She no longer did this to keep her body ready for escape when the right option finally occurred to her, because she had finally come to understand, in her heart and in her head, that there were no options left. The jar of face cream had been the last. She was exercising now only because the movement seemed to alleviate the cramps a little. In spite of the exercise, she could feel coldness creeping into her feet and hands, settling onto her skin like a skim of ice and then working its way in. This was nothing like the gonetosleep feeling with which she had awakened this morning; it was more like the frostbite she had suffered during a long afternoon of crosscountry skiing as a teenagersinister gray spots on the back of one hand and on the flesh of her calf where her legging hadnt quite covered, dead spots that seemed impervious to even the baking heat of the fireplace. She supposed this numbness would finally overwhelm the cramps and that, in the end, her death might turn out to be quite merciful after alllike going to sleep in a snowbankbut it was moving much too slowly. Time passed but it wasnt time; it was just a relentless, unchanging flow of information passing from her sleepless senses to her eerily lucid mind. There was only the bedroom, the scenery outside (the last few stageflats, yet to be packed away by the propmaster in charge of this shitty little production), the buzz of flies turning Gerald into a lateseason incubator, and the slow movement of the shadows along the floor as the sun made its way across a painted autumn sky. Every now and then a cramp would stab into one of her armpits like an icepick or pound a thick steel nail into her right side. As the afternoon wore endlessly along, the first cramps began to strike into her belly, where all hunger pangs had now ceased, and into the overstressed tendons of her diaphragm. These latter were the worst, freezing the sheath of muscles in her chest and locking down her lungs. She stared up at the reflected waterripples on the ceiling with agonized, bulging eyes as each one struck, arms and legs trembling with effort as she tried to continue breathing until the cramp eased. It was like being buried up to the neck in cold wet cement. Hunger passed but thirst did not, and as that endless day turned about her, she came to realize that simple thirst (only that and nothing more) might accomplish what the increasing levels of pain and even the fact of her own oncoming death hadnt been able to it might drive her mad. It wasnt just her throat and. mouth now; every part of her body cried out for water.

Even her eyeballs were thirsty, and the sight of the ripples dancing on the ceiling to the left of the skylight made her groan softly. With these very real perils closing in on her, the terror she had felt of the space cowboy should have waned or disappeared entirely, but as the afternoon drew on, she found the whitefaced stranger weighing more heavily on her mind rather than less. She saw its shape constantly, standing just beyond the small circle of light which enclosed her reduced consciousness, and although she could make out little more than its general shape (thin to the point of emaciation), she found she could see the sunken sickly grin that curved its mouth with greater and greater clarity as the sun dragged its harrow of hours into the west. In her ear she heard the dusty murmur of the bones and jewels as its hand stirred them in its oldfashioned case. It would come for her. When it was dark it would come. The dead cowboy, the outsider, the specter of love. You did see it, Jessie. It was Death, and you did see it, as people who die in the lonely places often do. Of course they do; its stamped on their twisted faces, and you can read it in their bulging eyes. It was Old Cowboy Death, and tonight when the sun goes down, hell be back for you. Shortly after three, the wind, which had been calm all day, began to pick up. The back door began to bang restlessly against the jamb again. Not long after, the chainsaw quit and she could hear the faint sound of winddriven wavelets slapping against the rocks along the shore. The loon did not raise its voice; perhaps it had decided the time had come to fly south, or at least relocate to a part of the lake where the screaming lady could not be heard. Its just me now. Until the other one gets here, at least. She no longer made any effort to believe her dark visitor was only imagination; things had gone much too far for that. A fresh cramp sank long, bitter teeth into her left armpit, and she pulled her cracked lips back in a grimace. It was like having your heart poked with the tines of a barbecue fork. Then the muscles just below her breasts tightened and the bundle of nerves in her solar plexus seemed to ignite like a pile of dry sticks. This pain was new, and it was enormousfar beyond anything she had experienced thus far. It bent her backward like a greenwood stick, torso twisting from side to side, knees snapping open and shut. Her hair flew in clots and clumps. She tried to scream and couldnt. For a moment she was sure this was it, the end of the line. One final convulsion, as powerful as six sticks of dynamite planted in a granite ledge, and out you go, Jessie; cashiers on your right. But this one passed, too. She relaxed slowly, panting, her head turned up toward the ceiling. For the moment, at least, the dancing reflections up there didnt torment her; all her concentration was focused on that fiery bundle of nerves between and just below her breasts, waiting to see if the pain was really going to go away or if it would flare up again instead. It went . . . but grudgingly, with a promise to be back soon. Jessie closed her eyes, praying for sleep. Even a short release from the long and tiresome job of dying would be welcome at this point. Sleep didnt come, but Punkin, the girl from the stocks, did. She was free as a bird now, sexual enticement or no sexual enticement, walking barefooted across the town common of whatever Puritan village it was that she inhabited, and she was gloriously alonethere was no need to walk with her eyes decorously cast down so that some passing boy might not catch her gaze with a wink or a grin. The grass was a deep velvety green, and far away, on top of the next hill (this has to be the worlds biggest town common, Jessie thought), a flock of sheep was grazing. The bell Jessie had heard before was sending its flat, monotonous peals across the darkening day. Punkin was wearing a blue flannel nightie with a big yellow exclamation point on the fronthardly Puritan dress, although it was certainly modest enough, covering her from neck to feet. Jessie knew the garment well, and was delighted to see it again. Between the ages of ten and twelve, when she had finally been persuaded to donate it to the ragbasket, she must have worn that silly thing to two dozen slumber parties. Punkins hair, which had obscured her face completely while the neckstock held her head down, was now tied back with a velvet bow of darkest midnight blue. The girl looked lovely and deeply happy, which didnt surprise Jessie at all. The girl had, after all, escaped her bonds; she was free. Jessie felt no jealousy of her on this account, but she did have a strong desirealmost a needto tell her that she must do more than simply enjoy her freedom; she must treasure it and guard it and use it. I went to sleep after all. I must have, because this has got to be a dream. Another cramp, this one not quite as terrible as the one which had set fire to her solar plexus, froze the muscles in her right thigh and set her right foot wagging foolishly in the air. She opened her eyes and saw the bedroom, where the light had once again grown long and slanting. It was not quite what the French call lheure bleue, but that time was now fast approaching. She heard the banging door, smelled her sweat and urine and sour, exhausted breath. All was exactly as it had been. Time had moved forward, but it had not leaped forward, as it so often seems to have done when one awakens from an unplanned doze. Her arms were a little colder, she thought, but no more or less numb than they had been. She hadnt been asleep and she hadnt been dreaming . . . but she had been doing something. I can do it again, too, she thought, and closed her eyes. She was back on the improbably huge town common the moment she did. The girl with the big yellow exclamation point sprouting up between her small breasts was looking at her gravely and sweetly. Theres one thing you havent tried, Jessie. Thats not true, she told Punkin. Ive tried everything, believe me. And you know what? I think that if I hadnt dropped that damned jar of face cream when the dog scared me, I might have been able to squeak out of the left cuff. It was bad luck, that dog coming in when it did. Or bad karma. Bad something, anyway. The girl drifted closer, the grass whispering beneath her bare feet. Not the left cuff, Jessie. Its the right one you can squeak out of. Its an outside shot, Ill grant you that, but its possible. The real question now, I think, is whether you really want to live. Of course I want to live! Closer still. Those eyesa smoke color that tried to be blue and didnt quite make itnow seemed to peer right through her skin and into the heart of her. Do you? I wonder. What are you, crazy? Do you think I want to still be here, handcuffed to this bed, when Jessies eyesstill trying to be blue after all these years and still not quite making itslowly opened again. They gazed around the room with an expression of terrified solemnity. Saw her husband, now lying in an impossibly twisted position, glaring up at the ceiling. I dont want to still be handcuffed to this bed when it gets dark and the boogeyman comes back, she told the empty room. Close your eyes, Jessie. She closed them. Punkin stood there in her old flannel nightie, gazing at her calmly, and Jessie could now see the other girl as wellthe fat one with the pimply skin. The fat girl hadnt been as lucky as Punkin; there had been no escape for her, unless death itself was an escape in certain casesa hypothesis Jessie had become quite willing to accept. The fat girl had either choked to death or suffered some sort of seizure. Her face was the purpleblack color of summer thunderheads. One eye bulged from its socket; the other had burst like a squeezed grape. Her tongue, bloody where she had bitten it repeatedly in her last extremity, protruded between her lips. Jessie turned back to Punkin with a shudder. I dont want to end up like that. Whatever else may be wrong with me, I dont want to end up like that. How did you get out? Slid out, Punkin replied promptly. Slid out of the devils hand; oozed on over to the Promised Land. Jessie felt a throb of anger through her exhaustion. Havent you heard a single word Ive said? I dropped the goddam jar of Nivea! The dog came in and startled me and I dropped it! How can I Also, I remembered the eclipse. Punkin spoke abruptly, with the air of one who has become impatient with some complex but meaningless social formula; you curtsey, I bow, we all join hands. Thats how I really got out; I remembered the eclipse and what happened on the deck while the eclipse was going on. And youll have to remember, too. I think its the only chance you have to get free. You cant run away anymore, Jessie. You have to turn and face the truth. That again? Only that? Jessie felt a deep wave of exhaustion and disappointment. For a moment or two, hope had almost returned, but there was nothing here for her. Nothing at all. You dont understand, she told Punkin. Weve been down this path beforeall the way down. Yes, I suppose that what my father did to me then might have something to do with whats happening to me now, I suppose thats at least possible, but why go through all that pain again when theres so much other pain to go through before God finally gets tired of torturing me and decides to pull down the blinds? There was no answer. The little girl in the blue nightie, the little girl who had once been her, was gone. Now there was only darkness behind Jessies closed lids, like the darkness of a movie screen after the show has ended, so she opened her eyes again and took a long look around the room where she was going to die. She looked from the bathroom door to the framed batik butterfly to the bureau to her husbands body, lying beneath its noxious throwrug of sluggish autumn flies. Quit it, Jess. Go back to the eclipse. Her eyes widened. That actually did sound reala real voice coming not from the bathroom or the hall or from inside her own head, but seeming to seep out of the very air itself. Punkin? Her voice was only a croak now. She tried to sit up a little more, but another ferocious cramp threatened her midsection and she lay back against the headboard at once, waiting for it to pass. Punkin, is that you? Is it, dear? For a moment she thought she heard something, that the voice said something else, but if it did, she was unable to make out the words. And then it was entirely gone. Go back to the eclipse, Jessie. No answers there, she muttered. Nothing there but pain and stupidity and ... And what? What else? The old Adam. The phrase rose naturally into her mind, lifted from some sermon she must have heard as a bored child sitting between her mother and father, kicking her feet in order to watch the light falling through the colored church windows shift and glimmer on her white patentleather shoes. Just some phrase that had caught on sticky flypaper in her subconscious and stayed with her. The old Adamand maybe that was all it was, as simple as that. A father who had halfconsciously arranged to be alone with his pretty, vivacious young daughter, thinking all the while There wont be any harm in it, no harm, not a bit of harm. Then the eclipse had started, and she had sat on his lap in the sundress that was both too tight and too shortthe sundress he himself had asked her to wearand what had happened had happened. Just a brief, goatish interlude that had shamed and embarrassed them both. He had squirted his squirtthat was the long and short of it (and if there was some sort of pun buried in there, she didnt give a shit about it); had shot it all over the back of her underwear, in factdefinitely not approved behavior for Daddies and definitely not a situation she had ever seen explored on The Brady Bunch, but . . . But lets face it, Jessie thought. I got off with barely a scratch compared to what could have happened ... what does happen every day. It doesnt just happen in places like Peyton Place and along Tobacco Road, either. My father wasnt the first collegeeducated, uppermiddleclass man to ever get a hardon for his daughter, and I wasnt the first daughter to ever find a wet spot on the back of her underpants. Thats not to say it was right, or even excusable; its just to say that its over, and it could have been a lot worse. Yes. And right now forgetting all that seemed a much better idea than going through it yet again, no matter what Punkin had to say on the subject. Best to let it fade into the general darkness which came with any solar eclipse. She still had a lot of dying to do in this stinking, flyfilled bedroom. She closed her eyes and immediately the scent of her fathers cologne seemed to drift into her nose. That, and the smell of his light, nervous sweat. The feel of the hard thing against her bottom. His little gasp as she squirmed on his lap, trying to get comfortable. Feeling his hand as it settled lightly on her breast. Wondering if he was all right. He had begun to breathe so fast. Marvin Gaye on the radio I love too hard, my friends sometimes say, but I believe . . . I believe . . . that a woman should be loved that way ... Do you love me, Punkin? Yes, sure Then dont worry about anything. Id never hurt you. Now his other hand was moving up her bare leg, pushing the sundress ahead of it, bunching it in her lap. I want... I want to be sweet to you, Jessie muttered, shifting a little against the headboard. Her face was sallow and drawn. Thats what he said. Good Christ, he actually said that. Everybody knows ... especially you girls... that a love can be sad, well my love is twice as bad ... Im not sure I want to, Daddy... Im afraid of burning my eyes. You have another twenty seconds. At least that. So dont worry. And dont look around. Then there had been the snap of elasticnot hers but hisas he set the old Adam free. In defiance of her advancing dehydration, a single tear slipped from Jessies left eye and rolled slowly down her cheek. Im doing it, she said in a hoarse, choked voice. Im remembering. I hope youre happy. Yes, Punkin said, and although Jessie could no longer see it, she could feel that strange, sweet gaze on her. Youve gone too far, though. Back up a little. Just a little. An enormous sense of relief washed through Jessie as she realized the thing Punkin wanted her to remember had not happened during or after her fathers sexual advances, but before them ... although not long before. Then why did I have to go through the rest of that awful old stuff? The answer to that was pretty obvious, she supposed. It didnt matter if you wanted one sardine or twenty, you still had to open the can and look at all of them; you had to smell that horrible fishoil stink. And besides, a little ancient history wasnt going to kill her. The handcuffs holding her to the bed might, but not these old memories, painful as they might be. It was time to quit bitching and moaning and get down to business. Time to find whatever it was Punkin said she was supposed to find. Go back to just before he started to touch you that other waythe wrong way. Go back to the reason why the two of you were out there in the first place. Go back to the eclipse. Jessie closed her eyes tighter and went back. 28 Punkin? All right? Yes, but ... its a little scary, isnt it? Now she doesnt have to look into the reflectorbox to know somethings happening; the day is beginning to darken the way it does when a cloud passes over the sun. But this is no cloud; the murk has unravelled and what clouds there are lie quite far to the east. Yes, he says, and when she glances at him, she is enormously relieved to see he means it. Want to sit on my lap, Jess? Can I? You bet. So she does, glad of his nearness and warmth and his sweet smellthe smell of Daddyas the day continues to darken. Glad most of all because it is a little scary, scarier than she imagined it would be. What scares her the most is the way their shadows on the deck are fading. She has never seen shadows fade quite like this before, and is almost positive she never will again. Thats perfectly okay with me, she thinks, and snuggles closer, glad to be (at least for the duration of this slightly spooky interlude) her fathers Punkin again instead of plain old Jessietoo tall, too gawky... too squeaky. Can I look through the smoked glass yet, Dad? Not yet. His hand, heavy and warm on her leg. She puts her own hand over it, then turns to him and grins. Its exciting, isnt it? Yes.. Yes it is, Punkin. Quite a bit more than I thought it would be, actually. She wriggles again, wanting to find a way to coexist with the hard part of him against which her bottom is now resting. He draws in a quick hissing mouthful of air over his bottom lip. Daddy? Am I too heavy? Did I hurt you? No. Youre fine. Can I look at it through the glass yet? Not yet, Punkin. But very soon. The world no longer has the look it gets when the sun dives into a cloud; now it seems as if twilight has come in the middle of the afternoon. She hears the old hootyowl in the woods, and the sound makes her shiver. On WNCH Debbie Reynolds is fading out, and the deejay who comes in on top of them will soon be replaced by Marvin Gaye. Look out on the lake! Daddy tells her, and when she does, she sees a weird twilight creeping over a lackluster world from which every strong color has been subtracted, leaving nothing but subdued pastels. She shivers and tells him its creepy; he tells her to try not to be too scared to enjoy it, a statement she will examine carefullytoo carefully, perhapsfor double meanings years later. And now ... Dad? Daddy? Its gone. Can I Yes Now its okay. But when I say you have to stop, you have to stop. No arguments, understand? He gives her three panes of smoked glass in a stack, but first he gives her a potholder. He gives it to her because he made the viewers from panes of glass cut from an old shed window, and he is less than confident of his abilities with the glasscutter. And as she looks down at the potholder in this experience which is both dream and memory, her mind suddenly leaps even further back, as nimbly as an acrobat turning a flip, and she hears him say The last thing I need ... 29 . . . is for your mother to come home and find a note saying . . . Jessies eyes flashed open as she spoke these words to the empty room, and the first thing they saw was the empty glass Geralds waterglass, still standing on the shelf. Standing there near the cuff binding her wrist to the bedpost. Not the left wrist but the right. . . . a note saying Ive taken you to the Emergency Room so they can try to sew a couple of your fingers back on. Now Jessie understood the purpose of that old, hurtful memory; understood what Punkin had been trying to tell her all along. The answer had nothing to do with the old Adam, or with the faint mineral smell of the wet spot on her old cotton underpants. It had everything to do with half a dozen panes of glass carefully cut from the crumbling putty of an old shed window. She had lost the jar of Nivea cream, but there was still at least one other source of lubrication left to her, wasnt there? One other way to ooze on over to the Promised Land. There was blood. Until it clotted, blood was almost as slippery as oil. Its going to hurt like hell, Jessie. Yes, of course it would hurt like hell. But she thought she had heard or read somewhere that there were fewer nerves in the wrists than at many of the bodys vital checkpoints; that was why slitting ones wrists, especially in a tubful of hot water, had been a preferred method of suicide ever since the original togaparties in Imperial Rome. Besides, she was halfnumb already. I was halfnumb to let him lock me up in these things in the first place, she croaked. If you cut too deep, youll bleed to death just like those old Romans. Yes, of course she would. But if she didnt cut at all, shed lie here until she died of seizures or dehydration ... or until her friend with the bag of bones showed up tonight. Okay, she said. Her heart was pumping very hard, and she was fully awake for the first time in hours. Time restarted with a ram and a jerk, like a freighttrain pulling out of a siding and back onto the main line. Okay, thats the convincer. Listen, a voice said urgently, and Jessie realized with amazement that it was the voice of Ruth and the Goodwife. They had merged, at least for the time being. Listen carefully, Jess. Im listening, she told the empty room. She was also looking. It was the glass she was looking at. One of a set of twelve shed gotten on sale at Sears three or four years ago. Six or eight of them broken by now. Soon there would be another She swallowed and grimaced. It was like trying to swallow around a flannelcovered stone lodged in her throat. Im listening very carefully, believe me. Good. Because once you start this, you wont be able to stop again. Everythings got to happen fast, because your system is already dehydrated. But remember this even if things go all wrong theyll work out just fine, she finished. And it was true, wasnt it? The situation had taken on a simplicity that was, in its own ghastly way, sort of elegant. She didnt want to bleed to death, of coursewho would?but it would be better than the intensifying cramps and the thirst. Better than him. It. The hallucination. Whatever it was. She licked her dry lips with her dry tongue and caught at her flying, confused thoughts. Tried to put them in order as she had done before going after the sample jar of face cream which was now lying uselessly on the floor beside the bed. It was getting harder to think, she discovered. She kept hearing snatches of (go greasy) that talking blues, kept smelling her fathers cologne, kept feeling that hard thing against her bottom. And then there was Gerald. Gerald seemed to be talking to her from his place on the floor. Its going to be back, Jessie. Nothing you can do will stop it. It will teach you a lesson, me proud beauty. She flicked her eyes toward him, then looked hastily back at the waterglass. Gerald appeared to be grinning ferociously at her with the part of his face which the dog had left intact. She made another effort to set her wits to work, and after some effort, the thoughts began to roll. She took ten minutes, going over the steps again and again. There wasnt much, in truth, to go overher agenda was suicidally risky but not complicated. She mentally rehearsed each move several times just the same, looking for the minor mistake which might cost her her last chance at life. She couldnt find it. In the end there was only one major drawbackit would have to be done very fast, before the blood could start to coagulateand there were only two possible outcomes a quick escape, or unconsciousness and death. She reviewed the whole thing one more timenot putting off the necessary nasty business but examining it the way she would have examined a scarf she had knitted for runs and dropped stitcheswhile the sun continued its steady westward run. On the back stoop the dog got up, leaving the glistening knot of gristle upon which it had been gnawing. It ambled toward the woods. It had caught a whiff of that black scent again, and with its belly full, even a whiff was too much. 30 Twelvetwelvetwelve, the clock flashed, and whatever time it really was, it was time. One more thing before you start. Youve got yourself nerved up to the sticking point, and thats good, but keep your focus. If you start off by dropping the damn glass on the floor, you really will be fucked. Stay out, dog! she called shrilly, with no idea that the dog had retreated to the stand of woods beyond the head of the driveway some minutes before. She hesitated a moment longer, considering another prayer, and then decided she had done all the praying she intended to do. Now she would depend on her voices ... and on herself. She reached for the glass with her right hand, moving without her former tentative care. Part of herprobably the part which had so liked and admired Ruth Nearyunderstood that this final job was not about care and caution but about bringing down the hammer and bringing it down hard. Now I must be Samurai Lady, she thought, and smiled. She closed her fingers upon the glass she had worked so hard to get in the first place, looked at it curiously for a momentlooked at it as a gardener might look at some unexpected specimen she has found growing in among her beans or peasthen gripped it. She slitted her eyes almost completely shut to protect them from flying splinters, then brought the glass down hard on the shelf, in the manner of one who cracks the shell of a hardboiled egg. The sound the glass made was absurdly familiar, absurdly normal, a sound no different from that made by the hundreds of glasses which had either slipped through her fingers during the washingup or been knocked onto the floor by her elbow or straying hand in all the years since she had graduated from her plastic Dandy Duck cup at the age of five. Same old kersmash; there was no special resonance to indicate the fact that she had just begun the unique job of risking her life in order to save it. She did feel a single random chunk of glass strike low on her forehead, just above the eyebrow, but that was the only one to hit her face. Another piecea big one, by the soundspun off the shelf and shattered on the floor. Jessies lips were pressed together in a tight white line, anticipating what would surely be the major source of pain, at least to begin with her fingers. They had been gripping the glass tightly when it shattered. But there was no pain, only a sense of faint pressure and even fainter heat. Compared with the cramps which had been ripping at her for the last couple of hours, it was nothing. The glass must have broken lucky, and why not? Isnt it time I had a little luck? Then she raised her hand and saw the glass hadnt broken lucky after all. Dark red blisters of blood were welling up at the tips of her thumb and three of her four fingers; only her pinky had escaped being cut. Shards of glass stuck out of her thumb, second, and third fingers like weird quills. The creeping numbness in her extremitiesand perhaps the keen edges on the pieces of glass which had cut herhad kept her from feeling the lacerations much, but they were there. As she watched, fat drops of blood began to patter down on the pink quilted surface of the mattress, staining it a far darker color. Those narrow darts of glass, sticking out of her middle two fingers like pins from a pincushion, made her feel like throwing up even though there was nothing at all in her stomach. Some Samurai Lady you turned out to be, one of the UFO voices sneered. But theyre my fingers! she cried at it. Dont you see? Theyre my fingers! She felt panic flutter, forced it back, and returned her attention to the chunk of waterglass she was still holding. It was a curved upper section, probably a quarter of the whole, and on one side it had broken in two smooth arcs. They came to an almost perfect point which glittered cruelly in the afternoon sun. A lucky break, that ... maybe. If she could keep her courage up. To her this curving prong of glass looked like a fantastic fairytale weapona tiny scimitar, something to be carried by a warlike pixie on its way to do battle beneath a toadstool. Your mind is wandering, dear, Punkin said. Can you afford that? The answer, of course, was no. Jessie laid the quartersection of drinking glass back down on the shelf, placing it carefully so she would be able to reach it without serious contortions. It lay on its smooth curved belly, the scimitarshaped prong jutting out. A tiny spark of reflected sun glittered hotly at the tip. She thought it might do very well for the next job, if she was careful not to bear down too hard. If she did that, she would probably push the glass off the shelf or snap off the accidental bladeshape. Just be careful, she said. You wont need to bear down if youre careful, Jessie. Just pretend But the rest of that thought (youre carving roast beef) didnt seem very productive, so she blocked it before more than its leading edge could get through. She lifted her right arm, extending it until the handcuff chain was almost taut and her wrist hovered above the gleaming hook of glass. She wanted very much to sweep away the rest of the glass littering the shelfshe sensed it waiting for her up there like a minefieldbut she didnt dare. Not after her experience with the jar of Nivea cream. If she accidentally knocked the bladeshaped piece of glass off the shelf, or broke it, she would need to sift through the leftovers for an acceptable substitute. Such precautions seemed almost surreal to her, but she did not for a single moment try to tell herself they were unnecessary. If she was going to get out of this, she was going to have to bleed a lot more than she was bleeding now. Do it just the way you saw it, Jessie, thats all . . . and dont chicken out. No chickening out, Jessie agreed in her harsh dustinthecracks voice. She spread her hand and then shook her wrist, hoping to get rid of the glass poking out of her fingers. She mostly succeeded; only the sliver in her thumb, buried deeply in the tender flesh beneath the nail, refused to go. She decided to leave it and get on with the rest of her business. What youre planning to do is absolutely crazy, a nervous voice told her. No UFO here; this was a voice Jessie knew well. It was the voice of her mother. Not that Im surprised, you understand; its a typical Jessie Mahout overreaction, and if Ive seen it once, Ive seen it a thousand times. Think about it, Jessiewhy cut yourself up and maybe bleed to death? Someone will come and rescue you; anything else is simply unthinkable. Dying in ones summer house? Dying in handcuffs? Utterly ridiculous, take my word for it. So rise above your usual whiny nature, Jessie just this one time. Dont cut yourself on that glass. Dont you do it! That was her mother, all right; the mimicry was so good it was eerie. She wanted you to believe you were hearing love and common sense masquerading as anger, and while the woman had not been entirely incapable of love, Jessie thought the real Sally Mahout was the woman who had one day marched into Jessies room and thrown a pair of high heels at her without a single word of explanation, either then or later. Besides, everything that voice had said was a lie. A scared lie. No, she said, I wont take your word for it. No ones coming... except maybe the guy from last night. No chickening out. With that, Jessie lowered her right wrist toward the gleaming blade of glass. 31 It was important that she see what she was doing, because she felt almost nothing at first; she could have cut her wrist to bleeding ribbons and felt little save those distant sensations of pressure and warmth. She was greatly relieved to find that seeing wasnt going to be a problem; she had smashed the glass at a good place on the shelf (A break at last! part of her mind rejoiced sarcastically), and her view was almost completely unobstructed. Hand tilted back, Jessie sank her inner wristthat part which bears the lines palmreaders call the Bracelets of Fortuneonto the broken curve of glass. She watched, fascinated, as the jutting point first dimpled her skin, then popped it. She kept pressing and her wrist kept eating the glass. The dimple filled up with blood and disappeared. Jessies first reaction was disappointment. The glass hook hadnt created the gusher she had hoped for (and half feared). Then the sharp edge severed the blue bundles of vein lying closest to the surface of her skin, and the blood began flowing out faster. It did not come in the pulsing jets she had expected but in a fast, steady flow, like water from a tap which has been spun almost all the way open. Then something bigger parted and the stream became a freshet.

It coursed across the shelf and spilled down her forearm. Too late to back out now; she was for it. One way or the other, she was for it. Pull back, at least! the mothervoice screamed. Dont make it any worseyouve done enough! Try it now! A tempting idea, but Jessie thought that what she had done so far was a long way from being enough. She didnt know the word degloving, a technical term used most commonly by doctors in connection with burnvictims, but now that she had begun this grisly operation, she understood she could not depend on blood alone to slide her free. Blood might not be enough. She slowly and carefully twisted her wrist, splitting the tight skin of her lower hand. Now she felt a weird tingling across her palm, as if she had cut into some small but vital sheath of nerves which had been halfdead to begin with. The third and fourth fingers of her right hand swooned forward as if they had been killed. The first two, along with the thumb, began to jitter wildly back and forth. As mercifully numb as her flesh was, Jessie still found something inexpressibly horrible in these signs of the damage she was doing herself. Those two crumpled fingers, so like little corpses, were somehow worse than all the blood she had spilled thus far. Then both this horror and the growing feeling of heat and pressure in her wounded hand were overwhelmed as a fresh cramp moved into her side like a stormfront. It dug at her mercilessly, trying to tear her out of her twisted position, and Jessie fought back with terrified fury. She couldnt move now. She would almost certainly knock her improvised cutting tool to the floor if she did. No you dont, she muttered through her clenched teeth. No, you bastardget out of Dodge. She held herself rigidly in position, trying to keep from bearing down on the fragile glass blade any harder than she already was, not wanting to snap it off and have to try finishing with some less apt tool. But if the cramp spread from her side to her right arm, as it was apparently trying to No, she moaned. Go away, do you hear? Just go the fuck away! She waited, knowing she could not afford to wait, also knowing she could do nothing else; she waited and listened to the sound of her lifes blood pattering to the floor from the bottom of the headboard. She watched more blood run off the shelf in little streamlets. Tiny sparkles of glass gleamed in some of these. She had begun to feel like a victim in a slasher movie. You cant wait any longer, Jessie! Ruth rapped at her. Youre all out of time! What Im really out of is luck, and I never had that goddam much to start with, she told Ruth. At that moment she either felt the cramp loosen a little or was able to kid herself that she did. Jessie revolved her hand inside the cuff, screaming with pain as the cramp pounced once more, sinking its hot claws into her midsection, trying to set it on fire again. She kept moving just the same, however, and now it was the back of her wrist that she impaled. The soft inner part was turned up and Jessie watched, fascinated, as the deep gash across her Bracelets of Fortune opened its blackred mouth wide and appeared to laugh at her. She drove the glass as deeply into the back of her hand as she dared, still fighting the cramp in her midriff and lower chest, then yanked her hand back toward her, spraying a fine mist of backspatter across her forehead, her cheeks, and the bridge of her nose. The broken chunk of glass with which she had performed this rudimentary surgery went spinning to the floor, and there the pixieblade shattered. Jessie spared it not a single thought; its job was done. Meantime, there was one more step to be taken, one more thing to see whether the cuff would maintain its jealous hold on her, or if flesh and blood might not at last conspire to make it let go. The cramp in her side gave a final deep pinch and then began to loosen. Jessie noted its departure no more than she had noted the loss of her primitive glass scalpel. She could feel the force of her concentrationher mind seemed to burn with it, like a torch coated with pine resinand all of it was fixed on her right hand. She held it up, examining it, in the golden sunlight of late afternoon. The fingers were thickly streaked with gore. Her forearm appeared to have been daubed with slobbers of bright red latex paint. The handcuff was little more than a curved shape rising out of the general flood, and Jessie knew it was as good as it was going to be. She cocked her arm and then pulled downward, as she had twice before. The handcuff slid ... slid some more ... and then bound up again. It had been stopped once more by the obdurate outcrop of bone below the thumb. No! she shrieked, and yanked harder. I refuse to die this way! Do you hear me? I REFUSE TO DIE THIS WAY! The handcuff bit in deep, and for a moment Jessie was sickeningly sure that it would not move so much as another millimeter, that the next time it moved would be when some cigarchomping cop unlocked it and took it off her dead body. She could not move it, no power on earth could move it, and neither the princes of heaven nor the potentates of hell would move it. Then there was a sensation in the back of her wrist that felt like heatlightning, and the handcuff jerked upward a little. It stopped, then began to move again. That hot, electrical tingle began to spread as it did, quickly becoming a dark burning which first spread all the way around her hand like a bracelet and then bit in like a battalion of hungry red ants. The cuff was moving because the skin it rested on was moving, sliding the way a heavy object on a rug will slide if someone pulls the rug. The ragged, circular cut she had inscribed about her wrist widened, pulling wet strands of tendon across the gap and creating a red bracelet. The skin on the back of her hand began to wrinkle and bunch ahead of the cuff, and now what she thought of was how the coverlet had looked when she had pushed it down to the bottom of the bed with her pedaling feet. Im peeling my hand, she thought. Oh dear Jesus, Im peeling it like an orange. Let go! she screamed at the handcuff, suddenly infuriated beyond all reason. In that moment it became a live thing to her, some hateful clinging creature with many teeth, like a lamprey eel or a rabid weasel. Oh, wont you ever let me go? The cuff had slid much further than it had on her previous attempts to slip out of it, but still it clung, stubbornly refusing to give her that last quarter (or perhaps it was now only an eighth) of an inch. The bleary, bloodgreased circle of steel now lay across a hand partially stripped of skin, baring a shiny meshwork of tendons the color of fresh plums. The back of her hand looked like a turkey drumstick from which the crispy outer skin has been removed. The steady downward pressure she was exerting had yanked the wound across her inner wrist even wider, creating a bloodcaked chasm. Jessie wondered if she might not yank her hand right off in this final effort to free herself. And now the handcuff, which had still been moving a tittleat least she thought it had beenstopped again. And this time it stopped cold. Of course it has, Jessie! Punkin screamed. Look at it! Its all crooked! If you could straighten it out again Jessie pistoned her arm forward, snapping the handcuff chain back onto her wrist. Then, before her arm could even think of cramping, she pulled downward again, using every bit of strength she had left. A red mist of pain engulfed her hand as the cuff tore across the raw meat between her wrist and the middle of her hand. All the skin which had been pulled away was puddled loosely here, on a diagonal running from the base of her pinky to the base of her thumb. For a moment this loose mass of skin held the cuff back, and then it rolled under the steel with a tiny squelch. That left only that last outcrop of bone, but that was enough to stop her progress. Jessie pulled harder. Nothing happened. Thats it, she thought. Everybody out of the pool. Then, just as she was about to relax her aching arm, the cuff slid over the small protrusion which had held it for so long, flew off the ends of her fingers, and clacked against the bedpost. It all happened so fast that Jessie was at first unable to grasp that it had happened. Her hand no longer looked like the sort of equipment normally issued to human beings, but it was her hand, and it was free. Free. Jessie looked from the empty bloodsmeared cuff to her mangled hand, her face slowly filling with comprehension. Looks like a bird that flew into a factory machine and then got spit out the other end, she thought, but that cuffs not on it anymore. Its really not. Cant believe it, she croaked. Cant. Fucking. Believe it. Never mind, Jessie. You have to hurry. She started like someone being shaken awake from a doze. Hurry? Yes indeed. She didnt know how much blood she had losta pint seemed a reasonable enough guess, judging from the sodden mattress and the streamlets running and dripping down the crossboardsbut she knew that if she lost much more she was going to pass out, and the trip from unconsciousness to death would be a short onejust a quick ferryride across a narrow river. Not going to happen, she thought. It was the toughasnails voice again, but this time it belonged to no one but her, and that made Jessie happy. I didnt go through all this nasty shit just to die passed out on the floor. I havent seen the paperwork, but Im pretty sure that isnt in my contract. All right, but your legs It was a reminder she didnt really need. She hadnt been on her pins in over twentyfour hours, and despite her efforts to keep them waked up, it could be a bad mistake to depend on them too much, at least to begin with. They might cramp up; they might try to buckle under her; they might do both. But forewarned was forearmed ... or so they said. Of course she had gotten a lot of advice like that in the course of her lifetime (advice most often ascribed to that mysterious, ubiquitous group known as they), and nothing she had ever seen on Firing Line or read in the Readers Digest had prepared her for what she had just done. Still, she would be as careful as she could. Jessie had an idea she might not have a lot of leeway in that regard, however. She rolled left, her right arm trailing after her like the tail of a kite or the rusty exhaustpipe of an old car. The only part of it that felt completely alive was the back of her hand, where the exposed packets of tendon burned and raved. The pain was bad, and that sense that her right arm wanted a divorce from the rest of her body was worse, but these things were all but lost in an uprush of mingled hope and triumph. She felt an almost divine joy in her ability to roll across the bed without being stopped by the cuff around her wrist. Another cramp struck her, slamming into her lower belly like the business end of a Louisville Slugger, but she ignored it. Had she called that feeling joy? Oh, that was much too mild a word. It was ecstasy. Full, flatout ecsta Jessie! The edge of the bed! Jesus, stop! It didnt look like the edge of the bed; it looked like the edge of the world on one of those oldfashioned maps from before the time of Columbus. Beyond here there be monsters and sarpents, she thought. Not to mention a fractured left wrist. Stop, Jess! But her body ignored the command; it kept on rolling, cramps and all, and Jessie had just enough time to rotate her left hand inside the left cuff before she thumped onto her belly at the edge of the bed, then went off it entirely. Her toes hit the floor with a jarring smash, but her scream was not entirely one of pain. Her feet were, after all, on the floor again. They were actually on the floor. She finished her clumsy escape from the bed with her left arm stuck stiffly off in the direction of the post to which it was still tethered and her right arm temporarily trapped between her chest and the side of the bed. She could feel warm blood pumping onto her skin and running down her breasts. Jessie got her face over to one side, then had to wait in this new, agonizing position as a cramp of paralyzing, glassy intensity gripped her back from the nape of her neck to the cleft of her buttocks. The sheet against which her breasts and lacerated hand were pressed was growing soggy with blood. I have to get up, she thought. I have to get up right away, or Ill bleed to death right here. The cramp in her back passed and at last she found herself able to plant her feet solidly beneath her. Her legs felt nowhere near as weak and swoony as she had been afraid they might be; in fact, they felt absolutely eager to be about their appointed business. Jessie pushed upward. The shackle clipped around the lefthand bedpost slid up as far as it could before encountering the nexthighest crossboard, and Jessie suddenly found herself in a position she had strongly come to suspect she would never attain again standing on her own two feet, beside the bed which had been her prison... almost her coffin. A feeling of enormous gratitude tried to wash over her, and she pushed against it as firmly as she had pushed against the panic. There might be time for gratitude later, but the things to remember right now were that she still wasnt free of the goddamned bed, and her time to get free was severely limited. It was true that she hadnt felt the slightest sensation of faintness or lightheadedness yet, but she had an idea that meant nothing. When the collapse came, it would probably come all at once; shoot out the lights. Still, had standing uponty that, and nothing moreever been so great? So inexpressibly wonderful? Nope, Jessie croaked. Dont think so. Holding her right arm across her chest and keeping the wound in her inner wrist pressed tightly against the upper slope of her left breast, Jessie made a halfturn, placing her bottom against the wall. She was now standing next to the left side of the bed, in a position that looked almost like a soldiers parade rest. She took a long, deep breath, then asked her right arm and poor stripped right hand to go back to work. The arm rose creakily, like the arm of an old and badly caredfor mechanical toy, and her hand settled on the bedshelf. Her third and fourth fingers still refused to move at her command, but she was able to grip the shelf between her thumb and first two fingers well enough to tip it off its brackets. It landed on the mattress where she had lain for so many hours, the mattress where her outline still lay, a sunken, sweaty shape pressed into the pink quilting, its upper half partially traced in blood. Looking at that shape made Jessie feel sick and angry and afraid. Looking at it made her feel crazy. She shifted her eyes from the mattress with the shelf now lying on it to her trembling right hand. She raised it to her mouth and used her teeth to grip the sliver of glass poking out from beneath the thumbnail. The glass slipped, then slid between an upper canine and incisor, slicing deeply into the tender pink meat of her gum. There was a quick, penetrating sting and Jessie felt blood spew into her mouth, its taste sweetsalty, its texture as thick as the cherry coughsyrup shed had to swallow when she had the flu as a child. She paid no attention to this new cutshed made her peace with much worse in the last few minutesbut only reset her grip and drew the sliver smoothly free of her thumb. When it was out, she spat it onto the bed along with a mouthful of warm blood. Okay, she murmured, and began to wriggle her body in between the wall and the headboard, panting harshly as she did so. The bed moved out from the wall more easily than she could have hoped for, but one thing shed never questioned was that it would move, if she ever managed to get sufficient leverage. Now she had it, and began to herd the hateful bed across the waxed floor. Its foot slid off to the right as she went because she was only able to push on the left side, but Jessie had taken this into account and was comfortable with it. Had, in fact, made it a part of her rudimentary plan. When your luck changes, she thought, it changes all the way. You may have cut your upper gum all to shit, Jess, but you havent stepped on a single piece of broken glass. So just keep moving this bed, sweetheart, and keep counting your bl Her foot thumped against something. She looked down and saw she had kicked Geralds plump right shoulder. Blood pattered down on his chest and face. A drop fell in one staring blue eye. She felt no pity for him; she felt no hate for him; she felt no love for him. She felt a kind of horror and disgust for herself, that all the feelings with which she had occupied herself over the yearsthose socalled civilized feelings that were the meat of every soapopera, talkshow, and radio phonein programshould prove so shallow compared with the survival instinct, which had turned out (in her case, at least), to be as overbearing and brutally insistent as a bulldozer blade. But that was the case, and she had an idea that if Arsenio or Oprah ever found themselves in this situation, they would do most of the things she had done. Out of my way, Gerald, she said, and kicked him (denying the enormous satisfaction it gave her even as it welled up inside). Gerald refused to move. It was as if the chemical changes which were part of his decay had bonded him to the floor. The flies rose in a buzzing, disturbed cloud just above his distended midsection. That was all. Fuck it, then, Jessie said. She began to push the bed again. She managed to step over Gerald with her right foot, but her left came down squarely on his belly. The pressure created a ghastly buzzing sound in his throat and forced a brief but filthy breath of gas from his gaping mouth. Excuse yourself, Gerald, she muttered, and then left him behind without another look. It was the bureau she was looking at now, the bureau with the keys resting on top of it. As soon as she had left Gerald behind, the blanket of disturbed flies resettled and resumed their days work. There was, after all, so much to do and so little time in which to do it. 32 Her biggest fear had been that the foot of the bed would try to hang up either in the bathroom door or the far corner of the room, making it necessary for her to back and fill like a woman trying to shoehorn a big car into a small parking space. As it turned out, the rightwardtending arc the bed described as she moved it slowly across the room was almost perfect. She only had to make a single midcourse correction, pulling her end of the bed a little farther to the left so she could be sure the other end would clear the bureau. It was while she was doing thispulling with her head down and her butt out and both arms wrapped tightly around the bedpostthat she suffered her first bout of lightheadedness ... only as she lay with her weight against the post, looking like a woman who is so drunk and tired that she can only stand up by pretending to dance cheektocheek with her boyfriend, she thought that darkheadedness would probably be a better way to describe it. The dominant feeling was one of lossnot just of thought and will but of sensory input as well. For one confused moment she was convinced that time had whiplashed, flinging her to a place that was neither Dark Score nor Kashwakamak but some other place entirely, a place that was on the ocean rather than any inland lake. The smell was no longer oysters and pennies but seasalt. It was the day of the eclipse again, that was the only thing that was the same. She had run into the blackberry tangles to get away from some other man, some other Daddy who wanted to do a lot more than shoot his squirt on the back of her panties. And now he was at the bottom of the well. Dj vu poured over her like strange water. Oh Jesus, what is this? she thought, but there was no answer, only that puzzling image again, one she hadnt thought of since she had returned to the sheetdivided bedroom to change her clothes on the day of the eclipse a skinny woman in a housedress, her dark hair put up in a bun, a puddle of white fabric beside her. Whoa, Jessie thought, clutching at the bedpost with her tattered right hand and trying desperately to keep her knees from buckling. Hold on, Jessiejust hold on. Never mind the woman, never mind the smells, never mind the darkness. Hold on and the darkness will pass. She did, and it did. The image of the skinny woman kneeling beside her slip and looking at the splintered hole in the old boards went first, and then the darkness began to fade. The bedroom brightened again, gradually taking on its former five oclock autumn hue. She saw motes of dust dancing in the light slanting in through the lakeside windows, saw her own shadowlegs stretching across the floor. They broke at the knees so that the rest of her shadow could climb the wall. The darkness pulled back, but it left a high sweet buzzing in her ears. When she looked down at her feet she saw they too were coated with blood. She was walking in it, leaving tracks in it. Youre running out of time, Jessie. She knew. Jessie lowered her chest to the headboard again. Getting the bed started was harder this time, but she finally managed it. Two minutes later she was standing next to the bureau she had stared at so long and hopelessly from the other side of the room. A tiny dry smile quivered the corners of her lips. Im like a woman whos spent her whole life dreaming of the black sands of Kona and cant believe it when shes finally standing on them, she thought. It seems like just another dream, only maybe a little more real than most, because in this one your nose itches. Her nose didnt itch, but she was looking down at the crumpled snake of Geralds tie and the knot was still in it. That last was the sort of detail even the most realistic dreams rarely supplied. Beside the red tie were two small, roundbarrelled keys, clearly identical. The handcuff keys. Jessie raised her right hand and looked at it critically. The third and fourth fingers still hung limply. She wondered briefly just how much nervedamage she had done to her hand, then dismissed the thought. It might matter later onas some of the other things she had dismissed for the duration of this gruelling fourthquarter drive downfield might matter later onbut for the time being, nervedamage to her right hand was no more important to her than the price of hogbelly futures in Omaha. The important thing was that the thumb and first two fingers on that hand were still taking messages. They shook a little, as if expressing shock at the sudden loss of their lifelong neighbors, but they still responded. Jessie bent her head and spoke to them. You have to stop doing that. Later on you can shake like mad, if you want, but right now you have to help me. You have to. Yes. Because the thought of dropping the keys or knocking them off the bureau after getting this far ... that was unthinkable. She stared sternly at her fingers. They didnt stop trembling, not entirely, but as she watched, their jitters quieted to a barely visible thrumming. Okay, she said softly. I dont know if thats good enough or not, but were going to find out. At least the keys were the same, which gave her two chances. She found nothing at all strange in the fact that Gerald had brought them both; he was nothing if not methodical. Planning for contingencies, he often said, was the difference between being good and being great. The only contingencies he hadnt planned on this time were the heart attack and the kick which had provoked it. The result, of course, was that he was neither good nor great, only dead. The doggys dinner, Jessie muttered, once again having no idea at all she was speaking aloud. Gerald used to be a winner, but now hes just the doggys dinner. Right, Ruth? Right, Punkin? She tweezed one of the small steel keys between the thumb and forefinger of her sizzling right hand (as she touched the metal, that pervasive feeling that all this was a dream recurred), picked it up, looked at it, then looked at the cuff which enclosed her left wrist. The lock was a small circle pressed into its side; to Jessie it looked like the sort of doorbell a rich person might have at the tradesmans entrance of the manor house. To open the lock, you simply stuck the hollow barrel of the key into the circle until you heard it click into place, then turned it. She lowered the key toward the lock, but before she could slip the barrel in, another wave of that peculiar darkheadedness rolled through her mind. She swayed on her feet and found herself once again thinking of Karl Wallenda. Her hand began to shake again. Stop that! she cried fiercely, and jammed the key desperately at the lock. Stop th The key missed the circle, struck the hard steel beside it instead, and turned in her bloodslicked fingers. She held onto it a second longer, and then it squirted out of her graspwent greasy, one might have saidand fell to the floor. Now there was only the one key left, and if she lost that You wont, Punkin said. I swear you wont. Just go for it before you lose your courage. She flexed her right arm once, then raised the fingers toward her face. She looked at them closely. The shakes were abating again, not enough to suit her, but she couldnt wait. She was afraid she would black out if she did. She reached out with her faintly trembling hand, and came very close to pushing the remaining key over the edge of the bureau in her first effort to grip it. It was the numbnessthe goddam numbness that simply wouldnt leave her fingers. She took a deep breath, held it, made a fist in spite of the pain and the fresh flow of blood it provoked, then let the air out of her lungs in a long, whistling sigh. She felt a little better. This time she pressed her first finger to the small head of the key and dragged it toward the edge of the bureau instead of trying to pick it up immediately. She didnt stop until it was sticking out over the edge. If you drop it, Jessie! the Goodwife moaned. Oh, if you drop this one, too! Shut up, Goody, Jessie said, and pushed her thumb up against the bottom of the key, creating a pincers. Then, trying not to think at all about what was going to happen to her if this went wrong, she lifted the key and brought it to the cuff. There was a bad run of seconds when she was unable to align the shaking barrel of the key with the lock, and a worse one when the lock itself momentarily doubled... then quadrupled. Jessie squeezed her eyes shut, took another deep breath, then popped them open. Now she saw only one lock again, and she jabbed the key into it before her eyes could do any more tricks. Okay, she breathed. Lets see. She applied clockwise pressure. Nothing happened. Panic tried to jump up into her throat, and then she suddenly remembered the rusty old pickup truck Bill Dunn drove on his caretaking rounds, and the joke sticker on the back bumper LEFTY LOOSEY, RIGHTY TIGHTY, it said. Above the words was a drawing of a large screw. Lefty loosey, Jessie muttered, and tried turning the key counterclockwise. For one moment she did not understand that the cuff had popped open; she thought the loud click she heard was the sound of the key breaking off in the lock, and she shrieked, sending a spray of blood from her cut mouth to the top of the dresser. Some of it spattered Geralds tie, red on red. Then she saw the notched latchlock was standing open, and realized she had done itshe had actually done it. Jessie Burlingame pulled her left hand, a little puffy around the wrist but otherwise unharmed, free of the open cuff, which fell back against the headboard as its mate had done. Then, with an expression of deep, wondering awe, she raised both hands slowly up to her face. She looked from the left to the right and back to the left again. She was unmindful of the fact that the right was covered with blood it was not blood she was interested in, at least not yet. For the moment she only wanted to make absolutely sure she was really free. She looked back and forth between her hands for almost thirty seconds, her eyes moving like those of a woman watching a PingPong match. Then she drew in a deep breath, cocked her head back, and uttered another highpitched, drilling shriek. She felt a fresh wave of darkness, big and smooth and vicious, thunder through her, but she ignored it and went on shrieking. It seemed to her that she had no choice; it was either shriek or die. The brittle brokenglass edge of madness in that shriek was unmistakable, but it was still a scream of utter triumph and victory. Two hundred yards away, in the woods at the head of the driveway, the former Prince lifted its head from its muzzle and looked uneasily toward the house. She couldnt seem to take her eyes off her hands, couldnt seem to stop shrieking. She had never felt anything remotely like what she was feeling now, and some distant part of her thought If sex was even half this good, people would be doing it on every streetcornerthey just wouldnt be able to help themselves. Then she ran out of breath and swayed backward. She grabbed for the headboard, but a moment too late she lost her balance and spilled onto the bedroom floor. As she went down, Jessie realized that part of her had been expecting the handcuff chains to snub her before she fell. Pretty funny, when you thought about it. She struck the open wound on the inside of her wrist as she landed. Pain lit up her right arm like the lights on a Christmas tree and this time when she screamed it was all pain. She bit it off quickly when she felt herself drifting away from consciousness again. She opened her eyes and stared into her husbands torn face. Gerald looked back at her with an expression of endless, glazed surpriseThis wasnt supposed to happen to me, Im a lawyer with my name on the door. Then the fly which had been washing its front legs on his upper lip disappeared up one of his nostrils and Jessie turned her head so quickly she thumped it on the floorboards and saw stars. When she opened her eyes this time, she was looking up at the headboard, with its gaudy drips and runnels of blood. Had she been standing way up there only a few seconds ago? She was pretty sure she had been, but it was hard to believefrom here, the fucking bed looked approximately as tall as the Chrysler Building. Get moving, Jess! It was Punkin, once more yelling in that urgent, annoying voice of hers. For someone with such a sweet little face, Punkin could certainly be a bitch when she set her mind to it. Not a bitch, she said, letting her eyes slip closed. A small, dreamy smile touched the corners of her mouth. A squeaky wheel. Get moving, damn it! Cant. Need a little rest first. If you dont get. moving right away, you can rest forever! Now shag your fat ass! That got to her. Nothing fat about it, Miss Smartmouth, she muttered pettishly, and tried to struggle to her feet. It took only two efforts (the second thwarted by another of those paralyzing cramps across her diaphragm) to convince her that getting up was, at least for the time being, a bad idea. And doing so would actually create more problems than it would solve, because she needed to get into the bathroom, and the foot of the bed now lay across the doorway like a roadblock. Jessie went under the bed, moving with a gliding, swimming motion that was almost graceful, blowing a few errant dust bunnies out of her way as she went. They drifted off like small gray tumbleweeds. For some reason the dust bunnies made her think of the woman in her vision againthe woman kneeling in the blackberry tangles with her slip in a white pile beside her. She slid into the gloom of the bathroom and a new smell smote her nostrils the dark, mossy smell of water. Water dripping from the tub faucets; water dripping from the shower head; water dripping from the washbasin taps.

She could even smell the peculiar waitingtobemildew odor of a damp towel in the basket behind the door. Water, water, everywhere, and every drop to drink. Her throat shrank dryly inside her neck, seeming to cry out, and she became aware that she was actually touching watera small puddle from the leaky pipe under the sink, the one the plumber never seemed to get to no matter how many times he was asked. Gasping, Jessie pulled herself over to the puddle, dropped her head, and began to lick the linoleum. The taste of the water was indescribable, the silky feel of it on her lips and tongue beyond all dreams of sweet sensuousness. The only problem was that there wasnt enough. That enchantingly dank, enchantingly green smell was all around her, but the puddle below the sink was gone and her thirst wasnt slaked but only awake. That smell, the smell of shady springs and old hidden wellheads, did what even Punkins voice hadnt been able to do it got Jessie on her feet again. She used the edge of the sink to haul herself up. She caught just a glimpse of an eighthundredyearold woman looking out of the mirror at her, and then she twisted the basin tap marked C. Fresh wateratt the water in the worldcame gushing out. She tried to voice that triumphant shriek again, but this time managed nothing but a harsh susurrant whisper. She bent over the basin, her mouth opening and closing like the mouth of a fish, and lunged into that mossy wellhead perfume. It was also the bland mineral smell which had so haunted her over all the years since her father had molested her during the eclipse, but now it was all right; now it was not the smell of fear and shame but of life. Jessie inhaled it, then coughed it out joyously again as she shoved her open mouth into the water jetting from the tap. She drank until a powerful but painless cramp caused her to heave it all back up again. It came still cool from its short visit in her stomach and sprayed the mirror with pink droplets. Then she gasped in several breaths and tried again. The second time the water stayed down. 33 The water brought her back wonderfully, and when she at last turned off the tap and looked at herself in the mirror again, she felt like a reasonable facsimile of a human beingweak, hurting, and shaky on her feet... but alive and aware, just the same. She thought she would never again experience anything as deeply satisfying as those first few swallows of cold water from the gushing tap, and in all her previous experience, only her first orgasm came close to rivalling that moment. In both cases she had been totally commanded by the cells and tissues of her physical being for a few brief seconds, conscious thought (but not consciousness itself) wiped away, and the result had been ecstasy. Ill never forget it, she thought, knowing she had forgotten it already, just as she had forgotten the gorgeous honeyed sting of that first orgasm as soon as the nerves had stopped firing off. It was as if the body disdained memory... or refused the responsibility of it. Never mind all that, Jessieyou have to hurry! Cant you stop yapping at me? she responded. Her wounded wrist was no longer gushing, but it was still doing a hell of a lot more than trickling, and the bed she saw reflected in the bathroom mirror was a horror the mattress soaked with blood and the headboard streaked with it. She had read that people could lose a great deal of blood and keep on functioning, but when they started to tip over, everything went at once. And she had to be pushing the envelope. She opened the medicine cabinet, looked at the box of BandAids, and uttered a harsh caw of laughter. Her eye happened on the small box of Always maxipads sitting discreetly behind a clutter of perfumes and colognes and aftershaves. She knocked two or three of the bottles over dragging the box out, and the air filled with a gagging combination of scents. She stripped the paper cover from one of the pads, which she then wrapped around her wrist like a fat white bracelet. Poppies began to bloom on it almost at once. Who would have thought the lawyers wife had so much blood in her? she mused, and uttered another harsh caw of laughter. There was a tin wheel of Red Cross tape on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet. She took it, using her left hand. Her right now seemed capable of very little except bleeding and howling with pain. Yet she still felt a deep love for it, and why not? When shed needed it, when there had been absolutely nothing else, it had grasped the remaining key, put it in the lock, and turned it. No, she had nothing at all against Ms. Right. That was you, Jessie, Punkin said. I mean . . . were all you. You do know that, dont you? Yes. She knew that perfectly well. She pushed the cover off the adhesive tape and held the roll clumsily with her right hand while she used her left thumb to lift up the end of the tape. She returned the roll to her left hand, pressed the end of the tape to her makeshift bandage, and revolved the roll around her right wrist several times, binding the already damp sanitary pad as tightly against the slash on the inside of her wrist as she could. She tore the tape off the roll with her teeth, hesitated, and then added a white, overlapping armlet of adhesive tape just below her right elbow. Jessie had no idea how much good such a makeshift tourniquet could do, but she didnt think it could do any harm. She tore the tape a second time, and as she dropped the muchdiminished roll back onto the counter, she saw a green bottle of Excedrin standing on the middle shelf of the medicine cabinet. No childproof cap, eitherGod be thanked. She took it down with her left hand and used her teeth to pry off the white plastic top. The smell of the aspirin tablets was acrid, sharp, faintly vinegary. I dont think thats a good idea at all, Goodwife Burlingame said nervously. Aspirin thins the blood and slows clotting. That was probably true, but the exposed nerves on the back of her right hand were now shrieking like a firealarm, and if she didnt do something to damp them down a little, Jessie thought she would soon be rolling around on the floor and baying at the reflections on the ceiling. She shook two Excedrin into her mouth, hesitated, shook in two more. She turned on the tap again, swallowed them, then looked guiltily at the makeshift bandage on her wrist. The red was still sinking through the layers of paper; soon she would be able to take the pad off and wring blood out of it like hot red water. An awful image... and once she had it in her head, she could not seem to get rid of it. If you made that worseGoody began dolefully. Oh, give me a break, the Ruthvoice responded. It spoke briskly but not unkindly. If I die of bloodloss now, am I supposed to blame it on four aspirin after I damned near scalped my right hand in order to get off the bed in the first place? Thats surreal! Yes indeed. Everything seemed surreal now. Except that wasnt exactly the right word. The right word was... Hyperreal, she said in a low, musing voice. Yes, that was it. Definitely it. Jessie turned around so she was facing out the bathroom door again, then gasped in alarm. The part of her head which monitored equilibrium reported that she was still turning. For a moment she imagined dozens of Jessies, an overlapping chain of them, documenting the arc of her turn like frames of moviefilm. Her alarm deepened as she observed that the golden bars of light slanting in through the west window had taken on an actual texturethey looked like swatches of bright yellow snakeskin. The dust motes spinning through them had become sprays of diamond grit. She could hear the fast light beat of her heart, could smell the mixed aromas of blood and wellwater. It was like sniffing an ancient copper pipe. Im getting ready to pass out. No, Jess, youre not. You cant afford to pass out. That was probably true, but she was pretty sure it was going to happen, anyway. There was nothing she could do about it. Yes, there is. And you know what. She looked down at her skinned hand, then raised it. There would be no need to actually do anything except relax the muscles of her right arm. Gravity would take care of the rest. If the pain of her peeled hand striking the edge of the counter werent enough to drag her out of this terrible bright place she suddenly found herself in, nothing would be. She held the hand beside her bloodsmeared left breast for a long moment, trying to nerve herself up enough to do it. Finally she lowered it to her side again. She couldntsimply could not. It was one thing too much. One pain too much. Then get moving before you pass out. I cant do that, either, she responded. She felt more than tired; she felt as if she had just smoked a whole bong of absolutely primo Cambodian Red by herself. All she wanted to do was stand here and watch the motes of diamonddust spin their slow circles in the sunbeams coming in through the west window. And maybe get one more drink of that darkgreen, mossytasting water. Oh Jeez, she said in a faraway, frightened voice. Jeez, Louise. You have to get out of the bathroom, Jessieyou have to. Just worry about that, for now. I think you better crawl over the bed this time; Im not sure you can make it underneath again. But . . . but theres broken glass on the bed. What if I cut myself? That brought Ruth Neary out again, and she was raving. Youve already taken most of the skin off your right handdo you think a few more lacerations are going to make a difference? Jesus Christ, tootsie, what if you die in this bathroom with a cuntdiaper on your wrist and a big stupid grin on your face? Hows that for a whatif? Get moving, bitch! Two careful steps took her back to the bathroom doorway. Jessie only stood there for a moment, swaying and blinking her eyes against the sundazzle like someone who has spent the whole afternoon in a movietheater. The next step took her to the bed. When her thighs were touching the bloodstained mattress, she carefully put her left knee up, grasped one of the footposts to ensure her balance, and then got onto the bed. She was unprepared for the feelings of fear and loathing which washed over her. She could no more imagine ever sleeping in this bed again than she could imagine sleeping in her own coffin. Just kneeling on it made her feel like screaming. You dont need to have a deep, meaningful relationship with it, Jessiejust get across the fucking thing. Somehow she managed to do that, avoiding the shelf and the crumbles and jags of broken waterglass by crossing at the foot of the mattress. Each time her eyes caught sight of the handcuffs dangling from the posts at the head of the bed, one sprung open, the other a closed steel circle covered with bloodher blooda little sound of loathing and distress escaped her. The handcuffs didnt look like inanimate things to her. They looked alive. And still hungry. She reached the far side of the bed, gripped the footpost with her good left hand, turned herself around on her knees with all the care of a hospital convalescent, then lay on her belly and lowered her feet to the floor. She had a bad moment when she didnt think she had strength enough to stand up again; that she would just lie there until she passed out and slid off the bed. Then she pulled in a deep breath and used her left hand to shove. A moment later she was on her feet. The sway was worse nowshe looked like a sailor lurching into the Sunday morning segment of a weekend bingebut she was up, by God. Another wave of darkheadedness sailed across her mind like a pirate galleon with huge black sails. Or an eclipse. Blind, rocking back and forth on her feet, she thought Please, God, dont let me pass out. Please God, okay? Please. At last the light began to come back into the day. When Jessie thought things had gotten as bright as they were going to, she slowly crossed the room to the telephone table, holding her left arm a few inches out from her body to maintain her balance. She picked up the receiver, which seemed to weigh as much as a volume of the Oxford English Dictionary, and brought it to her ear. There was no sound at all; the line was smooth and dead. Somehow this didnt surprise her, but it raised a question had Gerald unplugged the phone from the wall, as he sometimes did when they were down here, or had her nightvisitor cut the wires outside someplace? It wasnt Gerald, she croaked. I would have seen him. Then she realized that wasnt necessarily soshe had headed for the bathroom as soon as they were in the house. He could have done it then. She bent down, grasped the flat white ribbon that went from the back of the phone to the connectorbox on the baseboard behind the chair, and pulled. She thought she felt a little give at first, and then nothing. Even that initial give might have been just her imagination; she knew perfectly well that her senses were no longer very trustworthy. The jack might just be bound up on the chair, but No, Goody said. It wont come because its still plugged inGerald never disconnected it at all. The reason the phone doesnt work is because that thing that was in here with you last night cut the wire. Dont listen to her; underneath that loud voice of hers, shes scared of her own shadow, Ruth said. The connectorplugs hung up on one of the chairs back legsI practically guarantee it. Besides, its easy enough to find out, isnt it? Of course it was. All she had to do was pull the chair out and take a look behind it. And if the plug was out, put it back in. What if you do all that and the phone still doesnt work? Goody asked. Then youll know something else, wont you? Ruth Stop ditheringyou need help, and you need it fast. It was true, but the thought of pulling out the chair filled her with weary gloom. She could probably do it the chair was big, but it still couldnt weigh a fifth of what the bed had weighed, and she had managed to move that all the way across the roombut the thought was heavy. And pulling the chair out would only be the beginning. Once it was moved, she would have to get down on her knees... crawl into the dim, dusty corner behind it to find the connectorbox... Jesus, tootsie! Ruth cried. She sounded alarmed. You dont have any choice! I thought that at long last we all agreed on at least one thing, that you need help, and you need it f Jessie suddenly slammed the door on Ruths voice, and slammed it hard. Instead of moving the chair, she bent over it, picked up the culotte skirt, and carefully pulled it up her legs. Drops of blood from the soaked bandage on her wrist splattered across the front of it at once, but she hardly saw them. She was busy ignoring the jangle of angry, perplexed voices, and wondering just who had let all these weird people into her head in the first place. It was like waking up one morning and discovering your home had become a boarding hotel overnight. All the voices were expressing horrified disbelief at what she was planning to do, but Jessie suddenly discovered she didnt give much of a shit. This was her life. Hers. She picked up the blouse and slipped her head into it. To her confused, shocked mind, the fact that yesterday had been warm enough for this casual sleeveless top seemed to conclusively prove the existence of God. She didnt think she would have been able to bear sliding her stripped right hand down a long sleeve. Never mind that, she thought, this is nuts, and I dont need any makebelieve voices to tell me so. Im thinking about driving out of hereabout trying, anywaywhen the only thing I have to do is move that chair and plug the phone back in. It must be the bloodlossits driven me temporarily insane. This is a nutty idea. Christ, that chair cant weigh fifty pounds ... Im almost home and dry! Yes, except it wasnt the chair, and it wasnt the idea of the Rescue Services guys finding her in the same room as the naked, chewed corpse of her husband. Jessie had a pretty good idea she would be preparing to leave in the Mercedes even if the phone were in perfect working order and she had already summoned the police, the ambulance, and the Deering High School Marching Band. Because the phone wasnt the important thingnot at all. The important thing was... well.... The important thing is that I have to get the fuck out of here right away, she thought, and suddenly she shuddered. Her bare arms broke out in gooseflesh. Because that thing is going to come back. Bullseye. The problem wasnt Gerald, or the chair, or what the Rescue Services guys might think when they got down here and saw the situation. It wasnt even the question of the telephone. The problem was the space cowboy; her old friend Dr. Doom. That was why she was putting on her clothes and splashing a little more of her blood around instead of making an effort to reestablish communications with the outside world. The stranger was someplace close by; of that she felt certain. It was only waiting for dark, and dark was close now. If she passed out while she was trying to push the chair away from the wall, or while she was crawling gaily around in the dust and the cobwebs behind it, she might still be here, all alone, when the thing with the suitcase of bones arrived. Worse, she might still be alive. Besides, her visitor had cut the line. She had no way of knowing this ... but her heart knew it just the same. If she went through all the rigamarole of moving the chair and plugging the tconnector back in, the phone would still be dead, just like the one in the kitchen and the one in the front hall. And whats the big deal, anyway? she told her voices. Im planning to drive out to the main road, thats all. Compared to performing impromptu surgery with a waterglass and pushing a double bed across the room while losing a pint of blood, itll be a breeze. The Mercedes is a good car, and its a straight shot up the driveway. Ill putter out to Route 117 at ten miles an hour, and if I feel too weak to drive all the way to Dakins Store once I make the highway, Ill just pull across the road, put on the fourway flashers, and lay on the horn when I see someone coming. No reason why that shouldnt work, with the road flat and open for a mile and a half in either direction. The big thing about the car is the locks. Once Im in it, therell be doors I can lock. It wont be able to get in. It, Ruth tried to sneer, but Jessie thought she sounded scaredyes, even her. Thats right, she returned. You were the one who always used to tell me I ought to put my head on hold more often and follow my heart, werent you? You bet you were. And do you know what my heart says now, Ruth? It says that the Mercedes is the only chance I have. And if you want to laugh at that, go right ahead... but my mind is made up. Ruth apparently did not want to laugh. Ruth had fallen silent. Gerald handed me the carkeys just before he got out of the car, so he could reach into the back seat and get his briefcase. He did do that, didnt he? Please God, let my memory of that be right. Jessie slipped her hand into the left pocket of her skirt and found only a couple of Kleenex. She reached down with her right hand, pressed it gingerly against the outside of that pocket, and let out a sigh of relief as she felt the familiar bulge of the carkey and the big round joke fob Gerald had given her for her last birthday. The words on the fob read YOU SEXY THING. Jessie decided she had never felt less sexy and more like a thing in her entire life, but that was okay; she could live with it. The key was in her pocket, that was the important thing. The key was her ticket out of this awful place. Her tennies stood side by side underneath the telephone table, but Jessie decided she was as dressed as she intended to get. She started slowly toward the hall door, moving in tiny little invalid steps. As she went, she reminded herself to try the phone in the hall before going outsideit couldnt hurt. She had barely rounded the head of the bed when the light began to slink out of the day again. It was as if the fat bright sunbeams slanting through the west window were connected to a dimmercircuit, and someone was turning down the rheostat. As they dimmed, the diamonddust revolving within them disappeared. Oh no, not now, she pleaded. Please, youve got to be kidding. But the light continued to fade, and Jessie suddenly realized she was swaying again, her upper body describing everwidening circles in the air. She groped for the bedpost and instead found herself clutching the bloody handcuff from which she had so recently escaped. July 20th, 1963, she thought incoherently. 539 P.M. Total eclipse. Can I get a witness? The mixed smell of sweat, semen, and her fathers cologne filled her nose. She wanted to gag on it, but she was suddenly too weak. She managed two more tottery steps, then fell forward onto the bloodstained mattress. Her eyes were open and they blinked occasionally, but otherwise she lay as limp and moveless as a woman who has been cast up, drowned, on some deserted beach. 34 Her first returning thought was that the darkness meant she was dead. Her second was that if she was dead, her right hand wouldnt feel as if it had first been napalmed and then flayed with razorblades. Her third was the dismayed realization that if it was dark and her eyes were openas they seemed to bethen the sun had gone down. That jolted her up from the inbetween place where she had been lying, not quite unconscious but deep in a postshock lassitude, in a hurry. At first she couldnt remember why the idea of sundown should be so frightening, and then (space corwboymonster of love) it all came back to her in a rush so strong it was like an electrical shock. The narrow, corpsewhite cheeks; the high forehead; the rapt eyes. The wind had come up strongly once more while she had been lying semiconscious on the bed, and the back door was banging again. For a moment the door and the wind were the only sounds, and then a long, wavering howl rose in the air. Jessie believed it was the most awful sound she had ever heard; the sound she imagined a victim of premature burial might make after being disinterred and dragged, alive but insane, from her coffin. The sound faded into the uneasy night (and it was night, no doubt about that), but a moment later it came again an inhuman falsetto, full of idiot terror. It rushed over her like a living thing, making her shudder helplessly on the bed and grope for her ears. She covered them, but could not shut out that terrible cry when it came a third time. Oh, dont, she moaned. She had never felt so cold, so cold, so cold. Oh, dont... dont. The howl funneled away into the gusty night and was not immediately renewed. Jessie had a moment to catch her breath and realize it was only a dog, after allprobably the dog, in fact, the one who had turned her husband into its own personal McDonalds DriveThru. Then the cry was renewed, and it was impossible to believe any creature from the natural world could make such a sound; surely it was a banshee, or a vampire writhing with a stake in its heart. As the howl rose toward its crystalline peak, Jessie suddenly understood why the animal was making that sound. It had come back, just as she had feared it would. The dog knew it, sensed it, somehow. She was shivering all over. Her eyes feverishly scanned the corner where she had seen her visitor standing last nightthe corner where it had left the pearl earring and the single footprint. It was far too dark to see either of these artifacts (always assuming they were there at all), but for a moment Jessie thought she saw the creature itself, and she felt a scream rise in her throat. She closed her eyes tight, opened them again, and saw nothing but the winddriven shadows of the trees outside the west window. Farther on in that direction, beyond the writhing shapes of the pines, she could see a fading band of gold on the line of the horizon. It might be seven oclock, but if I can still see the last of the sunset, its probably not even that late. Which means I was only out for an hour, an hour and a half, tops. Maybe its not too late to get out of here. Maybe This time the dog seemed actually to scream. The sound made Jessie feel like screaming back. She grasped one of the footposts because she had started to sway on her feet again, and suddenly realized she couldnt remember getting off the bed in the first place. That was how much the dog had freaked her out. Get control of yourself, girl. Take a deep breath and get control of yourself. She did take a deep breath, and the smell she drew in with the air was one she knew. It was like that flat mineral smell which had haunted her all these yearsthe smell that meant sex, water, and father to herbut not exactly like that. Some other odor or odors seemed mixed into this version of itold garlic... ancient onions... dirt... unwashed feet, maybe. The smell tumbled Jessie back down a well of years and filled her with the helpless, inarticulate terror children feel when they sense some faceless, nameless creaturesome It waiting patiently beneath the bed for them to stick out a foot... or perhaps dangle a hand... The wind gusted. The door banged. And somewhere closer by, a board creaked stealthily the way boards do when someone who is trying to be quiet treads lightly upon them. Its come back, her mind whispered. It was all the voices now; they had entwined in a braid. Thats what the dog smells, thats what you smell, and Jessie, thats what made the board creak. The thing that was here last night has come back for you. Oh God, please, no, she moaned. Oh God no. Oh God no. Oh dear God dont let that be true. She tried to move, but her feet were frozen to the floor and her left hand was nailed to the bedpost. Her fear had immobilized her as surely as oncoming headlights immobilize a deer or rabbit caught in the middle of the road. She would stand here, moaning under her breath and trying to pray, until it came to her, came for herthe space cowboy, the reaper of love, just some doortodoor salesman of the dead, his sample case filled with bones and fingerrings instead of Amway or Fuller brushes. The dogs ululating cry rose in the air, rose in her head, until she thought it must surely drive her mad. Im dreaming, she thought. Thats why I couldnt remember standing up; dreams are the minds version of Readers Digest Condensed Books, and you can never remember unimportant stufflike that when youre having one. I passed out, yesthat really happened, only instead of going down into a coma, I came up into natural sleep. I guess that means the bleeding must have stopped, because I dont think people who are bleeding to death have nightmares when theyre going down for the count. Im sleeping, thats all. Sleeping and having the granddaddy of all bad dreams. A fabulously comforting idea, and only one thing wrong with it it wasnt true. The dancing treeshadows on the wall by the bureau were real. So was that weird smell drifting through the house. She was awake, and she had to get out of here. I cant move! she wailed. Yes you can, Ruth told her grimly. You didnt get out of those fucking handcuffs just to die of fright, tootsie. Get moving, nowI dont need to tell you how to do it, do I? No, Jessie whispered, and slapped lightly at the bedpost with the back of her right hand. The result was an immediate and enormous blast of pain. The vise of panic which had been holding her shattered like glass, and when the dog voiced another of those freezing howls, Jessie barely heard ither hand was a lot closer, and it was howling a lot louder. And you know what to do next, tootsdont you? Yesthe time had come to make like a hockey player and get the puck out of here, to make like a library and book. The thought of Geralds rifle surfaced for a second, and then she dismissed it. She didnt have the slightest idea where the gun was, or even if it was here at all. Jessie walked slowly and carefully across the room on her trembling legs, once again holding out her left hand to steady her balance. The hallway beyond the bedroom door was a carousel of moving shadows with the door to the guest bedroom standing open on the right and the small spare room Gerald used as a study standing open on the left. Farther down on the left was the archway which gave on the kitchen and living room. On the right was the unlatched back door... the Mercedes ... and maybe freedom. Fifty steps, she thought. Cant be any more than that, and its probably less. So get going, okay? But at first she just couldnt. Bizarre as it would undoubtedly seem to someone who hadnt been through what she had been through during the last twentyeight hours or so, the bedroom represented a kind of dour safety to her. The hallway, however... anything might be lurking out there. Anything. Then something which sounded like a thrown stone thudded against the west side of the house, just outside the window. Jessie uttered her own small howl of terror before realizing it was just the branch of the hoary old blue spruce out there by the deck. Get hold of yourself, Punkin said sternly. Get hold of yourself and get out of here. She tottered gamely onward, left arm still out, counting steps under her breath as she went. She passed the guest bedroom at twelve. At fifteen she reached Geralds study, and as she did, she began to hear a low, toneless hissing sound, like steam escaping a very old radiator. At first Jessie did not associate the sound with the study; she thought she was making it herself. Then, as she was raising her right foot to make the sixteenth step, the sound intensified. This time it registered more clearly, and Jessie realized she couldnt be the one making it, because she was holding her breath. Slowly, very slowly, she turned her head toward the study, where her husband would never again work on legal briefs while he chainsmoked Marlboros and sang old Beach Boys hits under his breath. The house was groaning around her like an old ship plowing through a moderately heavy sea, creaking in its various joints as the wind shouldered against it with cold air. Now she could hear a clapping shutter as well as the banging door, but these sounds were somewhere else, in some other world where wives were not handcuffed and husbands did not refuse to listen and nightcreatures did not stalk. She could hear the muscles and tendons in her neck creaking like old bedsprings as she turned her head. Her eyes throbbed in their sockets like chunks of hot charcoal. I dont want to look! her mind screamed. I dont want to look, I dont want to see! But she was helpless not to look. It was as if strong invisible hands were turning her head while the wind gusted and the back door banged and the shutter clapped and the dog once more sent its desolate, bonechilling howl spiralling into the black October sky. Her head turned until she was looking into her dead husbands study, and yes, sure enough, there it was, a tall figure standing beside Geralds Eames chair and in front of the sliding glass door. Its narrow white face hung in the darkness like a stretched skull. The dark, squarish shadow of its souvenir case squatted between its feet. She drew in breath to scream with, but what came out was a sound like a teakettle with a broken whistle Huhhhaaahhhhhhh. Only that and nothing more. Somewhere, in that other world, hot urine was running down her legs; she had wet her pants for a second recordbreaking day. The wind gusted in that other world, making the house shiver on its bones. The blue spruce knocked its branch against the west wall again. Geralds study was a lagoon of dancing shadows, and it was once more very difficult to tell what she was seeing ... or if she was in fact seeing anything at all. The dog raised its keen, horrified cry again and Jessie thought Oh, youre seeing it, all right. Maybe not as well as the dog out there is smelling it, but you are seeing it.

As if to remove any lingering doubts she might have had on this score, her visitor poked its head forward in a kind of parody of inquisitiveness, giving Jessie a clear but mercifully brief look at it. The face was that of an alien being that has tried to mimic human features without much success. It was too narrow, for one thingnarrower than any face Jessie had ever seen in her life. The nose seemed to have no more thickness than a butterknife. The high forehead bulged like a grotesque garden bulb. The things eyes were simple black circles below the thin upsidedown Vs of its brows; its pudgy, livercolored lips seemed to be simultaneously pouting and melting. No, not melting, she thought with the bright narrow lucidity that sometimes lives, like the glowing filament in a lightbulb, within a sphere of complete terror. Not melting, smiling. Its trying to smile at me. Then it bent over to grasp its case, and its narrow, incoherent face was mercifully lost from view again. Jessie staggered back a step, tried to scream again, and could only produce another loose, glassy whisper. The wind moaning around the eaves was louder. Her visitor straightened up again, holding the case with one hand and unlatching it with the other. Jessie realized two things, not because she wanted to but because her minds ability to pick and choose what it would sense had been completely demolished. The first had to do with the smell she had noted earlier. It wasnt garlic or onions or sweat or dirt. It was rotting flesh. The second had to do with the creatures arms. Now that she was closer and could see better (she wished it werent so, but it was), they impressed her more forciblyfreakish, elongated things that seemed to waver in the winddriven shadows like tentacles. They presented the case to her as if for her approval, and now Jessie saw it was not a travelling salesmans case but a wicker box that looked like an oversized fishermans creel. Ive seen a box like that before, she thought. I dont know if it was on some old TV show or in real life, but I have. When I was just a little girl. It came out of a long black car with a door in the back. A soft and sinister UFO voice suddenly spoke up inside her. Once upon a time, Jessie, when President Kennedy was still alive and all little girls were Punkins and the plastic bodybag had yet to be inventedback in the Time of the Eclipse, let us sayboxes like this were common. They came in all sizes, from Mens Extra Large to SixMonth Miscarriage. Your friend keeps his souvenirs in an oldfashioned morticians bodybox, Jessie. As she realized this, she realized something else, as well. It was perfectly obvious, once you thought about it. The reason her visitor smelled so bad was because it was dead. The thing in Geralds study wasnt her father, but it was a walking corpse, just the same. No ... no, that cant be But it was. She had smelled exactly the same thing on Gerald, not three hours ago. Had smelled it in Gerald, simmering in his flesh like some exotic disease which can only be caught by the dead. Now her visitor was opening the box again and holding it out to her, and once again she saw the golden glitters and diamond flashes amid the heaps of bones. Once again she watched as the narrow dead mans hand reached in and began to stir the contents of the wicker bodyboxa box which had perhaps once held the corpses of infants or very small children. Once again she heard the tenebrous click and whisk of bones, a sound like dirtclogged castanets. Jessie stared, hypnotized and almost ecstatic with terror. Her sanity was giving way; she could feel it going, almost hear it, and there wasnt a thing on Gods green earth she could do about it. Yes there is! You can run! You have to run, and you have to do it now! It was Punkin, and she was shrieking... but she was also a long way off, lost in some deep stone gorge in Jessies head. There were lots of gorges in there, she was discovering, and lots of dark, twisty canyons and caves that had never seen the light of the sunplaces where the eclipse never ended, you might say. It was interesting. Interesting to find that a persons mind was really nothing but a graveyard built over a black hollow place with freakish reptiles like this crawling around the bottom. Interesting. Outside, the dog howled again, and Jessie finally found her voice. She howled with it, a doglike sound from which most of her sanity had been subtracted. She could imagine herself making sounds like that in some madhouse. Making them for the rest of her life. She found she could imagine that very easily. Jessie, no! Hold on! Hold onto your mind and run! Run away! Her visitor was grinning at her, its lips wrinkling away from its gums, once again revealing those glimmers of gold at the back of its mouth, glimmers that reminded her of Gerald. Gold teeth. It had gold teeth, and that meant it was It means its real, yes, but weve already established that, havent we? The only question left is what youre going to do now. Got any ideas, Jessie? If you do, you better trot them out, because time has gotten awfully short. The apparition stepped forward, still holding its case open, as if it expected her to admire the contents. It was wearing a necklace, she sawsome weird sort of necklace. The thick, unpleasant smell was growing stronger. So was that unmistakable feeling of malevolence. Jessie tried to take a compensatory step back for the one the visitor had taken toward her, and found that she couldnt move her feet. It was as if they had been glued to the floor. It means to kill you, toots, Ruth said, and Jessie understood this was true. Are you going to let it? There was no anger or sarcasm in Ruths voice now, only curiosity. After all thats happened to you, are you really going to let it? The dog howled. The hand stirred. The bones whispered. The diamonds and rubies Rashed their dim nightfire. Hardly aware of what she was doing, let alone why she was doing it, Jessie grasped her own rings, the ones on the third finger of her left hand, with the wildly trembling thumb and forefinger of her right. The pain across the back of that hand as she squeezed was dim and distant. She had worn the rings almost constantly across all the days and years of her marriage, and the last time shed taken them off, shed had to soap her finger. Not this time. This time they slid off easily. She held her bloody right hand out to the creature, who had now come all the way to the bookcase just inside the entrance to the study. The rings lay on her palm in a mystic figure eight below the makeshift sanitary napkin bandage. The creature stopped. The smile on its pudgy, misshapen mouth faltered into some new expression which might have been anger or only confusion. Here, Jessie said in a harsh, choked growl. Here, take them. Take them and leave me alone. Before the creature could move, she threw the rings at the open case as she had once thrown coins at the EXACT CHANGE baskets on the New Hampshire Turnpike. There was less than five feet between them now, the mouth of the case was large, and both rings went in. She distinctly heard the double click as her wedding and engagement bands fell against the bones of strangers. The things lips wrinkled back from its teeth again, and it once more began to utter that sibilant, creamy hiss. It took another step forward, and somethingsomething which had been lying stunned and unbelieving on the floor of her mindawoke. No! she screamed. She turned and went lurching up the hallway while the wind gusted and the door banged and the shutter clapped and the dog howled and it was right behind her, it was, she could hear that hissing sound, and at any moment it would reach out for her, a narrow white hand floating at the end of a fantastic arm as long as a tentacle, she would feel those rotting white fingers close on her throat Then she was at the back door, she was opening it, she was spilling out onto the stoop and tripping over her own right foot; she was falling and somehow reminding herself even as she went down to turn her body so she would land on her left side. She did, but still hit hard enough to see stars. She rolled over onto her back, lifted her head, and stared at the door, expecting to see the narrow white face of the space cowboy loom behind the screen. It didnt, and she could no longer hear the hissing sound, either. Not that those things meant much; it could hurtle into view at any second, seize her, and tear her throat out. Jessie struggled to her feet, managed one step, and then her legs, trembling with a combination of shock and bloodloss, betrayed her and spilled her back to the planks next to the wirecovered compartment which held the garbage. She moaned and looked up at the sky, where clouds filigreed by a moon threequarters full were racing from west to east at lunatic speed. Shadows rolled across her face like fabulous tattoos. Then the dog howled again, sounding much closer now that she was outside, and that provided the tiny bit of extra incentive she needed. She reached up to the garbage compartments low sloped top with her left hand, felt around for the handle, and used it to haul herself to her feet. Once she was up, she held the handle tightly until the world stopped swaying. Then she let go and walked slowly toward the Mercedes, now holding out both arms for balance. How like a skull the house looks in the moonlight! she marvelled following her first wideeyed, frantic look back. How very like a skull! The door is its mouth, the windows are its eyes, the shadows of the trees are its hair ... Then another thought occurred, and it must have been amusing, because she screamed laughter into the windy night. And the braindont forget the brain. Geralds the brain, of course. The houses dead and rotting brain. She laughed again as she reached the car, louder than ever, and the dog howled in answer. My dog has fleas, they bite his knees, she thought. Her own knees buckled and she grabbed the doorhandle to keep from falling down in the driveway, and she never stopped laughing as she did it. Exactly why she was laughing was beyond her. She might understand if the parts of her mind which had shut down in selfdefense ever woke up again, but that wasnt going to happen until she got out of here. If she ever did. I imagine Ill need a transfusion, too, eventually, she said, and that caused another outburst of laughter. She reached clumsily across to her right pocket with her left hand, still laughing. She was feeling around for the key when she realized the smell was back, and that the creature with the wicker case was standing right behind her. Jessie turned her head, laughter still in her throat and a grin still twitching her lips, and for a moment she did see those narrow cheeks and rapt, bottomless eyes. But she only saw them because of (the eclipse) how afraid she was, not because there was really anything there; the back stoop was still deserted, the screen door a tall rectangle of darkness. But you better hurry, Goodwife Burlingame said. Yes, you better make like a hockey player while you still can, dont you think? Going to make like an amoeba and split, Jessie agreed, and laughed some more as she pulled the key out of her pocket. It almost slipped through her fingers, but she caught it by the oversized plastic fob. You sexy thing, Jessie said, and laughed hilariously as the door banged and the dead cowboy specter of love came charging out of the house in a dirty white cloud of bonedust, but when she turned (almost dropping the key again in spite of the oversized fob), there was nothing there. It was only the wind which had banged the dooronly that and nothing more. She opened the drivers door, slid behind the wheel of the Mercedes, and managed to pull her trembling legs in after her. She slammed the door and, as she pushed down the masterlock which locked all the other doors (plus the trunk, of course; there was really nothing in the world quite like German efficiency), an inexpressible sense of relief washed over her. Relief and something else. That something else felt like sanity, and she thought she had never felt anything in her life which could compare with its sweet and perfect return... except for that first drink of water from the tap, of course. Jessie had an idea that was going to end up being the alltime champeen. How close was I to going mad in there? How close, really? That might not be a thing you ever want to know for sure, toots, Ruth Neary returned gravely. No, maybe not. Jessie stuck the key in the ignition and turned it. Nothing happened. The last of the laughter dried up, but she didnt panic; she still felt sane and relatively whole. Think, Jessie. She did, and the answer came almost at once. The Mercedes was getting along in years (she wasnt sure they ever really got anything so vulgar as old), and the transmission had started doing some annoying little tricks lately, German efficiency or no German efficiency. One of them was a failure to start sometimes unless the driver shoved up on the shiftlever poking out of the console between the bucket seats, and shoved up hard. Turning the ignition key while pushing up on the transmission lever was an operation which would take both hands, and her right was already throbbing horribly. The thought of using it to shove on the transmission lever made her cringe, and not just because of the pain. She was quite sure it would also cause the deep incision across her inner wrist to break open again. Please God, I need a little help here, Jessie whispered, and turned the ignition key again. Still nothing. Not even a click. And now a new idea stole into her head like a nastytempered little burglar her inability to start the car had nothing at all to do with the little glitch that had developed in the transmission. This was more of her visitors work. It had cut the telephone lines; it had also raised the hood of the Mercedes long enough to rip off the distributor cap and throw it into the woods. The door banged. She glanced nervously in that direction, quite sure that she had seen its white, grinning face in the darkness of the doorway for just a moment. In another moment or two it would come out. It would grab a rock and smash the car window, then take one of the thick slivers of safety glass and Jessie reached across her waist with her left hand and shoved the knob of the transmission lever as hard as she could (although it did not, in truth, seem to move much at all). Then she reached clumsily through the lower arc of the steering wheel with her right hand, grasped the ignition key, and turned it again. More nothing. Except for the silent, chuffing laughter of the monster that was watching her. That she could hear quite clearly, even if only in her mind. Please, God, cant I have just one fucking break? she screamed. The transmission lever wiggled a little under her palm, and when Jessie turned the key over to the Start position this time, the engine roared to lifeJa. mein Fhrer! She sobbed with relief and turned on the headlights. A pair of brilliant orangeyellow eyes glared at her from the driveway. She screamed, feeling her heart trying to tear itself loose of its plumbing, cram itself into her throat, and strangle her. It was the dog, of coursethe stray who had been, in a manner of speaking, Geralds last client. The former Prince stood stockstill, momentarily dazzled by the glare of the headlights. If Jessie had dropped the transmission into drive just then, she probably could have driven forward and killed it. The thought even crossed her mind, but in a distant, almost academic way. Her hate and fear of the dog had gone. She saw how scrawny it was, and how the burdocks stuck in its matted coata coat too thin to offer much protection against the coming winter. Most of all she saw the way it cringed away from the light, its ears drooping, its hindquarters shrinking against the driveway. I didnt think it was possible, she thought, but I believe Ive come across something thats even more wretched than I am. She hit the Mercedess hornring with the heel of her left hand. It uttered a single brief sound, more burp than beep, but it was enough to get the dog started. It turned and vanished into the woods without so much as a single look back. Follow its example, Jess. Get out of here while you still can. Good idea. In fact, it was the only idea. She reached across her body again with her left hand, this time to pull the transmission lever down into Drive. It caught with its usual reassuring little hitch and the car began rolling slowly up the paved driveway. The winddriven trees shimmied like shadowdancers on either side of it, sending the falls first tornadofunnels of leaves whirling up into the night sky. Im doing it, Jessie thought with wonder. Im actually doing it, actually getting the puck out of here. She was rolling up the driveway, rolling toward the unnamed wheeltrack which would take her to Bay Lane, which would in its turn take her to Route 117 and civilization. As she watched the house (it looked more than ever like a huge white skull in the windy October moonlight) shrink in the rearview mirror, she thought Why is it letting me go? And is it? Is it really? Part of herthe fearmaddened part which would never entirely escape the handcuffs and the master bedroom of the house on the upper bay of Kashwakamak Lakeassured her that it wasnt; the creature with the wicker case was only playing with her, as a cat plays with a wounded mouse. Before she got much farther, certainly before she got to the top of the driveway, it would come racing after her, using its long cartoon legs to close the distance between them, stretching out its long cartoon arms to seize the rear bumper and bring the car to a halt. German efficiency was fine, but when you were dealing with something which had come back from the dead... well... But the house continued to dwindle in the rearview mirror, and nothing came out of the back door. Jessie reached the top of the driveway, turned right, and began to follow her high beams down the narrow wheelruts toward Bay Lane, guiding the car with her left hand. Every second or third August a volunteer crew of summer residents, fueled mostly by beer and gossip, cut back the underbrush and trimmed the overhanging branches along the way out to Bay Lane, but this had been an offyear and the lane was much narrower than Jessie liked. Each time a winddriven branch tapped at the cars roof or body, she cringed a little. Yet she was escaping. One by one the landmarks she had learned over the years made their appearance in the headlights and then dwindled behind her the huge rock with the split top, the overgrown gate with the faded sign reading RIDEOUTS HIDEOUT nailed to it, the uprooted spruce leaning amid a stand of smaller spruces like a large drunk being carried home by his smaller, livelier friends. The drunk spruce was only threetenths of a mile from Bay Lane, and it was only two miles to the highway from there. I can handle it if I take it easy, she said, and pushed the radio ON button with her right thumb, doing it very carefully. Bachmellow, stately, and above all, rationalflooded the car from four directions. Better and better. Take it easy, she repeated, speaking a little louder. Go greasy. Even the last shockthe stray dogs glaring orange eyeswas fading a little now, although she could feel herself beginning to shake. No problems whatsoever, if I just take it easy. She was doing that, all rightmaybe a little too easy, in fact. The speedometer needle was barely touching the 10 MPH mark. Being safely locked in the familiar surroundings of ones own car was a wonderful restorativealready she had begun to wonder if she hadnt been jumping at shadows all alongbut this would be a very bad time to begin taking things for granted. If there had been someone in the house, he (it, some deeper voicethe UFO of all UFOsinsisted) might have used one of the other doors to leave the house. He might be following her right now. It was even possible that, were she to continue puddling along at a mere ten miles an hour, a really determined follower might catch up. Jessie flicked her eyes up to the rearview mirror, wanting to reassure herself that this idea was only paranoia induced by shock and exhaustion, and felt her heart fall dead in her chest. Her left hand dropped from the wheel and thumped into her lap on top of the right. That should have hurt like hell, but there was no painabsolutely none at all. The stranger was sitting in the back seat with its eerily long hands pressed against the sides of its head, like the monkey that hears no evil. Its black eyes stared at her with sublimely empty interest. You see... me see... WE see... nothing but shadows! Punkin cried, but this cry was more than distant; it seemed to have originated at the other end of the universe. And it wasnt true. It was more than shadows she saw in the mirror. The thing sitting back there was tangled in shadows, yes, but not made of them. She saw its face bulging brow, round black eyes, bladethin nose, plump, misshapen lips. Jessie! the space cowboy whispered ecstatically. Nora! Ruth! Myohmy! Punkin Pie! Her eyes, frozen on the mirror, saw her passenger lean slowly forward, saw its swollen forehead nodding toward her right ear as if the creature intended to tell her a secret. She saw its pudgy lips slide away from its jutting, discolored teeth in a grimacing, vapid smile. It was at this point that the final breakup of Jessie Burlingames mind began. No! her own voice cried in a voice as thin as the voice of a vocalist on a scratchy old 78rpm record. No, please no! Its not fair! Jessie! Its stinking breath as sharp as a rasp and as cold as air inside a meatlocker. Nora! Jessie! Ruth! Jessie! Punkin! Goodwife! Jessie! Mommy! Her bulging eyes noted that the long white face was now halfhidden in her hair and its grinning mouth was almost kissing her ear as it whispered its delicious secret over and over and over Jessie! Nora! Goody! Punkin! Jessie! Jessie! Jessie! There was a white airburst inside her eyes, and what it left behind was a big dark hole. As Jessie dove into it, she had one final coherent thought I shouldnt have lookedit burned my eyes after all. Then she fell forward toward the wheel in a faint. As the Mercedes struck one of the large pines which bordered this section of the road, the seatbelt locked and jerked her backward again. The crash would probably have triggered the airbag, if the Mercedes had been a model recent enough to have come equipped with the system. It was not hard enough to damage the engine or even cause it to stall; good old German efficiency had triumphed again. The bumper and grille were dented and the hood ornament was knocked askew, but the engine idled contentedly away to itself. After about five minutes, a microchip buried in the dashboard sensed that the motor was now warm enough to turn on the heater. Blowers under the dash began to whoosh softly. Jessie had slumped sideways against the drivers door, where she lay with her cheek pressed to the window, looking like a tired child who has finally given up and gone to sleep with grandmas house just over the next hill. Above her, the rearview mirror reflected the empty back seat and the empty moonlit lane behind it. 35 It had been snowing all morninggloomy, but good letterwriting weather and when a bar of sun fell across the keyboard of the Mac, Jessie glanced up in surprise, startled out of her thoughts. What she saw out the window did more than charm her; it filled her with an emotion she had not experienced for a long time and hadnt expected to experience again for a long time to come, if ever. It was joya deep, complex joy she could never have explained. The snow hadnt stoppednot entirely, anywaybut a bright February sun had broken through the clouds overhead, turning both the fresh six inches on the ground and the snow still floating down through the air to a brilliant diamantine white. The window offered a sweeping view of Portlands Eastern Promenade, and it was a view which had soothed and fascinated Jessie in all weathers and seasons, but she had never seen anything quite like this; the combination of snow and sun had turned the gray air over Casco Bay into a fabulous jewelbox of interlocking rainbows. If there were real people living in those snowglobes where you can shake up a blizzard any time you want to, theyd see this weather all the time, she thought, and laughed. This sound was as fabulously strange to her ears as that feeling of joy was to her heart, and it only took a moments thought to realize why she hadnt laughed at all since the previous October. She referred to those hours, the last ones she ever intended to spend by Kashwakamak (or any other lake, for that matter), simply as my hard time. This phrase told what was necessary and not one thing more, she felt. Which was just the way she liked it. No laughs at all since then? Zilch? Zero? Are you sure? Not absolutely sure, no. She supposed she might have laughed in dreamsGod knew she had cried in enough of thembut as far as her waking hours went, it had been a shutout until now. She remembered the last one very clearly reaching across her body with her left hand so she could get the keys out of the right pocket of her culotte skirt, telling the windy darkness she was going to make like an amoeba and split. That, so far as she knew, had been the last laugh until now. Only that and nothing more, Jessie murmured. She took a pack of cigarettes out of her shirt pocket and lit one. God, how that phrase brought it all backthe only other thing with the power to do it so quickly and completely, she had discovered, was that awful song by Marvin Gaye. Shed heard it once on the radio when shed been driving back from one of the seemingly endless doctors appointments which had made up her life this winter, Marvin wailing Everybody knows... especially you girls ... in that soft, insinuating voice of his. She had turned the radio off at once, but shed still been shaking too badly to drive. She had parked and waited for the worst of the shakes to pass. Eventually they had, but on the nights when she didnt wake up muttering that phrase from The Raven over and over into her sweatsoaked pillow, she heard herself chanting, Witness, witness. As far as Jessie was concerned, it was six of one and half a million of the other. She dragged deep on her cigarette, puffed out three perfect rings, and watched them rise slowly above the humming Mac. When people were stupid enough or tasteless enough to ask about her ordeal (and she had discovered she knew a great many more stupid, tasteless people than she ever would have guessed), she told them she couldnt remember much of what had happened. After the first two or three police interviews, she began to tell the cops and all but one of Geralds colleagues the same thing. The single exception had been Brandon Milheron. To him she had told the truth, partly because she needed his help but mostly because Brandon had been the only one who had displayed the slightest understanding of what she had gone through... was still going through. He hadnt wasted her time with pity, and what a relief that had been. Jessie had also discovered that pity came cheap in the aftermath of tragedy, and that all the pity in the world wasnt worth a pisshole in the snow. Anyway, the cops and the newspaper reporters had accepted her amnesiaand the rest of her storyat face value, that was the important thing, and why not? People who underwent serious physical and mental trauma often blocked out the memories of what had happened; the cops knew that even better than the lawyers, and Jessie knew it better than any of them. She had learned a great deal about physical and mental trauma since last October. The books and articles had helped her find plausible reasons not to talk about what she didnt want to talk about, but otherwise they hadnt helped much. Or maybe it was just that she hadnt come to the right case histories yetthe ones dealing with handcuffed women who were forced to watch as their husbands became Purina Dog Chow. Jessie surprised herself by laughing againa good loud laugh this time. Was that funny? Apparently it was, but it was also one of those funny things you could never, ever tell anyone else. Like how your Dad once got so excited about a solar eclipse that he blew a load all over the seat of your underpants, for instance. Or howheres a real yuckyou actually thought a little come on your fanny might make you pregnant. Anyway, most of the case histories suggested that the human mind often reacted to extreme trauma the way a squid reacts to dangerby covering the entire landscape with a billow of obscuring ink. You knew something had happened, and that it had been no day in the park, but that was all. Everything else was gone, hidden by that ink. A lot of the casehistory people said thatpeople who had been raped, people who had been in car crashes, people who had been caught in fires and had crawled into closets to die, even one skydiving lady whose parachute hadnt opened and who had been recovered, badly hurt but miraculously alive, from the large soft bog in which she had landed. What was it like, coming down? they had asked the skydiving lady. What did you think about when you realized your chute hadnt opened, wasnt going to open? And the skydiving lady had replied, I cant remember. I remember the starter patting me on the back, and I think I remember the popout, but the next thing I remember is being on a stretcher and asking one of the men putting me into the back of the ambulance how badly I was hurt. Everything in the middle is just a haze. I suppose I prayed, but I cant even remember that for sure. Or maybe you really remembered everything, my skydiving friend, Jessie thought, and lied about it, just like I did. Maybe even for the same reasons. For all I know, every damned one of the casehistory people in every damned one of the books, I read was lying. Maybe so. Whether they were or not, the fact remained that she did remember her hours handcuffed to the bedfrom the click of the key in the second lock right up to that final freezing moment when she had looked into the rearview mirror and seen that the thing in the house had become the thing in the back seat, she remembered it all. She remembered those moments by day and relived them by night in horrible dreams where the waterglass slid past her along the inclined plane of the shelf and shattered on the floor, where the stray dog bypassed the cold buffet on the floor in favor of the hot meal on the bed, where the hideous nightvisitor in the corner asked Do you love me, Punkin? in her fathers voice and maggots squirmed like semen from the tip of its erect penis. But remembering a thing and reliving a thing did not confer an obligation to tell about a thing, even when the memories made you sweat and the nightmares made you scream. She had lost ten pounds since October (well, that was shading the truth a bit; it was actually more like seventeen), taken up smoking again (a pack and a half a day, plus a joint roughly the size of an El Producto before bedtime), her complexion had gone to hell, and all at once her hair was going gray all over her head, not just at the temples. That last was something she could fixhadnt she been doing so for five years or more?but so far she simply hadnt been able to summon up enough energy to dial Oh Pretty Woman in Westbrook and make an appointment. Besides, who did she have to look good for? Was she planning to maybe hit a few singles bars, check out the local talent? Good idea, she thought.

Some guy will ask if he can buy me a drink, Ill say yes, and then, while we wait for the bartender to bring them, Ill tell himjust casuallythat I have this dream where my father ejaculates maggots instead of semen. With a line of interesting conversational patter like that, Im sure hell ask me back to his apartment right away. He wont even want to see a doctors certificate saying Im HIVnegative. In midNovember, after she had begun to believe the police were really going to leave her alone and the storys sex angle was going to stay out of the papers (she was very slow coming to believe this, because the publicity was the thing she had dreaded the most), she decided to try therapy with Nora Callighan again. Maybe she didnt want this sitting inside and sending out poison fumes for the next thirty or forty years as it rotted. How much different might her life have been if she had managed to tell Nora what had happened on the day of the eclipse? For that matter, how much difference might it have made if that girl hadnt come into the kitchen when she did that night at Neuworth Parsonage? Maybe none ... but maybe a lot. Maybe an awful lot. So she dialed New Today, New Tomorrow, the loose association of counsellors with which Nora had been affiliated, and was shocked to silence when the receptionist told her Nora had died of leukemia the year beforesome weird, sly variant which had hidden successfully in the back alleys of her lymphatic system until it was too late to do a damned thing about it. Would Jessie perhaps care to meet with Laurel Stevenson? the receptionist asked, but Jessie remembered Laurela tall, darkhaired, darkeyed beauty who wore high heels with sling backs and looked as if she would enjoy sex to the fullest only when she was on top. She told the receptionist shed think it over. And that had been it for counselling. In the three months since she had learned of Noras death, shed had good days (when she was only afraid) and bad days (when she was too terrified even to leave this room, let alone the house) but only Brandon Milheron had heard anything approaching the complete story of Jessie Mahouts hard time by the lake... and Brandon hadnt believed the crazier aspects of that story. Had sympathized, yes, but not believed. Not at first, anyway. No pearl earring, he had reported the day after she first told him about the stranger with the long white face No muddy footprint, either. Not in the written reports, at least. Jessie shrugged and said nothing. She could have said things, but it seemed safer not to. She had badly needed a friend in the weeks following her escape from the summer house, and Brandon had filled the bill admirably. She didnt want to distance him or drive him away entirely with a lot of crazy talk. And there was something else, too, something simple and direct maybe Brandon was right. Maybe her visitor had just been a soupon of moonlight, after all. Little by little she had been able to persuade herself, at least in her waking hours, that this was the truth of it. Her space cowboy had been a kind of Rorschach pattern, one made not of ink and paper but of winddriven shadows and imagination. She didnt blame herself for any of this, however; quite the opposite. If not for her imagination, she never would have seen how she might be able to get the waterglass... and even if she had gotten it, she never would have thought of using a magazine blowin card as a straw. No, she thought her imagination had more than earned its right to a few hallucinatory megrims, but it remained important for her to remember shed been alone that night. If recovery began anywhere, she had believed, it began with the ability to separate reality from fantasy. She told Brandon some of this. He had smiled, hugged her, kissed her temple, and told her she was getting better in all sorts of ways. Then, last Friday, her eye had happened on the lead story of the PressHeralds County News section. All her assumptions began to change then, and they had gone right on changing as the story of Raymond Andrew Joubert began its steady march from filler between the Community Calendar and the County Police Beat to banner headlines on the front page. Then, yesterday... seven days after Jouberts name had first appeared on the County page ... There was a tap at the door, and Jessies first feeling, as always, was an instinctive cringe of fear. It was there and gone almost before she realized it. Almost... but not quite. Meggie? That you? None other, maam. Come on in. Megan Landis, the housekeeper Jessie had hired in December (that was when her first fat insurance check had arrived via registered mail), came in with a glass of milk on a tray. A small pill, gray and pink, sat beside the glass. At the sight of the glass, Jessies right wrist began to itch madly. This didnt always happen, but it wasnt exactly an unfamiliar reaction, either. At least the twitches and that weird myskiniscrawlingrightoffthebones sensation had pretty much stopped. There had been awhile there, before Christmas, when Jessie had really believed she was going to spend the rest of her life drinking out of a plastic cup. Hows yer paw today? Meggie asked, as if she had picked up Jessies itch by some kind of sensory telepathy. Nor did Jessie think this a ridiculous idea. She sometimes found Meggies questionsand the intuitions which prompted thema little creepy, but never ridiculous. The hand in question, now lying in the sunbeam which had startled her away from what she had been writing on the Mac, was dressed in a black glove lined with some frictionless spaceage polymer. Jessie supposed the burnglovefor that was what it washad been perfected in one dirty little war or another. Not that she would ever have refused to wear it on that account, and not that she wasnt grateful. She was very grateful indeed. After the third skingraft, you learned that an attitude of gratitude was one of lifes few reliable hedges against insanity. Not too bad, Meggie. Meggies left eyebrow lifted, stopping just short of Idon tbelieveyou height. No? If youve been running that keyboard for the whole three hours youve been in here, I bet its singing Ave Maria. Have I really been here for? She glanced at her watch and saw that she had been. She glanced at the copyminder on top of the VDT screen and saw she was on the fifth page of the document she had opened just after breakfast. Now it was almost lunch, and the most surprising thing was she hadnt strayed as far from the truth as Meggies lifted brow suggested her hand really wasnt that bad. She could have waited another hour for the pill if shed had to. She took it nevertheless, washing it down with the milk. As she was drinking the last of it, her eyes wandered back to the VDT and read the words on the current screen No one found me that night; I woke up on my own just after dawn the next day. The engine had finally stalled, but the car was still warm. I could hear birds singing in the woods, and through the trees I could see the lake, flat as a mirror, with little ribbons of steam rising off it. It looked very beautiful, and at the same time I hated the sight of it, as I have hated the very thought of it ever since. Can you understand that, Ruth? Ill be damned if I can. My hand was hurting like hellwhatever help Id gotten from the aspirin was long gonebut what I felt in spite of the pain was the most incredible sense of peace and wellbeing. Something was gnawing at it, though. Something Id forgotten. At first I couldnt remember what it was. I dont think my brain wanted me to remember what it was. Then, all at once, it came to me. Hed been in the back seat, and hed leaned forward to whisper the names of all my voices in my ear. I looked into the mirror and saw the back seat was empty. That eased my mind a little bit but then I The words stopped at that point, with the little cursor flashing expectantly just beyond the end of the last unfinished sentence. It seemed to beckon to her, urge her forward, and suddenly Jessie recalled a poem from a marvellous little book by Kenneth Patchen. The book was called But Even So, and the poem had gone like this Come now, my child, if we were planning to harm you, do you think wed be lurking here beside the path in the very darkest part of the forest? Good question, Jessie thought, and let her eyes wander from the VDT screen to Meggie Landiss face. Jessie liked the energetic Irishwoman, liked her a lothell, owed her a lotbut if she had caught the little housekeeper looking at the words on the Macs screen, Meggie would have been headed down Forest Avenue with her severance pay in her pocket before you could say Dear Ruth, I suppose youre surprised to hear from me after all these years. But Megan wasnt looking at the pcs screen; she was looking at the sweeping view of Eastern Prom and Casco Bay beyond it. The sun was still shining and the snow was still falling, although now it was clearly winding down. Devils beating his wife, Meggie remarked. I beg your pardon? Jessie asked, smiling. Thats what my mother used to say when the sun came out before the snow stopped. Meggie looked a little embarrassed as she held her hand out for the empty glass. What it means Im not sure I could say. Jessie nodded. The embarrassment on Meggie Landiss face had lensed into something elsesomething that looked to Jessie like unease. For a moment she hadnt any idea what could have made Meggie look that way, and then it came to hera thing so obvious it was easy to overlook. It was the smile. Meggie wasnt used to seeing Jessie smile. Jessie wanted to assure her that it was all right, that the smile didnt mean she was going to leap from her chair and attempt to tear Meggies throat out. Instead, she told her, My own mother used to say, The sun doesnt shine on the same dogs ass every day. I never knew what that one meant, either. The housekeeper did look in the Macs direction now, but it was the merest flick of dismissal Time to put your toys away, Missus, her glance said. That pills going to make you sleepy if you dont dump a little food atop it. Ive got a sandwich waiting for you, and soup heating on the stove. Soup and sandwichkid food, the lunch you had after sledding all morning on the day when school was cancelled because of a noreaster; food you ate with the cold still blazing redly in your cheeks like bonfires. It sounded absolutely great, but... Im going to pass, Meg. Meggies brow furrowed and the corners of her mouth drew down. This was an expression Jessie had seen often in the early days of Meggies employment, when she had sometimes felt she needed an extra pain pill so badly that she had cried. Megan had never given in to her tears, however. Jessie supposed that was why she had hired the little Irishwomanshe had guessed from the first that Meggie wasnt a giverinner. She was, in fact, one hard spring potato when she had to be ... but Meggie would not be getting her way this time. You need to eat, Jess. Youre nothing but a scarecrow. Now it was the overflowing ashtray which bore the dour whiplash of her glance. And you need to quit that shit, too. Ill make you quit them, me proud beauty, Gerald said in her mind, and Jessie shuddered. Jessie? Are you all right? Is there a draft? No. A goose walked over my grave, thats all. She smiled wanly. Were a regular packet of old sayings today, arent we? Youve been warned time and time again about not overdoing Jessie reached out her blackclad right hand and tentatively touched Meggies left hand with it. My hands really getting better, isnt it? Yes. If you could use it on that machine, even part of the time, for three hours or more and not be yelling for that pill the second I showed my face in here, then I guess youre getting better even faster than Dr. Magliore expected. All the same All the same its getting better, and thats good ... right? Of course its good. The housekeeper looked at Jessie as if she were mad. Well, now Im trying to get the rest of me better. Step one is writing a letter to an old friend of mine. I promised myselflast October, during my hard timethat if I got out of the mess I was in, Id do that. But I kept putting it off. Now Im finally trying, and I dont dare stop. I might lose my guts if I do. But the pill I think Ive got just enough time to finish this and stick the printout in an envelope before I get too sleepy to work. Then I can take a long nap, and when I wake up III eat an early supper. She touched Meggies left hand with her right again, a gesture of reassurance which was both clumsy and rather sweet. A nice big one. Meggies frown remained. Its not good to skip meals, Jessie, and you know it. Very gently, Jessie said Some things are more important than meals. You know that as well as I do, dont you? Meggie glanced toward the VDT again, then sighed and nodded. When she spoke, it was in the tone of a woman bowing to some conventional sentiment in which she herself does not really believe. I guess so. And even if I dont, youre the boss. Jessie nodded, realizing for the first time that this was now more than just a fiction the two of them maintained for the sake of convenience. I suppose I am, at that. Meggies eyebrow had climbed to halfmast again. If I brought the sandwich in and left it here on the corner of your desk? Jessie grinned. Sold! This time Meggie smiled back. When she brought the sandwich in three minutes later, Jessie was sitting before the glowing screen again, her skin an unhealthy comicbook green in its reflected glow, lost in whatever she was slowly picking out on the keyboard. The little Irish housekeeper made no effort to be quietshe was that sort of woman who would probably be unable to tiptoe if her life depended on itbut Jessie still did not hear her come or go. She had taken a stack of newspaper clippings out of the top drawer of her desk and stopped typing to riffle through them. Photographs accompanied most, photographs of a man with a strange, narrow face that receded at the chin and bulged at the brow. His deepset eyes were dark and round and perfectly blank, eyes that made Jessie think simultaneously of Dondi, the comicstrip waif, and Charles Manson. Pudgy lips as thick as slices of cut fruit pooched out below his blade of a nose. Meggie stood beside Jessies shoulder for a moment, waiting to be acknowledged, then uttered a low Humph! and left the room. Fortyfive minutes or so later, Jessie glanced to the left and saw the toasted cheese sandwich. It was now cold, the cheese coagulated into lumps, but she wolfed it nevertheless in five quick bites. Then she turned back to the Mac. The cursor began to dance ahead once more, leading her steadily deeper into the forest. 36 That eased my mind a little bit but then I thought, He could be crouched down back there so the mirror doesnt show him. So I managed to get turned around, although I could hardly believe how weak I was. Even the slightest bump made my hand feel like someone was jabbing it with a redhot poker. No one was there, of course, and I tried to tell myself that the last time I saw him, he really was just shadows... shadows and my mind working overtime. But I couldnt quite believe it, Ruthnot even with the sun coming up and me out of the handcuffs, out of the house, and locked inside my own car. I got the idea that if he wasnt in the back seat he was in the trunk, and if he wasnt in the trunk, he was crouched down by the back bumper. I got the idea that he was still with me, in other words, and hes been with me ever since. Thats what I need to make youyou or somebodyunderstand thats what I really need to say. He has been with me ever since. Even when my rational mind decided that hed probably been shadows and moonlight every time I saw him, he was with me. Or maybe I should say it was with me. My visitor is the man with the white face when the sun is up, you see, but hes the thing with the white face when its down. Either way, him or it, my rational mind was eventually able to give him up, but I have found that is nowhere near enough. Because every time a board creaks in the house at night I know that its come back, every time a funny shadow dances on the wall I know its come back, every time I hear an unfamiliar step coming up the walk I know its come backcome back to finish the job. It was there in the Mercedes that morning when I woke up, and its been here in my house on Eastern Prom almost every night, maybe hiding behind the drapes or standing in the closet with its wicker case between its feet. There is no magic stake to drive through the hearts of the real monsters, and oh Ruth, it makes me so tired. Jessie paused long enough to dump the overflowing ashtray and light a fresh cigarette. She did this slowly and deliberately. Her hands had picked up a small but discernible shake, and she didnt want to burn herself. When the cigarette was going, she took a deep drag, exhaled, stuck it in the ashtray, and returned to the Mac. I dont know what I would have done if the car battery had been deadsat there until someone came along, I guess, even if it meant sitting there all daybut it wasnt, and the motor started on the first crank. I backed away from the tree Id hit and managed to get the car pointed down the lane again. I kept wanting to look in the rearview mirror, but I was afraid to do it. I was afraid I might see him. Not because he was there, you understandI knew he wasntbut because my mind might make me see him. Finally, just as I got to Bay Lane, I did look up. I couldnt help it. There was nothing in the mirror but the back seat, of course, and that made the rest of the trip a little easier. I drove out to 117 and then up to Dakins Country Storeits one of those places where the locals hang out when theyre too broke to go over to Rangeley or to one of the bars in Motton. They mostly sit at the lunch counter, eating doughnuts and swapping lies about what they did on Saturday night. I pulled in behind the gas pumps and just sat there for five minutes or so, watching the loggers and the caretakers and the power company guys go in and come back out. I couldnt believe they were realisnt that a hoot? I kept thinking they were ghosts, that pretty soon my eyes would adjust to the daylight and Id be able to see right through them. I was thirsty again, and every time someone came out with one of those little white Styrofoam cups of coffee, Id get thirstier, but I still couldnt quite bring myself to get out of the car ... to go among the ghosts, you might say. I suppose I would have, eventually, but before I could muster enough courage to do more than pull up the masterlock, Jimmy Eggart pulled in and parked beside me. Jimmys a retired CPA from Boston whos lived at the lake yearround since his wife died back in 1987 or 88. He got out of his Bronco, looked at me, recognized me, and started to smile. Then his face changed, first to concern and then to horror. He came to the Mercedes and bent down to look through the window, and he was so surprised that all the wrinkles were pulled out of his face. I remember that very clearly how surprise made Jimmy Eggart look young. I saw his mouth forming the words Jessie, are you all right? I wanted to open the door, but all at once I didnt quite dare. This crazy idea came into my head. That the thing Id been calling the space cowboy had been in Jimmys house, too, only Jimmy hadnt been as lucky as I had been. It had killed him, and cut off his face, and then put it on like a Halloween mask. I knew it was a crazy idea, but knowing that didnt help much, because I couldnt stop thinking it. I couldnt make myself open the fucking car door, either. I dont know how bad I looked that morning and dont want to know, but it must have been bad, because pretty soon Jimmy Eggart didnt look surprised anymore. He looked scared enough to run and sick enough to puke. He didnt do either one, God bless him. What he did was open the car door and ask me what had happened, had it been an accident or had someone hurt me. I only had to take one look down to get an idea what had put a buzz under him. At some point the wound in my wrist must have opened up again, because the sanitary pad Id taped around it was entirely soaked. The front of my skirt was soaked, too, as if Id had the worlds worst period. I was sitting in blood, there was blood on the steering wheel, blood on the console, blood on the shiftlever... there were even splatters on the windshield. Most of it had dried to that awful maroon color blood getsto me it looks like chocolate milkbut some of it was still red and wet. Until you see something like that, Ruth, you just dont have any idea how much blood there really is in a person. Its no wonder Jimmy freaked. I tried to get outI think I wanted to show him I could do it under my own power, and that would reassure himbut I bumped my right hand on the steering wheel and everything went white and gray. I didnt pass out completely, but it was as if the last bunch of wires between my head and my body had been cut. I felt myself falling forward and I remember thinking I was going to finish my adventures by knocking most of my teeth out on the asphalt ... and after spending a fortune to get the top ones capped just last year. Then Jimmy caught me ... right by the boobs, as a matter of fact. I heard him yelling at the storeHey! Hey! I need a little help out herein a high, shrieky old mans voice that made me feel like laughing... only I was too tired to laugh. I laid the side of my head against his shirt and panted for breath. I could feel my heart going fast but hardly seeming to beat at all, as if it had nothing to beat on. Some light and color started to come back into the day, though, and I saw half a dozen men coming out to see what was wrong. Lonnie Dakin was one of them. He was eating a muffin and wearing a pink teeshirt that said THERES NO TOWN DRUNK HERE, WE JUST ALL TAKE TURNS. Funny what you remember when you think youre getting ready to die, isnt it? Who did this to you, Jessie? Jimmy asked. I tried to answer him but couldnt get any words out. Which is probably just as well, considering what I was trying to say. I think it was My father. Jessie snuffed out her cigarette, then looked down at the top newsprint photograph. The narrow, freakish face of Raymond Andrew Joubert gazed raptly back ... just as he had gazed at her from the corner of the bedroom on the first night, and from her recently deceased husbands study on the second. Almost five minutes passed in this silent contemplation. Then, with the air of one who starts awake from a brief doze, Jessie lit a fresh cigarette and turned back to her letter. The copyminder now announced she was on page seven. She stretched, listened to the minute crackling sounds from her spine, then began to touch the keys again. The cursor resumed its dance. Twenty minutes latertwenty minutes during which I discovered how sweet and concerned and amusingly daffy men can be (Lonnie Dakin asked me if Id like some Midol)I was in a Rescue Services ambulance, headed for Northern Cumberland Hospital with the flashers flashing and the siren wailing. An hour after that I was lying in a crankup bed, watching blood run down a tube into my arm and listening to some country music asshole sing about how tough his life had been since his woman left him and his pickup truck broke down. That pretty well concludes Part One of my story, Ruthcall it Little Nell Across the Ice, or, How I Escaped Handcuffs and Made My Way to Safety. There are two other parts, which I think of as The Aftermath and The Kicker. Im going to scamp on The Aftermath, partly because its only really interesting if youre into skingrafts and pain, but mostly because I want to get to The Kicker before I get too tired and computerwoozy to tell it the way I need to tell it. And the way you deserve to have it told, come to think of it. That idea just occurred to me, and its nothing but the baldassed truth, as we used to say. After all, without The Kicker I probably wouldnt be writing you at all. Before I get to it, though, I have to tell you a little more about Brandon Milheron, who really sums up that Aftermath period for me. It was during the first part of my recovery, the really ugly part, that Brandon came along and more or less adopted me. Id like to call him a sweet man, because he was there for me during one of the most hellacious times of my life, but sweetness isnt really what hes aboutseeing things through is what Brandon is about, and keeping all the sightlines clear, and making sure all the right ducks stay in a row. And that isnt right, eithertheres more to him than that and hes better than thatbut the hour groweth late, and it will have to do. Suffice it to say that for a man whose job it was to look out for a conservative lawfirms interests in the wake of a potentially nasty situation involving one of the senior partners, Brandon did a lot of handholding and encouraging. Also, he never gave me hell for crying on the lapels of his natty threepiece suits. If that was all, I probably wouldnt be going on about him, but theres something else, as well. Something he did for me only yesterday. Have faith, kidwere getting there. Brandon and Gerald worked together a lot over the last fourteen months of Geralds lifea suit involving one of the major supermarket chains up here. They won whatever it was they were supposed to win, and, more important for yours truly, they established a good rapport. I have an idea that when the old sticks that run the firm get around to taking Geralds name off the letterhead, Brandons will take its place. In the meantime, he was the perfect person for this assignment, which Brandon himself described as damage control during his first meeting with me in the hospital. He does have a kind of sweetness about himyes, he doesand he was honest with me from the jump, but of course he still had his own agenda from the beginning. Believe me when I say my eyes are wide open on that score, my dear; I was, after all, married to a lawyer for almost two decades, and I know how fiercely they compartmentalize the various aspects of their lives and personalities. Its what allows them to survive without having too many breakdowns, I suppose, but its also what makes so many of them utterly loathsome. Brandon was never loathsome, but he was a man with a mission keep a lid on any bad publicity that might accrue to the firm. That meant keeping a lid on any bad publicity that might accrue to either Gerald or me, of course. This is the sort of job where the person doing it can wind up getting screwed by a single stroke of bad luck, but Brandon still took it like a shot... and to his further credit, he never once tried to tell me he took the job out of respect for Geralds memory. He took it because it was what Gerald himself used to call a careermakerthe kind of job that can open a quick shortcut to the next echelon, if it turns out well. It is turning out well for Brandon, and Im glad. He treated me with a great deal of kindness and compassion, which is reason enough to be happy for him, I guess, but there are two other reasons, as well. He never got hysterical when I told him someone from the press had called or come around, and he never acted as if I were just a jobonly that and nothing more. Do you want to know what I really think, Ruth? Although I am seven years older than the man Im telling you about and I still look folded, stapled, and mutilated, I think Brandon Milheron may have fallen a little bit in love with me ... or with the heroic Little Nell he sees in his minds eye when he looks at me. I dont think its a sex thing with him (not yet, anyway; at a hundred and eight pounds, I still look quite a bit like a plucked chicken hanging in a butcher shop window), and thats fine with me; if I never go to bed with another man, I will be absolutely delighted. Still, Id be lying if I said I didnt like seeing that look in his eyes, the one that says Im part of his agenda nowme, Jessie Angela Mahout Burlingame, as opposed to an inanimate lump his bosses probably think of as That Unfortunate Burlingame Business. I dont know if I come above the firm on Brandons agenda, or below it, or right beside it, and I dont care. It is enough to know that Im on it, and that Im something more than a Jessie paused here, tapping her left forefinger against her teeth and thinking carefully. She took a deep drag on her current cigarette, then went on. than a charitable sideeffect. Brandon was right beside me during all the police interviews, with his little taperecorder going. He politely but relentlessly pointed out to everyone present at every interviewinctuding stenographers and nursesthat anyone who leaked the admittedly sensational details of the case would face all the nasty reprisals a large New England lawfirm with an exceedingly tight ass could think up. Brandon must have been as convincing to them as he was to me, because no one in the know ever talked to the press. The worst of the questioning came during the three days I spent in guarded condition at Northern Cumberlandmostly sucking up blood, water, and electrolytes through plastic tubes. The police reports that came out of those sessions were so strange they actually looked believable when they showed up in the papers, like those weird manbitesdog stories they run from time to time. Only this one was actually a dogbitesman story ... and woman as well, in this version. Want to hear whats going into the record books? Okay, here it is We decided to spend the day at our summer home in western Maine. Following a sexual interlude that was two parts tussle and one part sex, we showered together. Gerald left the shower while I was washing my hair. He was complaining of gas pains, probably from the sub sandwiches we ate on our way from Portland, and asked if there were any Rolaids or Turns in the house. I said I didnt know, but theyd be on top of the bureau or on the bedshelf if there were. Three or four minutes later, while I was rinsing my hair, I heard Gerald cry out. This cry apparently signalled the onset of a massive coronary. It was followed by a heavy thumpthe sound of a body striking the floor. I jumped out of the shower, and when I ran into the bedroom, my feet went out from under me. I hit my head on the side of the bureau as I went down and knocked myself out. According to this version, which was put together by Mr. Milheron and Mrs. Burtingameand endorsed enthusiastically by the police, I might addI returned to partial consciousness several times, but each time I did, I passed out again. When I came to the last time, the dog had gotten tired of Gerald and was noshing on me. I got up on the bed (according to our story, Gerald and I found it where it wasprobably moved there by the guys who came in to wax the floorand we were so hot to trot we didnt bother to move it back where it belonged) and drove the dog off by throwing Geralds waterglass and fraternity ashtray at it. Then I passed out again and spent the next few hours unconscious and bleeding all over the bed. Later on I woke up again, got to the car, and finally drove to safety ... after one final bout of unconsciousness, that is. That was when I ran into the tree beside the road. I only asked once how Brandon got the police to go along with this piece of nonsense. He said, Its a State Police investigation now, Jessie, and weby which I mean the firmhave lots of friends in the S.P. Im calling in every favor I have to, but in truth I havent had to call in that many. Cops are human beings, too, you know. These guys had a pretty good idea of what really happened as soon as they saw the cuffs hanging from the bedposts. Its not the first time theyve seen handcuffs after someone popped his carburetor, believe me.

There wasnt a single one of those copsstate or localwho wanted to see you and your husband turned into a dirty joke as a result of something that was really no more than a grotesque accident. At first I didnt say anything even to Brandon about the man I thought I saw, or the footprint, or the pearl earring, or anything else. I was waiting, you seelooking for straws in the wind, I suppose. Jessie looked at that last, shook her head, and began to type again. No, thats bullshit. I was waiting for some cop to come in with a little plastic evidence bag and hand it to me and ask me to identify the ringsfingerrings, not earringsinside. Were pretty sure they must be yours, hed say, because they have your initials and those of your husband engraved inside them, and also because we found them on the floor of your husbands study. I kept waiting for that because when they showed me my rings, Id know for sure that Little Nells Midnight Caller had just been a figment of Little Nells imagination. I waited and waited, but it didnt happen. Finally, just before the first operation on my hand, I told Brandon about how Id had the idea that I might not have been alone in the house, at least not all the time. I told him it could have just been my imagination, that was certainly a possibility, but it had seemed very real at the time. I didnt say anything about my own missing rings, but I talked a lot about the footprint and the pearl earring. About the earring I think it would be fair to say I babbled, and I think I know why it had to stand for everything I didnt dare to talk about, even to Brandon. Do you understand? And all the time I was telling him, I kept saying stuff like Then I thought I saw and I felt almost sure that. I had to tell him, had to tell someone, because the fear was eating me from the inside out like acid, but I tried to show him in every way I could that I wasnt mistaking subjective feelings for objective reality. Above all I tried to keep him from seeing how scared I still was. Because I didnt want him to think I was crazy. I didnt care if he thought I was a little hysterical; that was a price I was willing to pay to keep from getting stuck with another nasty secret like the one about what my father did to me on the day of the eclipse, but I desperately didnt want him to think I was crazy. I didnt want him to even speculate on the possibility. Brandon took my hand and patted it and told me he could understand such an idea; he said that under the circumstances, it was probably tame. Then he added that the important thing to remember was that it was no more real than the shower Gerald and I took after our athletic, bumpandbruise romp on the bed. The police had gone over the house, and if there had been someone else in there, they almost certainly would have found evidence of him. The fact that the house had undergone a big endofsummer cleaning not long before made that even more likely. Maybe they did find evidence of him, I said. Maybe some cop stuck that earring in his own pocket. There are plenty of lightfingered cops in the world, granted, he said, but its hard for me to believe that even a stupid one would risk his career for an orphan earring. It would be easier for me to believe that this guy you thought was in the house with you came back later and got it himself. Yes! I said. Thats possible, isnt it? He started to shake his head, then shrugged instead. Anything is possible, and that includes either cupidity or human error on the part of the investigating officers, but ... He paused, then took my left hand and gave me what I think of as Brandons Dutch Uncle expression. A lot of your thinking is based on the idea that those investigating officers gave the house a lick and a promise and called it good. That wasnt the case. If there had been a third party in there, its oddson that the police would have found evidence of him. And if theyd found evidence of a third party, Id know. Why? asked. Because something like that could put you in a very nasty situationthe kind of situation where the police stop being nice guys and start reading you the Miranda warning. I dont understand what youre talking about, I said, but I was beginning to, Ruth; yes indeed. Gerald was something of an insurance freak, and I had been informed by agents of three different carriers that I was going to spend my period of official mourningand quite a few years afterin comfortable circumstances. John Harrelson in Augusta did a very thorough, very careful autopsy on your husband, Brandon said. According to his report, Gerald died of what MEs call a pure heart attack, meaning one uncomplicated by food poisoning, undue exertion, or gross physical trauma. He clearly meant to go onhe was in what Ive come to think of as Brandons Teaching Modebut he saw something on my face that stopped him. Jessie? Whats wrong? Nothing, I said. Yes there isyou look terrible. Is it a cramp? I finally managed to persuade him that I was okay, and by then I almost was. I imagine you know what I was thinking about, Ruth, since I mentioned it earlier in this letter the double kick I gave Gerald when he wouldnt do the right thing and let me up. One in the gut, one smack in the family jewels. I was thinking how lucky it was Id said the sex was roughit explained the bruises. I have an idea they were light, anyway, because the heart attack came right on the heels of the kicks, and the heart attack stopped the bruising process almost before it could get started. That leads to another question, of coursedid I cause the heart attack by kicking him? None of the medical books Ive looked at answer that question conclusively, but lets get real I probably helped him along. Still, I refuse to take the whole rap. He was overweight, he drank too much, and he smoked like a chimney. The heart attack was coming; if it hadnt been that day, it would have been the next week or the next month. The devil only plays his fiddle for you so long, Ruth. I believe that. If you dont, I cordially invite you to fold it small and stuff it where the sun doesnt shine. I happen to think Ive earned the right to believe what I want to believe, at least in this matter. Especially in this matter. If I looked like I swallowed a doorknob, I told Brandon, its because Im trying to get used to the idea that someone thinks I killed Gerald to collect his life insurance. He shook his head some more, looking at me earnestly all the while. They dont think that at all. Harrelson says Gerald had a heart attack which may have been precipitated by sexual excitement, and the State Police accept that because John Harrelson is about the best in the business. At most there may be a few cynics who think you played Salome and led him on deliberately. Do you? I asked. I thought I might shock him with such directness, and part of me was curious as to what a shocked Brandon Milheron might look like, but I should have known better. He only smiled. Do I think youd have imagination enough to see a chance of blowing Geralds thermostat but not enough to see you might end up dying in handcuffs yourself as a result? No. For whatever its worth, Jess, I think it went down just the way you told me it did. Can I be honest? I wouldnt want you to be anything else, I told him. All right. I worked with Gerald, and I got along with him, but there were plenty of people in the firm who didnt. He was the worlds biggest controlfreak. It doesnt surprise me a bit that the idea of having sex with a woman handcuffed to the bed lit up all his dials. I took a quick look at him when he said that. It was night, only the light at the head of my bed was on, and he was sitting in shadow from the shoulders up, but Im pretty sure that Brandon Milheron, Young Legal Shark About Town, was blushing. If Ive offended you, Im sorry, he said, sounding unexpectedly awkward. I almost laughed. It would have been unkind, but just then he sounded about eighteen years old and fresh out of prep school. You havent offended me, Brandon, I said. Good. That takes care of me. But its still the job of the police to at least entertain the possibility of foul ptayto consider the idea that you could have gone a step further than just hoping your husband might have what is known in the trade as a horny coronary. I didnt have the slightest idea he had a heart problem! I said. Apparently the insurance companies didnt, either. If theyd known, they never would have written those policies, would they? Insurance companies will insure anyone whos willing to pay enough freight, he said, and Geralds insurance agents didnt see him chainsmoking and belting back the booze. You did. All protests aside, you must have known he was a heart attack looking for a place to happen. The cops know it, too. So they say, Suppose she invited a friend down to the lake house and didnt tell her husband? And suppose this friend just happened to jump out of the closet and yell BoogaBooga at exactly the right time for her and exactly the wrong one for her old man? If the cops had any evidence that something like that might have happened, youd be in deep shit, Jessie. Because under certain select circumstances, a hearty cry of BoogaBooga can be seen as an act of firstdegree murder. The fact that you spent going on two days in handcuffs and had to halfskin yourself to get free militates strongly against the idea of an accomplice, but in another way, the very fact of the handcuffs makes an accomplice seem plausible to ... well, to a certain type of police mind, let us say. I stared at him, fascinated. I felt like a woman whos just realized she has been squaredancing on the edge of an abyss. Up until then, looking at the shadowy planes and curves of Brandons face beyond the circle of light thrown by the bedlamp, the idea of the police thinking I might have murdered Gerald had only crossed my mind a couple of times, as a kind of grisly joke. Thank God I never joked about it with the cops, Ruth! Brandon said, Do you understand why it might be wiser not to mention this idea of an intruder in the house? Yes, I said. Better to let sleeping dogs lie, right? As soon as I said it, I had an image of that goddamned mutt dragging Gerald across the floor by his upper armI could see the flap of skin that had come free and was lying across the dogs snout. They ran the poor, damned thing down a couple of days later, by the wayit had made a little den for itself under the Laglans boathouse, about half a mile up the shore. It had taken a pretty good piece of Gerald there, so it must have come back at least one more time after I scared it away with the Mercedess lights and horn. They shot it. It was wearing a bronze tagnot a regulation dogtag so that Animal Control could trace the owner and give him hell, mores the pitywith the name Prince on it. Prince, can you imagine? When Constable Teagarden came and told me theyd killed it, I was giad. I didnt blame it for what it didit wasnt in much better shape than I was, Ruthbut I was glad then and Im still glad. All thats off the subject, thoughi was telling you about the conversation I had with Brandon after Id told him there might have been a stranger in the house. He agreed, and most emphatically, that it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie. I guessed I could live with thatit was a great relief just to have told one personbut I still wasnt quite ready to let it go. The convincer was the phone, I told him. When I got out of the handcuffs and tried it, it was as dead as Abe Lincoln. As soon as I realized that, I became sure I was rightthere had been a guy, and at some point hed cut the telephone line coming in from the road. Thats what really got my ass out the door and into the Mercedes. You dont know what scared is, Brandon, until you suddenly realize you might be out in the middle of the woods with an uninvited houseguest. He was smiling, but it was a less winning smile that time, Im afraid. It was the kind of smile men always seem to get on their faces when theyre thinking about how silly women are, and how it should really be against the law to let them out without keepers. You came to the conclusion that the line was cut after checking one phonethe one in the bedroomand finding it dead. Right? That wasnt exactly what happened and it wasnt exactly what Id thought, but I noddedpartly because it seemed easier, but mostly because it doesnt do much good to talk to a man when he gets that particular expression on his face. Its the one that says, Women! Cant live with em, cant shoot em! Unless youve changed completely, Ruth, Im sure you know the one Im talking about, and Im sure youll understand when I say that all I really wanted at that point was for the entire conversation to be over. It was unplugged, thats all, Brandon said. By then he was sounding like Mister Rogers, explaining that sometimes it surely does seem like theres a monster under the bed, by golly, but theres really not. Gerald pulled the tconnector out of the wall. He probably didnt want his afternoon offnot to mention his little bondage fantasyinterrupted by calls from the office. Hed also pulled the plug on the one in the front hall, but the one in the kitchen was plugged in and working just fine. I have all this from the police reports. The light dawned, then, Ruth. I suddenly understood that all of themall the men investigating what had happened out at the lakehad made certain assumptions about how Id handled the situation and why Id done the things Id done. Most of them worked in my favor, and that certainly simplified things, but there was still something both infuriating and a little spooky in the realization that they drew most of their conclusions not from what Id said or from any evidence theyd found in the house, but only from the fact that Im a woman, and women can be expected to behave in certain predictable ways. When you look at it that way, theres no difference at all between Brandon Milheron in his natty threepiece suits and old Constable Teagarden in his satchelseat bluejeans and red firehouse suspenders. Men still think the same things about us they have always thought, RuthIm sure of it. A lot of them have learned to say the right things at the right times, but as my mother used to say, Even a cannibal can learn to recite the Apostles Creed. And do you know what? Brandon Milheron admires me, and he admires the way I handled myself after Gerald dropped dead. Yes he does. I have seen it on his face time after time, and if he drops by this evening, as he usually does, I am confident I will see it there again. Brandon thinks I did a damned good job, a damned brave job ... for a woman. In fact, I think that by the time we had our first conversation about my hypothetical visitor, he had sort of decided Id behaved the way he would have in a similar situation ... if, that is, hed had to deal with a high fever at the same time he was trying to deal with everything else. I have an idea thats how most men believe most women think like lawyers with malaria. It would certainly explain a lot of their behavior, wouldnt it? Im talking about condescensiona manversuswoman thingbut Im also talking about something a hell of a lot bigger and a hell of a lot more frightening, as well. He didnt understand, you see, and that has nothing to do with any differences between the sexes; thats the curse of being human, and the surest proof that all of us are really alone. Terrible things happened in that house, Ruth, I didnt know just how terrible until later, and he didnt understand that. I told him the things I did in order to keep that terror from eating me alive, and he nodded and he smiled and he sympathized, and I think it ended up doing me some good, but he was the best of them, and he never got within shouting distance of the truth ... of how the terror just seemed to keep on growing until it became this big black haunted house inside my head. Its still there, too, standing with its door open, inviting me to come back inside any time I want, and I never do want to go back, but sometimes I find myself going back, anyway, and the minute I step inside, the door slams shut behind me and locks itself. Well, never mind. I suppose it should have relieved me to know my intuition about the telephone lines was wrong, but it didnt. Because there was a part of my mind which believedand believes stillthat the bedroom telephone wouldnt have worked even if I had crawled behind that chair and plugged it in again, that maybe the one in the kitchen was working later but it sure as hell wasnt working then, that it was get the hell away from the house in the Mercedes or die at the hands of that creature. Brandon leaned forward until the light at the head of the bed shone full on his face and he said, There was no man in the house, Jessie, and the best thing you can do with the idea is let it drop. I almost told him about my missing rings then, but I was tired and in a lot of pain and in the end I didnt. I lay awake for a long time after he leftnot even a painpill would put me to sleep that night. I thought about the skingraft operation that was coming up the next day, but probably not as much as you might think. Mostly I was thinking about my rings, and the footprint nobody saw but me, and whether or not heitmight have come back to put things right. And what I decided, just before I finally dropped off, was that there had never been a footprint or a pearl earring. That some cop had spotted my rings lying on the study floor beside the bookcase and just took them. Theyre probably in the window of some Lewiston hockshop right now, I thought. Maybe the idea should have made me angry, but it didnt. It made me feel the way I did when I woke up behind the wheel of the Mercedes that morningfitted with an incredible sense of peace and wellbeing. No stranger; no stranger; no stranger anywhere. Just a cop with light fingers taking one quick look over his shoulder to make sure the coast is clear and then whoop, zoop, into the pocket. As for the rings themselves, I didnt care what had happened to them then and I dont now. Ive come more and more to believe in these last few months that the only reason a man sticks a ring on your finger is because the law no longer allows him to put one through your nose. Never mind, though; the morning has become the afternoon, the afternoon is moving briskly along, and this is not the time to discuss womens issues. This is the time to talk about Raymond Andrew Joubert. Jessie sat back in her chair and lit another cigarette, absently aware that the tip of her tongue was stinging from tobacco overload, that her head ached, and that her kidneys were protesting this marathon session in front of the Mac. Protesting vigorously. The house was deathly silentthe sort of silence that could only mean that tough little Megan Landis had taken herself off to the supermarket and the drycleaners. Jessie was amazed that Meggie had left without making at least one more effort to separate her from the computer screen. Then she guessed the housekeeper had known it would be a wasted effort. Best to let her get it out of her system, whatever it is, Meggie would have thought. And it was only a job to her, after all. This last thought sent a little pang through Jessies heart. A board creaked upstairs. Jessies cigarette stopped an inch shy of her lips. Hes back! Goody shrieked. Oh, Jessie, hes back! Except he wasnt. Her eyes drifted to the narrow face looking up at her from the clusters of newsprint dots and she thought I know exactly where you are, you whoredog. Dont I? She did, but part of her mind went on insisting it was him just the sameno, not him, it, the space cowboy, the specter of love, back again for a return engagement. It had only been waiting for the house to be empty, and if she picked up the phone on the corner of the desk, she would find it stone dead, just as all the phones in the house by the lake had been stone dead that night. Your friend Brandon can smile all he wants, but we know the truth, dont we, Jessie? She suddenly shot out her good hand, snatched the telephone handset from the cradle, and brought it to her ear. Heard the reassuring buzz of the dialtone. Put it back again. An odd, sunless smile played about the corners of her mouth. Yes, I know exactly where you are, motherfucker. Whatever Goody and the rest of the ladies inside my head may think, Punkin and I know youre wearing an orange jumpsuit and sitting in a County Jail cellthe one at the far end of the old wing, Brandon said, so the other inmates cant get to you and fuck you up before the state hauls you in front of a jury of your peers . . . if a thing like you has any peers. We may not be entirely free of you yet, but we will be. I promise you we will be. Her eyes drifted back to the VDT, and although the vague sleepiness brought on by the combination of the pill and the sandwich had long since dissipated, she felt a bonedeep weariness and a complete lack of belief in her ability to finish what she had started. This is the time to talk about Raymond Andrew Joubert, she had written, but was it? Could she? She was so tired. Of course she was; she had been pushing that goddamned cursor across the VDT screen almost all day. Pushing the envelope, they called it, and if you pushed the envelope long enough and hard enough, you tore it wide open. Maybe it would be best to just go upstairs and take a nap. Better late than never, and all that shit. She could file this to memory, retrieve it tomorrow morning, go back to work on it then Punkins voice stopped her. This voice came only infrequently now, and Jessie listened very carefully to it when it did. If you decide to stop now, Jessie, dont bother to file the document. Just delete it. We both know youll never have the guts to face Joubert againnot the way a person has to face a thing shes writing about. Sometimes it takes heart to write about a thing, doesnt it? To let that thing out of the room way in the back of your mind and put it up there on the screen. Yes, she murmured. A yard of heart. Maybe more. She dragged at her cigarette, then snuffed it out halfsmoked. She riffled through the clippings a final time and looked out the window at the slope of Eastern Prom. The snow had long since stopped and the sun was shining brightly, although it wouldnt be for much longer; February days in Maine are thankless, miserly things. What do you say, Punkin? Jessie asked the empty room. She spoke in the haughty Elizabeth Taylor voice she had favored as a child, the one that had driven her mother completely bonkers. Shall we carry on, my deah? There was no answer, but Jessie didnt need one. She leaned forward in her chair and set the cursor in motion once more. She didnt stop again for a long time, not even to light a cigarette. 37 This is the time to talk about Raymond Andrew Joubert. It wont be easy, but Im going to do my best. So pour yourself another cup of coffee, dear, and if youve got a bottle of brandy handy, you may want to doctor it up a bit. Here comes Part Three. I have all the newspaper clippings beside me on the desk, but the articles and news items dont tell all I know, let alone all there is to knowI doubt if anyone has the slightest idea of all the things Joubert did (including Joubert himself, I imagine), and thats probably a blessing. The stuff the papers could only hint at and the stuff that didnt make them at all is real nightmarefodder, and I wouldnt want to know all of it. Most of the stuff that isnt in the papers came to me during the last week courtesy of a strangely quiet, strangely chastened Brandon Milheron. Id asked him to come over as soon as the connections between Jouberts story and my own had become too obvious to ignore. You think this was the guy, dont you? he asked. The one who was in the house with you? Brandon, I said, I know its the guy. He sighed, looked down at his hands for a minute, then looked up at me againwe were in this very room, it was nine oclock in the morning, and there were no shadows to hide his face that time. I owe you an apology, he said. I didnt believe you then I know, I said, as kindly as I could. but I do now. Dear God. How much do you want to know, Jess? I took a deep breath and said, Everything you can find out. He wanted to know why. I mean, if you say its your business and I should butt out, I guess Ill have to accept that, but youre asking me to reopen a matter the firm considers closed. If someone who knows I was watching out for you last fall notices me sniffing around Joubert this winter, its not impossible that That you could get in trouble, I said. It was something I hadnt considered. Yes, he said, but Im not terribly concerned about thatIm a big boy, and I can take care of myself ... at least I think I can. Im a lot more concerned about you, Jess. You could wind up on the front page again, after all our work to get you off it as quickly and as painlessly as possible. Even thats not the major thingits miles from the major thing. This is the nastiest criminal case to break in northern New England since World War II. I mean some of this stuff is so gruesome its radioactive, and you shouldnt plink yourself down in the fallout zone without a damned good reason. He laughed, a little nervously. Hell, I shouldnt plink myself down there without a damned good reason. I got up, walked across to him, and took one of his hands with my left hand. I couldnt explain in a million years why, I said, but I think I can tell you what will that do, at least for a start? He folded his hand gently over mine and nodded his head. There are three things, I said. First, I need to know hes real. Second, I need to know the things he did are real. Third, I need to know Ill never wake up again with him standing in my bedroom. That brought it all back, Ruth, and I began to cry. There was nothing tricky or cafculating about those tears; they just came. Nothing I could have done would have stopped them. Please help me, Brandon, I said. Every time I turn off the light, hes standing across the room from me in the dark, and Im afraid that unless I can turn a spotlight on him, thats going to go on forever. There isnt anybody else I can ask, and I have to know. Please help me. He let go of my hand, produced a handkerchief from somewhere inside that days screamingly neat lawyers suit, and wiped my face with it. He did it as gently as my Mom used to when I came into the kitchen bawling my head off because Id skinned my kneethat was back in the early years, before I turned into the familys squeaky wheel, you understand. All right, he said at last. Ill find out everything I can, and Ill pass it all on to you . . . unless and until you tell me to stop, that is. But I have a feeling you better fasten your seatbelt. He found out quite a lot, and now Im going to pass it on to you, Ruth, but fair warning he was right about the seatbelt. If you decide to skip some of the next few pages, Ill understand. I wish I could skip writing them, but I have an idea thats also part of the therapy. The final part, I hope. This section of the storywhat I suppose I could call Brandons Talestarts back in 1984 or 1985. That was when cases of graveyard vandalism started popping up in the Lakes District of western Maine. There were similar cases reported in half a dozen small towns across the state line and into New Hampshire. Stuff like tombstonetipping, spraypaint graffiti, and stealing commemorative flags is pretty common stuff out in the willywags, and of course theres always a bunch of smashed pumpkins to swamp out of the local boneyard on November 1st, but these crimes went a lot further than pranks or petty theft. Desecration was the word Brandon used when he brought me his first report late last week, and that word had started showing up on most of the police crimereport forms by 1988. The crimes themselves seemed abnormal to the people who discovered them and to those who investigated them, but the modus operandi was sane enough; carefully organized and focused. Someone possibly two or three someones, but more likely a single personwas breaking into the crypts and mausoleums of smalltown cemeteries with the efficiency of a good burglar breaking into a house or store. He was apparently arriving at these jobs equipped with drills, a boltcutter, heavyduty hacksaws, and probably a winchBrandon says a lot of fourwheeldrive vehicles come equipped with them these days. The breaks were always aimed at the crypts and mausoleums, never at individual graves, and almost all of them came in winter, when the ground is too hard to dig in and the bodies have to be stored until the deep frost lets go. Once the perpetrator gained entry, he used the boltcutter and power drill to open the coffins. He systematically stripped the corpses of any jewelry they might have been wearing when they were interred; he used pliers to pull gold teeth and teeth with gold fillings. Those acts are despicable, but at least theyre understandable. Robbery was only where this guy got started, though. He gouged out eyes, tore off ears, cut dead throats. In February of 1989, two corpses in the Chilton Remembrance Cemetery were found without noseshe apparently knocked them off with a hammer and a chisel. The officer who caught that one told Brandon, It would have been easyit was like a deepfreeze in there, and they probably broke off like Popsicles. The real question is what does a guy do with two frozen noses once he has them? Does he put em on his keychain? Maybe sprinkle em with nacho cheese and then zap em in the microwave? What? Almost all the desecrated corpses were found minus feet and hands, sometimes also arms and legs, and in several cases the man doing this also took heads and sexorgans. Forensic evidence suggests he used an axe and a butcherknife for the gross work and a variety of scalpels for the finer stuff. He wasnt bad, either. A talented amateur, one of the Chamberlain County deputies told Brandon. I wouldnt want him working on my gallbladder, but I guess Id trust him to take a mole off my arm ... if he was full of Halcion or Prozac, that is. In a few cases he opened up the bodies andor skull cases and filled them with animal excrement. What the police saw more frequently were cases of sexual desecration. He was an equalopportunity kind of guy when it came to stealing gold teeth, jewelry, and limbs, but when it came to taking sexual equipmentand having sex with the deadhe stuck strictly to the gentlemen. This may have been extremely lucky for me. I learned a lot about the way rural police departments work during the month or so following my escape from our house by the lake, but thats nothing compared with what Ive learned in the last week or so. One of the most surprising things is how discreet and tactful smalltown cops can be. I guess when you know everybody in the area you patrol by their first names, and are related to a good many of them, discretion becomes almost as natural as breathing. The way they handled my case is one example of this strange, sophisticated discretion; the way they handled Jouberts is another. The investigation went on for seven years, remember, and a lot of people were in on it before it endedtwo State Police departments, four county sheriffs, thirtyone deputies, and God knows how many local cops and constables. It was right there at the front of their open files, and by 1989 they even had a name for himRudolph, as in Valentino. They talked about Rudolph when they were in District Court, waiting to testify on their other cases, they compared notes on Rudolph at lawenforcement seminars in Augusta and Derry and Waterville, they discussed him on their coffeebreaks. And we took him home, one of the cops told Brandonthe same guy who told him about the noses, as a matter of fact. You bet we did. Guys like us always take guys like Rudolph home.

You catch up on the latest details at backyard barbecues, maybe kick it around with a buddy from another department while youre watching your kids play Little League ball. Because you never know when youre going to put something together in a new way and hit the jackpot. But heres the really amazing part (and youre probably way ahead of me ... if youre not in the bathroom tossing your cookies, that is) for all those years all those cops knew they had a real live monstera ghoul, in factrunning around the western part of the state, and the story never surfaced in the press until Joubert was caught! In a way find that weird and a little spooky, but in a much larger way I find it wondertul. I guess the lawenforcement battle isnt going so well in a lot of the big cities, but out here in East Overshoe, whatever theyre doing still seems to work just fine. Of course you could argue that theres plenty of room for improvement when it takes seven years to catch a nut like Joubert, but Brandon clarified that for me in a hurry. He explained that the perp (they really do use that word) was operating exclusively in onehorse towns where budget shortfalls have forced the cops to deal only with the most serious and immediate problems ... which means crimes against the living rather than against the dead. The cops say there are at least two hotcar rings and four chopshops operating in the western half of the state, and those are only the ones they know about. Then there are the murderers, the wifebeaters, the robbers, the speeders, and the drunks. Above all, theres the old dopeola. It gets bought, it gets sold, it gets grown, and people keep hurting or killing each other over it. According to Brandon, the Police Chief over in Norway wont even use the word cocaine anymorehe calls it Powdered Shithead, and in his written reports he calls it Powdered Sd. I got the point he was trying to make. When youre a smalltown cop trying to ride herd on the whole freakshow in a fouryearold Plymouth cruiser that feels like its going to fall apart every time you push it over seventy, your job gets prioritized in a hurry, and a guy who likes to play with dead people is a long way from the top of the list. I listened to all this carefully, and I agreed, but not all the way. Some of it feels true, but some of it feels a little selfserving, I said. I mean, the stuff Joubert was doing . . . well, it went a little further than just playing with dead people, didnt it? Or am I wrong? Youre not wrong at all, he said. What neither of us wanted to come right out and say was that for seven years this aberrant soul had gone flitting from town to town getting blowjobs from the dead, and to me putting a stop to that seemed quite a bit more important than nabbing teenage girls whove been shoplifting cosmetics at the local drugstore or finding out whos been growing goofyweed in the woodlot behind the Baptist church. But the important thing is that no one forgot him, and everyone kept comparing notes. A perp like Rudolph makes cops uneasy for all kinds of reasons, but the major one is that a guy crazy enough to do things like that to dead people might be crazy enough to try doing them to ones that are still alive ... not that youd live very long after Rudolph decided to split your head open with his trusty axe. The police were also troubled by the missing limbswhat were those for? Brandon says an uncredited memo saying Maybe Rudolph the Lover is really Hannibal the Cannibal circulated briefly in the Oxford County Sheriffs Office. It was destroyed not because the idea was regarded as a sick joke it wasntbut because the Sheriff was afraid it might leak to the press. Whenever one of the local lawenforcement agencies could afford the men and the time, theyd stake out some boneyard or other. There are a lot of them in western Maine, and I guess it had almost become a kind of hobby to some of these guys by the time the case finally broke. The theory was just that if you keep shooting the dice long enough, youre bound to roll your point sooner or later. And that, essentially, is what finally happened. Early last weekactuaDy about ten days ago now Castle County Sheriff Norris Ridgewick and one of his deputies were parked in the doorway of an abandoned barn close to Homeland Cemetery. This is on a secondary road that runs by the back gate. It was two oclock in the morning and they were just getting ready to pack it in for the night when the deputy, John LaPointe, heard a motor. They never saw the van until it was actually pulling up to the gate because it was a snowy night and the guys headlights werent on. Deputy LaPointe wanted to take the guy as soon as they saw him get out of the van and go to work on the wroughtiron cemetery gate with a spreader, but the Sheriff restrained him. Ridgewicks a funnylooking duck, Brandon said, but he knows the value of a good bust. He never loses sight of the courtroom in the heat of the moment. He learned from Alan Pangborn, the guy who had the job before him, and that means he learned from the best. Ten minutes after the van went in through the gate, Ridgewick and LaPointe followed with their own headlights out and their unit just barely creeping along through the snow. They followed the vans tracks until they were pretty sure where the guy was goingthe town crypt set into the side of the hill. Both of them were thinking Rudolph, but neither one of them said so out loud. LaPointe said it would have been like jinxing a guy whos throwing a nohitter. Ridgewick told his deputy to stop the cruiser just around the side of the hill from the cryptsaid he wanted to give the guy all the rope he needed to hang himself. As it turned out, Rudolph ended up with enough to hang himself from the moon. When Ridgewick and LaPointe finally moved in with their guns drawn and their flashlights on, they caught Raymond Andrew Joubert half in and half out of an opened coffin. He had his axe in one hand, his cock in the other, and LaPointe said he looked ready to do business with either one. I guess Joubert scared the hell out of them both when they first saw him in their lights, and Im not a bit surprisedalthough I flatter myself that I can imagine better than most what it must have been like, coming on a creature like him in a cemetery crypt at two in the morning. All other circumstances aside, Joubert suffers from acromegaly, a progressive enlargement of the hands, feet, and face that happens when the pituitary gland goes into warpdrive. Its what caused his forehead to bulge the way it does, and his lips to pooch out. He also has abnormally long arms; they dangle all the way down to his knees. There was a big fire in Castle Rock about a year agoit burned most of the downtownand these days the Sheriff jugs most serious offenders in Chamberlain or Norway, but neither Sheriff Ridgewick nor Deputy LaPointe wanted to make the trip over snowy roads at three in the morning, so they took him back to the renovated shed theyre using as a copshop these days. They claimed it was the late hour and the snowy roads, Brandon said, but I have an idea there was a little more to it than that. I dont think Sheriff Ridgewick wanted to turn over the piata to anyone else until hed taken at least one good crack at it himself. Anyway, Joubert was no troublehe sat in the back of the cruiser, chipper as a chickadee, looking like something that had escaped from an episode of Tales from the Crypt andboth of them swear this is truesinging Happy Together, that old Turtles tune. Ridgewick radioed ahead for a couple of temp deputies to meet them. He made sure Joubert was locked up tight and the deputies were armed with shotguns and plenty of fresh coffee before he and LaPointe left again. They drove back to Homeland for the van. Ridgewick put on gloves, sat on one of those green plastic Hefty bags the cops like to call evidence blankets when they use them on a case, and ran the vehicle back to town. He drove with all the windows open and said the van still stank like a butchers shop after a sixday power failure. Ridgewick got his first good look into the back of the van when he got it under the arclights of the town garage. There were several rotting limbs in the storage compartments running along the sides. There was also a wicker box, much smaller than the one I saw, and a Craftsman toolcase full of burglars tools. When Ridgewick opened the wicker box, he found six penises strung on a length of jute twine. He said he knew it for what it was at once a necklace. Joubert later admitted that he often wore it when he went out on his graveyard expeditions, and stated his belief that if hed been wearing it on his last trip, he never would have been caught. It brung me a power of good luck, he said, and considering how long it took to catch him, Ruth, I think youd have to say he had a point. The worst thing, however, was the sandwich lying on the passenger seat. The thing poking out from between the two slices of Wonder Bread was pretty clearly a human tongue. It had been slathered with that bright yellow mustard kids like. Ridgewick managed to get out of the van before he threw up, Brandon said. Good thingthe State Police would have torn him a new asshole if hed puked on the evidence. On the other hand, Id have wanted him removed from his job for psychological reasons if he hadnt thrown up. They moved Joubert over to Chamberlain shortly after sunrise. While Ridgewick was turned around in the front seat of the cruiser, reading Joubert his rights through the mesh (it was the second or third time hed done itRidgewick is apparently nothing if not methodical), Joubert interrupted to say he might have done somefing bad to DaddyMummy, awful sorry. They had by that time established from documents in Jouberts wallet that he was living in Motton, a farming town just across the river from Chamberlain, and as soon as Joubert was safely locked up in his new quarters, Ridgewick informed officers from both Chamberlain and Motton what Joubert had told them. On the way back to Castle Rock, LaPointe asked Ridgewick what he thought the cops headed for Jouberts house might find. Ridgewick said, I dont know, but I hope they remembered to take their gas masks. A version of what they found and the conclusions they drew came out in the papers over the following days, growing as it did, of course, but the State Police and the Maine Attorney Generals Office had a pretty good picture of what had been going on in the farmhouse on Kingston Road by the time the sun went down on Jouberts first day behind bars. The couple Joubert called his DaddyMummyactuary his stepmother and her commonlaw husbandwere dead, all right. Theyd been dead for months, although Joubert continued to speak as if the somefing bad had happened only days or hours ago. He had scalped them both, and eaten most of Daddy. There were bodyparts strewn all over the house, some rotting and maggoty in spite of the cold weather, others carefully cured and preserved. Most of the cured parts were male sexorgans. On a shelf by the cellar stairs, the police found about fifty Ball jars containing eyes, lips, fingers, toes, and testicles. Joubert was quite the home canner. The house was also filledand I do mean fittedwith stolen goods, mostly from summer camps and cottages. Joubert calls them my thingsappliances, tools, gardening equipment, and enough lingerie to stock a Victorias Secret boutique. He apparently liked to wear it. The police are still trying to sort out the bodyparts that came from Jouberts graverobbing expeditions from those that came from his other activities. They believe he may have killed as many as a dozen people over the last five years, all hitchhiking drifters he picked up in his van. The total may go higher, Brandon says, but the forensic work is very slow. Joubert himself is no help, not because he wont talk but because he talks too much. According to Brandon, hes confessed to over three hundred crimes already, including the assassination of George Bush. He seems to believe Bush is actually Dana Carvey, the guy who plays The Church Lady on Saturday Night Live. Hes been in and out of various mental institutions since the age of fifteen, when he was arrested for engaging in unlawful sexual congress with his cousin. The cousin in question was two at the time. He was a victim of sex abuse himself, of coursehis father, his stepfather, and his stepmother all apparently had a go at him. What is it they used to say? The family that plays together stays together? He was sent to Gage Pointa sort of combination detox, halfway house, and mental institution for adolescents in Hancock Countyon a charge of gross sexual abuse, and released as cured four years later, at the age of nineteen. This was in 1973. He spent the second half of 1975 and most of 1976 at AMHI, in Augusta. This was as a result of Jouberts Fun with Animals Period. I know I probably shouldnt be joking about these things, Ruthyoull think Im horriblebut in truth, I dont know what else to do. I sometimes feel that if I dont joke, Ill start to cry, and that if I start to cry I wont be able to stop. He was sticking cats in trash barrels and then blowing them to pieces with the big firecrackers they call cancrushers, thats what he was doing ... and every now and then, presumably when he needed a break in the old routine, he would nail a small dog to a tree. In 79 he was sent away to Juniper Hill for raping and blinding a sixyearold boy. This time it was supposed to be for good, but when it comes to politics and staterun institutionsespeciatty staterun mental institutionsI think its fair to say that nothing is forever. He was released from Juniper Hill in 1984, once more adjudged cured. Brandon feelsand so do Ithat this second cure had more to do with cuts in the states mental health budget than with any miracle of modern science or psychiatry. At any rate, Joubert returned to Motton to live with his stepmother and her commonlaw, and the state forgot about him ... except to issue him a drivers license, that is. He took a roadtest and got a perfectly legal onein some ways I find this the most amazing fact of alland at some point in late 1984 or early 1985, he started using it to tour the local cemeteries. He was a busy boy. In the wintertime he had his crypts and mausoleums; in the fall and the spring he broke into seasonal camps and homes all over western Maine, taking anything that struck his fancymy things, you know. He apparently had a great fondness for framed photographs. They found four trunks of them in the attic of the house on Kingston Road. Brandon says they are still counting, but that the total number will probably be over seven hundred. Its impossible to say to what extent DaddyMummy participated in what was going on before Joubert did away with them. It must have been a lot, because Joubert hadnt made the slightest effort to hide what he was doing. As for the neighbors, their motto seems to be, They paid their bills and kept to themselves. Wasnt nothing to us. Its got a gruesome kind of perfection to it, wouldnt you say? New England Gothic, by way of The Journal of Aberrant Psychiatry. They found another, bigger, wicker box in the cellar. Brandon got Xeroxes of the police photos documenting this particular find, but he was hesitant about showing them to me at first. Well ... thats actually a little too mild. It was the one and only place where he gave into the temptation all men seem to feetyou know the one I mean, to play John Wayne. Come on, little lady, jest wait until we go by all them dead Injuns and keep lookin off into the desert. Ill tell you when were past. Im willing to accept that Joubert was probably in the house with you, he said. Id have to be a goddam ostrich with my head stuck in the sand not to at least entertain the idea; everything fits. But answer me this why are you going on with it, Jessie? What possible good can it do? I didnt know how to answer that, Ruth, but I did know one thing there was nothing I could do that would make things any worse than they already were. So I hung tough until Brandon realized the little lady wasnt going to get back into the stagecoach until she had gotten her look at the dead Injuns. So I saw the pictures. The one I looked at the longest had a little sign saying STATE POLICE EXHIBIT 217 propped up in the corner. Looking at it was like looking at a videotape someone has somehow made of your worst nightmare. The photo showed a square wicker basket standing open so the photographer could shoot the contents, which happened to be heaps of bones with a wild collection of jewelry mixed in some trumpery, some valuable, some stolen from summer homes and some doubtless stripped from the cold hands of corpses kept in smalltown coldstorage. I looked at that picture, so glaring and somehow bald, as police evidence photographs always are, and I was back in the lake house againit happened right away, with no lag whatsoever. Not remembering, do you understand? Im there, handcuffed and helpless, watching the shadows fly across his grinning face, hearing myself telling him that he is scaring me. And then he bends over to get the box, those feverish eyes never leaving my face, and I see himI see itreaching in with its twisted, misshapen hand, I see that hand starting to stir up the bones and jewels, and I hear the sounds they make, like dirty castanets. And do you know what haunts me most of all? I thought it was my father, that was my Daddy, come back from the dead to do what hed wanted to do before. Go ahead, I told him. Go ahead, but promise youll unlock me and let me out afterward. Just promise me that. I think I would have said the same if Id known who he really was, Ruth. Think? I know I would have said the same. Do you understand? I would have let him put his cockthe cock he stuck down the rotting throats of dead meninto me, if only he would have promised me I didnt have to die the dogs death of musclecramps and convulsions that was waiting for me. If only he would have promised to SET ME FREE. Jessie stopped for a moment, breathing so hard and fast she was almost panting. She looked at the words on the screenthe unbelievable, unspeakable admission on the screenand felt a sudden strong urge to delete them. Not because she was ashamed for Ruth to read them; she was, but that wasnt it. What she didnt want to do was deal with them, and she supposed that if she didnt delete them, she would have to do just that. Words had a way of creating their own imperatives. Not until theyre out of your hands, they dont, Jessie thought, and reached out with the blackclad index finger of her right hand. She touched the DELETE buttonstroked it, actuaryand then drew back. It was the truth, wasnt it? Yes, she said in the same muttery voice shed used so often during her hours of captivityonly at least now it wasnt Goody or the mindRuth she was talking to; she had gotten back to herself without having to go all the way around Robin Hoods barn to do it. That was maybe progress of a sort. Yes, its the truth, all right. And nothing but, so help her God. She wouldnt use the DELETE button on the truth, no matter how nasty some peopleincluding herself, as a matter of factmight find that truth to be. She would let it stand. She might decide not to send the letter after all (didnt know if it was even fair to send it, to burden a woman she hadnt seen in years with this ration of pain and madness), but she would not delete it. Which meant it would be best to finish now, in a rush, before the last of her courage deserted her and the last of her strength ran out. Jessie leaned forward and began typing again. Brandon said, Theres one thing youre going to have to remember and accept, Jessietheres no concrete proof. Yes, I know your rings are gone, but about them you could have been right the first timesome lightfingered cop could have taken them. What about Exhibit 217? I asked. The wicker box? He shrugged, and I had one of those sudden bursts of understanding the poets call epiphanies. He was holding onto the possibility that the wicker box had just been a coincidence. That wasnt easy, but it was easier than having to accept all the restmost of all the fact that a monster like Joubert could actually touch the life of someone he knew and liked. What I saw in Brandon Milherons face that day was perfectly simple he was going to ignore a whole stack of circumstantial evidence and concentrate on the lack of concrete evidence. He was going to hold onto the idea that the whole thing was simply my imagination, seizing on the Joubert case to explain a particularly vivid hallucination Id had while I was handcuffed to the bed. And that insight was followed by a second one, an even clearer one that I could do it, too. I could come to believe I had been wrong . . . but if I succeeded in doing that, my life would be ruined. The voices would start to come backnot just yours or Punkins or Nora Callighans, but my mothers and my sisters and my brothers and kids I chummed with in high school and people I met for ten minutes in doctors offices and God alone knows how many others. I think that most of them would be those scary UFO voices. I couldnt bear that, Ruth, because in the two months after my hard time in the house by the lake, I remembered a lot of things I had spent a lot of years repressing. I think the most important of those memories came to the surface between the first operation on my hand and the second, when I was on medication (this is the technical hospital term for stoned out of your gourd) almost all the time. The memory was this in the two years or so between the day of the eclipse and the day of my brother Wills birthday partythe one where he goosed me during the croquet gameI heard all those voices almost constantly. Maybe Wills goosing me acted as some kind of rough, accidental therapy. I suppose its possible; dont they say that our ancestors invented cooking after eating what forest fires left behind? Although if some serendipitous therapy took place that day, I have an idea that it didnt come with the goose but when I hauled off and pounded Will one in the mouth for doing it ... and at this point none of that matters. What matters is that, following that day on the deck, I spent two years sharing space in my head with a kind of whispering choir, dozens of voices that passed judgment on my every word and action. Some were kind and supportive, but most were the voices of people who were afraid, people who were confused, people who thought Jessie was a worthless little baggage who deserved every bad thing that happened to her and who would have to pay double for every good thing. For two years I heard those voices, Ruth, and when they stopped, I forgot them. Not a little at a time, but all at once. How could a thing like that happen? I dont know, and in a very real sense, I dont care. I might if the change had made things worse, I suppose, but it didntit made them immeasurably better. I spent the two years between the eclipse and the birthday party in a kind of fugue state, with my conscious mind shattered into a lot of squabbling fragments, and the real epiphany was this if I let nice, kind Brandon Milheron have his way, Id end up right back where startedheaded down Nuthouse Lane by way of Schizophrenia Boulevard. And this time theres no little brother around to administer crude shock therapy; this time I have to do it myself, just as I had to get out of Geralds goddam handcuffs myself. Brandon was watching me, trying to gauge the result of what hed said. He must not have been able to, because he said it again, this time in a slightly different way. You have to remember that, no matter how it looks, you could be wrong. And I think you have to resign yourself to the fact that youre never going to know, one way or the other, for sure. No, I dont. He raised his eyebrows. Theres still an excellent chance that I can find out for sure. And youre going to help me, Brandon. He was starting to smile that lessthanpleasant smile again, the one I bet he doesnt even know is in his repertoire, the one that says you cant live with em and you cant shoot em. Oh? And how am I going to do that? By taking me to see Joubert, I said. Oh, no, he said Thats the one thing I absolutely will notcan notdo, Jessie. Ill spare you the hour of roundandround which followed, a conversation that degenerated at one point to such intellectually profound statements as Youre crazy, Jess and Quit trying to run my life, Brandon. I thought of waving the cudgel of the press in front of himit was the one thing I was almost sure would make him cave inbut in the end, I didnt have to. All I had to do was cry. In a way it makes me feel unbelievably sleazy to write that, but in another way it does not; in another way I recognize it as just another symptom of whats wrong between the fellers and the girls in this particular squaredance. He didnt entirely believe I was serious until I started to cry, you see. To make a long story at least a little shorter, he got on the telephone, made four or five quick calls, and then came back with the news that Joubert was going to be arraigned the following day in Cumberland County District Court on a number of subsidiary chargesmostty theft. He said that if I was really seriousand if I had a hat with a veilhed take me. I agreed at once, and although Brandons face said he believed he was making one of the biggest mistakes of his life, he stuck by his word. Jessie paused again, and when she began to type once more she did so slowly, looking through the screen to yesterday, when last nights six inches of snow had still been just a smooth white threat in the sky. She saw blue flashers on the road ahead, felt Brandons blue Beamer slowing down. We got to the hearing late because there was an overturned trailer truck on 1295thats the city bypass. Brandon didnt say so, but I know he was hoping wed get there too late, that Joubert would already have been taken back to his cell at the end of the County Jails maximumsecurity wing, but the guard at the courthouse door said the hearing was still going on, although finishing up. As Brandon opened the door for me, he leaned close to my ear and murmured Put the veil down, Jessie, and keep it down. I lowered it and Brandon put a hand on my waist and led me inside. The courtroom . . . Jessie stopped, looking out the window into the darkening afternoon with eyes that were wide and gray and blank. Remembering. 38 The courtroom is illuminated by the sort of hanging glass globes Jessie associates with the fiveanddime stores of her youth, and it is as sleepy as a grammar school classroom at the end of a winter day. As she walks forward down the aisle, she is aware of two sensationsBrandons hand, still on the incurve of her waist, and the veil tickling against her cheeks like cobwebs. These two sensations combine to make her feel strangely bridal. Two lawyers stand before the judges bench. The judge is leaning forward, looking down into their upturned faces, the three of them lost in some murmuring, technical conversation. To Jessie they look like a reallife recreation of a Boz sketch from some Charles Dickens novel. The bailiff stands to the left, next to the American flag. Near him, the court stenographer is waiting for the current legal discussion, from which she has apparently been excluded, to be over. And, sitting at a long table on the far side of the rail which divides the room between the area set aside for the spectators and that which belongs to the combatants, is a skinny, impossibly tall figure clad in a brightorange jailhouse overall. Next to him is a man in a suit, surely another lawyer. The man in the orange jumpsuit is hunched over a yellow legal pad, apparently writing something. From a million miles away, Jessie feels Brandon Milherons hand press more insistently against her waist. This is close enough, he murmurs. She moves away from him. Hes wrong; its not close enough. Brandon doesnt have the slightest idea of what shes thinking or feeling, but thats okay; she knows. For the time being, all her voices have become one voice; she is basking in unexpected unanimity, and what she knows is this if she doesnt get closer to him now, if she doesnt get just as close as she can, he will never be far enough away. He will always be in the closet, or just outside the window, or hiding under the bed at midnight, grinning his pallid, wrinkled grinthe one that shows the glimmers of gold far back in his mouth. She steps quickly up the aisle toward the rail divider with the gauzy stuff of the veil touching her cheeks like tiny, concerned fingers. She can hear Brandon grumbling unhappily, but the sound is coming from at least ten lightyears away. Closer (but still on the next continent), one of the lawyers standing before the bench is muttering, . . . feel the State has been intransigent in this matter, your honor, and if youll just look at our citationsmost notably Castonguay vs. Hollis . . . Closer still, and now the bailiff glances up at her, suspicious for a moment, then relaxing as Jessie raises her veil and smiles at him. Still holding her eye with his own, the bailiff jerks his thumb toward Joubert and gives his head a minute shake, a gesture which she can, in her heightened emotional and perceptual state, read as easily as a tabloid headline Stay away from the tiger, maam. Dont get within reach of his claws. Then he relaxes even more as he sees Brandon catch up with her, a parfit gentle knight if ever there was one, but he clearly does not hear Brandons low growl Put the veil down, Jessie, or I will, goddammit! She not only refuses to do what he says, she refuses to even glance his way. She knows his threat is empty he will not cause a scene in these hallowed surroundings and will do almost anything to avoid being dragged into onebut it would not matter even if it werent. She likes Brandon, she honestly does, but her days of doing things simply because its a man doing the telling are over. She is only peripherally aware that Brandon is hissing at her, that the judge is still conferring with the defense lawyer and the County Prosecutor, that the bailiff has lapsed back into his semicoma, his face dreamy and distant. Jessies own face is frozen in the pleasant smile which disarmed the bailiff, but her heart is pounding furiously in her chest. She has now come within two steps of the railtwo short stepsand sees she was wrong about what Joubert is doing. He is not writing, after all. He is drawing. His picture shows a man with an erect penis roughly the size of a baseball bat. The man in the picture has his head down, and he is fellating himself. She can see the picture perfectly well, but she can still see only a small pale slice of the artists cheek and the dank clots of hair which dangle against it. Jessie, you cant Brandon begins, grabbing at her arm. She snatches it away without looking back; all her attention is now fixed on Joubert. Hey! she stagewhispers at him. Hey, you! Nothing, at least not yet. She is swept by a feeling of unreality. Can it be she, doing this? Can it really? And for that matter, is she doing it? No one seems to be noticing her, no one at all. Hey! Asshole! Louder now, angrystill a whisper, but only just barely. Pssst! Pssst! Hey, Im talking to you! Now the judge looks up, frowning, so she is getting through to somebody, it seems. Brandon makes a groaning, despairing sound and clamps a hand on her shoulder.

She would have yanked away from him if he had tried to pull her backward down the aisle, even if it meant ripping off the top half of her dress in the process, and perhaps Brandon knows this, because he only forces her to sit down on the empty bench just behind the defense table (all the benches are empty; this is technically a closed hearing), and at that moment, Raymond Andrew Joubert finally turns around. His grotesque asteroid of a face, with its swollen, poochy lips, its knifeblade of a nose, and its bulging bulb of a forehead, is totally vacant, totally incurious ... but it is the face, she knows it at once, and the powerful feeling which fills her is mostly not horror. Mostly it is relief. Then, all at once, Jouberts face lights up. Color stains his narrow cheeks like a rash, and the redrimmed eyes take on a hideous sparkle she has seen before. They stare at her now as they stared at her in the house on Kashwakamak Lake, with the exalted raptness of the irredeemable lunatic, and she is held, hypnotized, by the awful rise of recognition she sees in his eyes. Mr. Milheron? the judge is asking sharply from some other universe. Mr. Milheron, can you tell me what youre doing here and who this woman is? Raymond Andrew Joubert is gone; this is the space cowboy, the specter of love. Its oversized lips wrinkle back once more, revealing its teeththe stained, unlovely, and completely serviceable teeth of a wild animal. She sees the glimmer of gold like feral eyes far back in a cave. And slowly, oh so slowly, the nightmare comes to life and begins to move; slowly the nightmare begins to raise its freakishly long orange arms. Mr. Milheron, I would like you and your uninvited guest to approach the bench, and immediately! The bailiff, alerted by the whiplash in that tone, snaps out of his daze. The stenographer looks around. Jessie thinks Brandon takes her arm, meaning to make her comply with the judges order, but she cannot say for sure, and it doesnt matter in any case, because she cannot move; she might as well be planted waistdeep in a plug of cement. It is the eclipse again, of course; the total, final eclipse. After all these years, the stars are once again shining in the daytime. They are shining inside her head. She sits there and watches as the grinning creature in the orange overall raises its misshapen arms, still holding her with its muddy, redrimmed gaze. It raises its arms until its long, narrow hands hang in the air about a foot from each of its pale ears. The mimicry is horribly effective she can almost see the bedposts as the thing in the orange jumpsuit first revolves those splayed, longfingered hands ... and then shakes them back and forth, as if they are being held by restraints which only he and the woman in the turnedback veil can see. The voice that comes out of its grinning mouth is a bizarre contrast to the gross overdevelopment of the face from which it drifts; it is a reedy, whining voice, the voice of an insane child. I dont think youre anyone! Raymond Andrew Joubert pipes up in that childish, wavering voice. It cuts through the stale, overheated air of the courtroom like a bright blade. Youre only made of moonlight! And then it begins to laugh. It shakes its hideous hands back and forth within manacles only the two of them can see, and it laughs ... laughs ... laughs. 39 Jessie reached for her cigarettes, but succeeded only in knocking them all over the floor. She turned to the keyboard and the VDT again, without making any attempt to pick them up. I felt myself going insane, Ruthand I mean I really felt it happening. Then I heard some voice inside me. Punkin, I think; Punkin who showed me how to get out of the handcuffs in the first place and got me moving when Goody tried to interfereGoody with her wistful, counterfeit logic. Punkin, God bless her. Dont you give it the satisfaction, Jessie! she said. And dont you let Brandon pull you away until you do what you have to do! He was trying, too. He had both hands on my shoulders and was pulling on me as if I were a tugofwar rope, and the judge was hammering away with his gavel and the bailiff was running over and I knew I only had that one last second to do something that would matter, that would make a difference, that would show me that no eclipse lasts forever, so I ... So she had leaned forward and spit into his face. 40 And now she leaned back suddenly in her desk chair, put her hands over her eyes, and began to weep. She wept for almost ten minutesgreat noisy shaking sobs in the deserted houseand then she began to type again. She stopped frequently to swipe her arm across her streaming eyes, trying to clear her blurred vision. After awhile she began to get ahead of the tears. ... so I leaned forward and spit in his face, only it wasnt just spit; I hit him with a really fine gobber. I dont think he even noticed, but thats all right. It wasnt him I did it for, was it? I will have to pay a fine for the privilege and Brandon says it will probably be a hefty one, but Brandon himself got out from under with only a reprimand, and thats a hell of a lot more important to me than any fine I might have to pay, since I more or less twisted his arm up behind his back and then lockstepped him to the hearing. And I guess thats it. Finally it. I think Im really going to mail this, Ruth, and then Im going to spend the next couple of weeks sweating out your reply. I treated you shabbily all those years ago, and while it wasnt strictly my fautttve only come to realize lately how often and how much we are moved by others, even when we are priding ourselves on our control and selfretianceI still want to say Im sorry. And I want to tell you something else, something Im really starting to believe Im going to be okay. Not today, not tomorrow, and not next week, but eventually. As okay as we mortals are privileged to get, anyway. Its good to know thatgood to know that survival is still an option, and that sometimes it even feels good. That sometimes it actually feels like victory. I love you, dear Ruth. You and your tough talk were a big part of saving my life last October, even though you didnt know it. I love you so much. Your old friend, Jessie P.S. Please write me. Better yet, call ... please? J Ten minutes later she laid her letter, printed and sealed within a manila envelope (it had proven too bulky for an ordinary businesslength envelope), on the table in the front hall. She had gotten Ruths address from Carol Rittenhousean address, anywayand had written it on the envelope in the careful, straggly letters which were all she could make with her left hand. Beside it, she put a note carefully written in the same straggly letters. Meggie Please mail this. If I should call downstairs and ask you not to, please agree ... and then mail it anyway. She went to the window in the parlor and stood there for awhile before going upstairs, looking out over the Bay. It was starting to get dark. For the first time in a long time, this simple realization didnt fill her with terror. Oh, what the fuck, she told the empty house. Bring on the night. Then she turned and slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor. When Megan Landis came back from running her errands an hour later and saw the letter on the table in the front hall, Jessie was deeply asleep beneath two down comforters in the upstairs guest room ... which she now called her room. For the first time in months her dreams were not unpleasant, and a tiny cats smile curled the corners of her mouth. When a cold February wind blew beneath the eaves and moaned in the chimney, she burrowed deeper beneath the comforters ... but that small, wise smile did not fade. November 16, 1991 Bangor, Maine SIGNET Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Viking edition. First Signet Printing, July 1993 Copyright Stephen King, 1992 Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following copyrighted works Can I Get a Witness, by Eddie Holland, Brian Holland, and Lamont Dozier. Published by Stone Agate Music, copyright 1963. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Space Cowboy, lyrics and music by Steve Miller and Ben Sidran, copyright Sailor Music, 1969. All rights reserved. Used by permission. The Talkin Blues, words and music by Woody Guthrie. TRO, copyright Ludlow Music, Inc., New York, New York, 1988. Used by permission. Come now, my child, from But Even So, by Kenneth Patchen, copyright Kenneth Patchen, 1968. REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. eISBN 9781101138151 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or thirdparty Web sites or their content. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated httpus.penguingroup.com This book is dedicated, with love and admiration, to six good women Margaret Spruce Morehouse Catherine Spruce Graves Stephanie Spruce Leonard Anne Spruce Labree Tabitba Spruce King Marcella Spruce A Different Kind of Bedtime Story ... GERALDS GAME On a warm weekday in October, in the lovely summer home of Gerald and Jessie Burlingame, a game is about to begin. Its a game to be played between husband and wife, and a game that has Jessie being innocently handcuffed to the bedposts. Then, in one horrible, violent act, Gerald is dead and Jessiewell, shes alone and still chained to the bed. But Jessies about to have company that goes beyond all of her worst nightmares. Stunning ... hairy ... I was scared to death ... but I read on avidly.... I had to know what would happen. Cosmopolitan STEPHEN KING FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT Chilling. Milwaukee Journal GERALDS GAME Terrific. USA Today IT Mesmerizing. Washington Post Book World MISERY Wonderful. Houston Chronicle NEEDFUL THINGS Demonic Kirkus Reviews NIGHT SHIFT Macabre. Dallas TimesHerald PET SEMATARY Unrelenting. Pittsburgh Press SALEMS LOT Tremendous. Kirkus Reviews THE SHINING Spellbinding. Pittsburgh Press SKELETON CREW Diabolical. Associated Press THE STAND Great New York Times Book Review THINNER Extraordinary. Booklist THE TOMMYKNOCKERS Marvelous. Boston Globe WORKS BY STEPHEN KING NOVELS Carrie Salems Lot The Shining The Stand The Dead Zone Firestarter Cujo THE DARK TOWER I The Gunslinger Christine Pet Sematary Cycle of the Werewolf The Talisman (with Peter Straub) It The Eyes of the Dragon Misery The Tommyknockers THE DARK TOWER II The Drawing of the Three THE DARK TOWER III The Waste Lands The Dark Half Needful Things Geralds Game Dolores Claiborne Insomnia Rose Madder Desperation The Green Mile THE DARK TOWER IV Wizard and Glass Bag of Bones Hearts in Atlantis The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon Dreamcatcher Black House (with Peter Straub) From a Buick 8 AS RICHARD RACHMAN The Long Walk Roadwork The Running Man Thinner The Regulators COLLECTIONS Night Shift Different Seasons Skeleton Crew Four Past Midnight Nightmares and Dreamscapes Everythings Eventual NONFICTION Danse Macabre On Writing SCREENPLAYS Creepshow Cats Eye Silver Bullet Maximum Overdrive Pet Sematary Golden Years Sleepwalkers The Stand The Shining Rose Red Storm of the Century [Sadie] gathered herself together. No one could describe the scorn of her expression or the contemptuous hatred she put into her answer. You men! You filthy dirty pigs! Youre all the same, all of you. Pigs! Pigs! W. Somerset Maugham, Rain TOTAL ECLIPSE of the sun SATURDAY July 20, 1963 Contents Title Page Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Copyright Page

THE TALISMAN Stephen King Peter Straub BALLANTINE BOOKS NEW YORK CONTENTS Title Page Dedication Quotes PART I JACK LIGHTS OUT 1 The Alhambra Inn and Gardens 2 The Funnel Opens 3 Speedy Parker 4 Jack Goes Over 5 Jack and Lily INTERLUDE Sloat in This World (I) PART II THE ROAD OF TRIALS 6 The Queens Pavillion 7 Farren 8 The Oatley Tunnel 9 Jack in the Pitcher Plant 10 Elroy 11 The Death of Jerry Bledsoe 12 Jack Goes to the Market 13 The Men in the Sky 14 Buddy Parkins 15 Snowball Sings 16 Wolf INTERLUDE Sloat in This World (II) 17 Wolf and the Herd 18 Wolf Goes to the Movies 19 Jack in the Box PART III A COLLISION OF WORLDS 20 Taken by the Law 21 The Sunlight Home 22 The Sermon 23 Ferd Janklow 24 Jack Names the Planets 25 Jack and Wolf Go to Hell 26 Wolf in the Box 27 Jack Lights Out Again 28 Jacks Dream 29 Richard at Thayer 30 Thayer Gets Weird 31 Thayer Goes to Hell 32 Send Out Your Passenger! 33 Richard in the Dark INTERLUDE Sloat in This World Orris in the Territories (III) PART IV THE TALISMAN 34 Anders INTERLUDE Sloat in This World (IV) 35 The Blasted Lands 36 Jack and Richard Go to War 37 Richard Remembers 38 The End of the Road 39 Point Venuti 40 Speedy on the Beach INTERLUDE Sloat in This World (V) 41 The Black Hotel 42 Jack and the Talisman 43 News From Everywhere 44 The Earthquake 45 In Which Many Things are Resolved on the Beach 46 Another Journey 47 Journeys End Epilogue Conclusion Copyright Page Acknowledgments Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint copyrighted material Bourne Co. Music Publishers Portions of lyrics from Whos Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, by Frank E. Churchill and Ann Ronell. Copyright 1933 by Bourne Co. Copyright renewed. Bourne Co. Music Publishers and Callicoon Music Portions of lyrics from When the Red, Red Robin Goes BobBobBobbing Along, music and lyrics by Harry Woods. Copyright 1926 by Bourne Co. and Callicoon Music. Copyright renewed. CBS Songs, A Division of CBS, Inc. Portions of lyrics from Reuben James, by Barry Etris and Alex Harvey. Copyright 1969 by UNART MUSIC CORPORATION. Rights assigned to CBS CATALOGUE PARTNERSHIP. All rights controlled and administered by CBS UNART CATALOG INC. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. An excerpt from The Wizard of Oz, lyric by E. Y. Harburg, music by Harold Arlen. Copyright 1938, renewed 1966, MetroGoldwynMayer Inc. Copyright 1939, renewed 1967 by Leo Feist, Inc. Rights assigned to CBS CATALOGUE PARTNERSHIP. All rights controlled and administered by CBS FEIST CATALOG INC. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Hudson Bay Music, Inc. Portions of lyrics from Long Line Rider (Bobby Darin). Copyright 1968 by Alley Music Corporation and Trio Music Company, Inc. All rights administered by Hudson Bay Music, Inc. All rights reserved. Jondora Music Portions of lyrics from Run Through the Jungle, by John Fogarty. Copyright 1973 by Jondora Music, courtesy Fantasy, Inc., Berkeley, California. Sanga Music Inc. Portions of lyrics from Gotta Travel On, by Paul Clayton, David Lazar, Larry Ehrlich, and Tom Six. Copyright 1958, 1960 by Sanga Music Inc. All rights reserved. This book is for RUTH KING ELVENA STRAUB Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop, we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks, may be; and stars over us was sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and awful still and grand. MARK TWAIN, Huckleberry Finn My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was dogtired. MARK TWAIN, Huckleberry Finn ONE JACK LIGHTS OUT 1 The Alhambra Inn and Gardens 1 On September 15th, 1981, a boy named Jack Sawyer stood where the water and land come together, hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking out at the steady Atlantic. He was twelve years old and tall for his age. The seabreeze swept back his brown hair, probably too long, from a fine, clear brow. He stood there, filled with the confused and painful emotions he had lived with for the last three monthssince the time when his mother had closed their house on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles and, in a flurry of furniture, checks, and realestate agents, rented an apartment on Central Park West. From that apartment they had fled to this quiet resort on New Hampshires tiny seacoast. Order and regularity had disappeared from Jacks world. His life seemed as shifting, as uncontrolled, as the heaving water before him. His mother was moving him through the world, twitching him from place to place; but what moved his mother? His mother was running, running. Jack turned around, looking up the empty beach first to the left, then to the right. To the left was Arcadia Funworld, an amusement park that ran all racket and roar from Memorial Day to Labor Day. It stood empty and still now, a heart between beats. The roller coaster was a scaffold against that featureless, overcast sky, the uprights and angled supports like strokes done in charcoal. Down there was his new friend, Speedy Parker, but the boy could not think about Speedy Parker now. To the right was the Alhambra Inn and Gardens, and that was where the boys thoughts relentlessly took him. On the day of their arrival Jack had momentarily thought hed seen a rainbow over its dormered and gambreled roof. A sign of sorts, a promise of better things. But there had been no rainbow. A weathervane spun rightleft, leftright, caught in a crosswind. He had got out of their rented car, ignoring his mothers unspoken desire for him to do something about the luggage, and looked up. Above the spinning brass cock of the weathervane hung only a blank sky. Open the trunk and get the bags, sonny boy, his mother had called to him. This brokendown old actress wants to check in and hunt down a drink. An elementary martini, Jack had said. Youre not so old, you were supposed to say. She was pushing herself effortfully off the carseat. Youre not so old. She gleamed at hima glimpse of the old, gotohell Lily Cavanaugh (Sawyer), queen of two decades worth of B movies. She straightened her back. Its going to be okay here, Jacky, she had said. Everythings going to be okay here. This is a good place. A seagull drifted over the roof of the hotel, and for a second Jack had the disquieting sensation that the weathervane had taken flight. Well get away from the phone calls for a while, right? Sure, Jack had said. She wanted to hide from Uncle Morgan, she wanted no more wrangles with her dead husbands business partner, she wanted to crawl into bed with an elementary martini and hoist the covers over her head. . . . Mom, whats wrong with you? There was too much death, the world was halfmade of death. The gull cried out overhead. Andelay, kid, andelay, his mother had said. Lets get into the Great Good Place. Then, Jack had thought At least theres always Uncle Tommy to help out in case things get really hairy. But Uncle Tommy was already dead; it was just that the news was still on the other end of a lot of telephone wires. 2 The Alhambra hung out over the water, a great Victorian pile on gigantic granite blocks which seemed to merge almost seamlessly with the low headlanda jutting collarbone of granite here on the few scant miles of New Hampshire seacoast. The formal gardens on its landward side were barely visible from Jacks beachfront anglea dark green flip of hedge, that was all. The brass cock stood against the sky, quartering west by northwest. A plaque in the lobby announced that it was here, in 1838, that the Northern Methodist Conference had held the first of the great New England abolition rallies. Daniel Webster had spoken at fiery, inspired length. According to the plaque, Webster had said From this day forward, know that slavery as an American institution has begun to sicken and must soon die in all our states and territorial lands. 3 So they had arrived, on that day last week which had ended the turmoil of their months in New York. In Arcadia Beach there were no lawyers employed by Morgan Sloat popping out of cars and waving papers which had to be signed, had to be filed, Mrs. Sawyer. In Arcadia Beach the telephones did not ring out from noon until three in the morning (Uncle Morgan appeared to forget that residents of Central Park West were not on California time). In fact the telephones in Arcadia Beach rang not at all. On the way into the little resort town, his mother driving with squintyeyed concentration, Jack had seen only one person on the streetsa mad old man desultorily pushing an empty shopping cart along a sidewalk. Above them was that blank gray sky, an uncomfortable sky. In total contrast to New York, here there was only the steady sound of the wind, hooting up deserted streets that looked much too wide with no traffic to fill them. Here were empty shops with signs in the windows saying OPEN WEEKENDS ONLY or, even worse, SEE YOU IN JUNE! There were a hundred empty parking places on the street before the Alhambra, empty tables in the Arcadia Tea and Jam Shoppe next door. And shabbycrazy old men pushed shopping carts along deserted streets. I spent the happiest three weeks of my life in this funny little place, Lily told him, driving past the old man (who turned, Jack saw, to look after them with frightened suspicionhe was mouthing something but Jack could not tell what it was) and then swinging the car up the curved drive through the front gardens of the hotel. For that was why they had bundled everything they could not live without into suitcases and satchels and plastic shopping bags, turned the key in the lock on the apartment door (ignoring the shrill ringing of the telephone, which seemed to penetrate that same keyhole and pursue them down the hall); that was why they had filled the trunk and back seat of the rented car with all their overflowing boxes and bags and spent hours crawling north along the Henry Hudson Parkway, then many more hours pounding up I95because Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer had once been happy here. In 1968, the year before Jacks birth, Lily had been nominated for an Academy Award for her role in a picture called Blaze. Blaze was a better movie than most of Lilys, and in it she had been able to demonstrate a much richer talent than her usual badgirl roles had revealed. Nobody expected Lily to win, least of all Lily; but for Lily the customary clich about the real honor being in the nomination was honest truthshe did feel honored, deeply and genuinely, and to celebrate this one moment of real professional recognition, Phil Sawyer had wisely taken her for three weeks to the Alhambra Inn and Gardens, on the other side of the continent, where they had watched the Oscars while drinking champagne in bed. (If Jack had been older, and had he had an occasion to care, he might have done the necessary subtraction and discovered that the Alhambra had been the place of his essential beginning.) When the Supporting Actress nominations were read, according to family legend, Lily had growled to Phil, If I win this thing and Im not there, Ill do the Monkey on your chest in my stiletto heels. But when Ruth Gordon had won, Lily had said, Sure, she deserves it, shes a great kid. And had immediately poked her husband in the middle of the chest and said, Youd better get me another part like that, you bigshot agent you. There had been no more parts like that. Lilys last role, two years after Phils death, had been that of a cynical exprostitute in a film called Motorcycle Maniacs. It was that period Lily was commemorating now, Jack knew as he hauled the baggage out of the trunk and the back seat. A D Agostino bag had torn right down through the big DAG, and a jumble of rolledup socks, loose photographs, chessmen and the board, and comic books had dribbled over all else in the trunk. Jack managed to get most of this stuff into other bags. Lily was moving slowly up the hotel steps, pulling herself along on the railing like an old lady. Ill find the bellhop, she said without turning around. Jack straightened up from the bulging bags and looked again at the sky where he was sure he had seen a rainbow. There was no rainbow, only that uncomfortable, shifting sky. Then Come to me, someone said behind him in a small and perfectly audible voice. What? he asked, turning around. The empty gardens and drive stretched out before him. Yes? his mother said. She looked cricklebacked, leaning over the knob of the great wooden door. Mistake, he said. There had been no voice, no rainbow. He forgot both and looked up at his mother, who was struggling with the vast door. Hold on, Ill help, he called, and trotted up the steps, awkwardly carrying a big suitcase and a straining paper bag filled with sweaters. 4 Until he met Speedy Parker, Jack had moved through the days at the hotel as unconscious of the passage of time as a sleeping dog. His entire life seemed almost dreamlike to him during these days, full of shadows and inexplicable transitions. Even the terrible news about Uncle Tommy which had come down the telephone wires the night before had not entirely awakened him, as shocking as it had been. If Jack had been a mystic, he might have thought that other forces had taken him over and were manipulating his mothers life and his own. Jack Sawyer at twelve was a being who required things to do, and the noiseless passivity of these days, after the hubbub of Manhattan, had confused and undone him in some basic way. Jack had found himself standing on the beach with no recollection of having gone there, no idea of what he was doing there at all. He supposed he was mourning Uncle Tommy, but it was as though his mind had gone to sleep, leaving his body to fend for itself. He could not concentrate long enough to grasp the plots of the sitcoms he and Lily watched at night, much less keep the nuances of fiction in his head. Youre tired from all this moving around, his mother said, dragging deeply on a cigarette and squinting at him through the smoke. All you have to do, JackO, is relax for a little while. This is a good place. Lets enjoy it as long as we can. Bob Newhart, before them in a slightly tooreddish color on the set, bemusedly regarded a shoe he held in his right hand. Thats what Im doing, Jacky. She smiled at him. Relaxing and enjoying it. He peeked at his watch. Two hours had passed while they sat in front of the television, and he could not remember anything that had preceded this program. Jack was getting up to go to bed when the phone rang. Good old Uncle Morgan Sloat had found them. Uncle Morgans news was never very great, but this was apparently a blockbuster even by Uncle Morgans standards. Jack stood in the middle of the room, watching as his mothers face grew paler, palest. Her hand crept to her throat, where new lines had appeared over the last few months, and pressed lightly. She said barely a word until the end, when she whispered, Thank you, Morgan, and hung up. She had turned to Jack then, looking older and sicker than ever. Got to be tough now, Jacky, all right? He hadnt felt tough. She took his hand then and told him. Uncle Tommy was killed in a hitandrun accident this afternoon, Jack. He gasped, feeling as if the wind had been torn out of him. He was crossing La Cienega Boulevard and a van hit him. There was a witness who said it was black, and that the words WILD CHILD were written on the side, but that was . . . was all. Lily began to cry. A moment later, almost surprised, Jack began to cry as well. All of that had happened three days ago, and to Jack it seemed forever. 5 On September 15th, 1981, a boy named Jack Sawyer stood looking out at the steady water as he stood on an unmarked beach before a hotel that looked like a castle in a Sir Walter Scott novel. He wanted to cry but was unable to release his tears. He was surrounded by death, death made up half the world, there were no rainbows. The WILD CHILD van had subtracted Uncle Tommy from the world. Uncle Tommy, dead in L.A., too far from the east coast, where even a kid like Jack knew he really belonged. A man who felt he had to put on a tie before going out to get a roast beef sandwich at Arbys had no business on the west coast at all. His father was dead, Uncle Tommy was dead, his mother might be dying. He felt death here, too, at Arcadia Beach, where it spoke through telephones in Uncle Morgans voice. It was nothing as cheap or obvious as the melancholy feel of a resort in the offseason, where one kept stumbling over the Ghosts of Summers Past; it seemed to be in the texture of things, a smell on the ocean breeze. He was scared . . . and he had been scared for a long time. Being here, where it was so quiet, had only helped him to realize ithad helped him to realize that maybe Death had driven all the way up I95 from New York, squinting out through cigarette smoke and asking him to find some bop on the car radio. He could remembervaguelyhis father telling him that he was born with an old head, but his head didnt feel old now. Right now, his head felt very young. Scared, he thought. Im pretty damn scared. This is where the world ends, right? Seagulls coursed the gray air overhead. The silence was as gray as the airas deadly as the growing circles under her eyes. 6 When he had wandered into Funworld and met Lester Speedy Parker after he did not quite know how many days of numbly drifting through time, that passive feeling of being on hold had somehow left him. Lester Parker was a black man with crinkly gray hair and heavy lines cutting through his cheeks. He was utterly unremarkable now despite whatever he had accomplished in his earlier life as a travelling blues musician. Nor had he said anything particularly remarkable. Yet as soon as Jack had walked aimlessly into Funworlds game arcade and met Speedys pale eyes he felt all the fuzziness leave him. He had become himself again. It was as if a magical current had passed directly from the old man into Jack. Speedy had smiled at him and said, Well, it looks like I got me some company. Little travellin man just walked in. It was true, he was not on hold anymore just an instant before, he had seemed to be wrapped in wet wool and cotton candy, and now he was set free. A silvery nimbus seemed to play about the old man for an instant, a little aureole of light which disappeared as soon as Jack blinked. For the first time Jack saw that the man was holding the handle of a wide heavy pushbroom. You okay, son? The handyman put one hand in the small of his back, and stretched backward. The world just get worse, or did she get better? Uh, better, Jack said. Then you come to the right place, Id say. What do they call you? Little travellin man, Speedy had said that first day, ole Travellin Jack. He had leaned his tall angular body against the SkeeBall machine and wrapped his arms around the broomhandle as though it were a girl at a dance. The man you see here is Lester Speedy Parker, formerly a travellin man hisself, son, hee heeoh yeah, Speedy knew the road, he knew all the roads, way back in the old days. Had me a band, Travellin Jack, played the blues. Gittar blues. Made me a few records, too, but I wont shame you by asking if you ever heard em. Every syllable had its own rhythmic lilt, every phrase its rimshot and backbeat; Speedy Parker carried a broom instead of a guitar, but he was still a musician. Within the first five seconds of talking to Speedy, Jack had known that his jazzloving father would have relished this mans company. He had tagged along behind Speedy for the better part of three or four days, watching him work and helping out when he could. Speedy let him bang in nails, sand down a picket or two that needed paint; these simple tasks done under Speedys instructions were the only schooling he was getting, but they made him feel better. Jack now saw his first days in Arcadia Beach as a period of unrelieved wretchedness from which his new friend had rescued him. For Speedy Parker was a friend, that was certainso certain, in fact, that in it was a quantity of mystery. In the few days since Jack had shaken off his daze (or since Speedy had shaken it off for him by dispelling it with one glance of his lightcolored eyes), Speedy Parker had become closer to him than any other friend, with the possible exception of Richard Sloat, whom Jack had known approximately since the cradle. And now, counteracting his terror at losing Uncle Tommy and his fear that his mother was actually dying, he felt the tug of Speedys warm wise presence from just down the street. Again, and uncomfortably, Jack had his old sense of being directed, of being manipulated as if a long invisible wire had pulled himself and his mother up to this abandoned place by the sea. They wanted him here, whoever they were. Or was that just crazy? In his inner vision he saw a bent old man, clearly out of his mind, muttering to himself as he pushed an empty shopping cart down the sidewalk. A gull screamed in the air, and Jack promised himself that he would make himself talk about some of his feelings with Speedy Parker. Even if Speedy thought he was nuts; even if he laughed at Jack. He would not laugh, Jack secretly knew. They were old friends because one of the things Jack understood about the old custodian was that he could say almost anything to him. But he was not ready for all that yet. It was all too crazy, and he did not understand it yet himself. Almost reluctantly Jack turned his back on Funworld and trudged across the sand toward the hotel. 2 The Funnel Opens 1 It was a day later, but Jack Sawyer was no wiser. He had, however, had one of the greatest nightmares of all time last night. In it, some terrible creature had been coming for his mothera dwarfish monstrosity with misplaced eyes and rotting, cheesy skin. Your mothers almost dead, Jack, can you say hallelujah? this monstrosity had croaked, and Jack knewthe way you knew things in dreamsthat it was radioactive, and that if it touched him, he would die, too. He had awakened with his body drenched in sweat, on the edge of a bitter scream. It took the steady pounding of the surf to reacquaint him with where he was, and it was hours before he could go back to sleep. He had meant to tell his mother about the dream this morning, but Lily had been sour and uncommunicative, hiding in a cloud of cigarette smoke. It was only as he started out of the hotel coffee shop on some trumpedup errand that she smiled at him a little. Think about what you want to eat tonight. Yeah? Yeah. Anything but fast food. I did not come all the way from L.A. to New Hampshire in order to poison myself with hotdogs. Lets try one of those seafood places in Hampton Beach, Jack said. Fine. Go on and play. Go on and play, Jack thought with a bitterness utterly unlike him. Oh yeah, Mom, way to go. Too cool. Go on and play. With who? Mom, why are you here? Why are we here? How sick are you? How come you wont talk to me about Uncle Tommy? Whats Uncle Morgan up to? What Questions, questions. And not one of them worth a darned thing, because there was no one to answer them. Unless Speedy But that was ridiculous; how could one old black man hed just met solve any of his problems? Still, the thought of Speedy Parker danced at the edge of his mind as Jack ambled across the boardwalk and down to the depressingly empty beach. 2 This is where the world ends, right? Jack thought again. Seagulls coursed the gray air overhead. The calendar said it was still summer, but summer ended here at Arcadia Beach on Labor Day. The silence was gray as the air. He looked down at his sneakers and saw that there was some sort of tarry goo on them. Beach crud, he thought. Some kind of pollution. He had no idea where he had picked it up and he stepped back from the edge of the water, uneasy. The gulls in the air, swooping and crying. One of them screamed overhead and he heard a flat cracking that was almost metallic. He turned in time to see it come in for a fluttering, awkward landing on a hump of rock. The gull turned its head in rapid, almost robotic movements, as if to verify it was alone, and then it hopped down to where the clam it had dropped lay on the smooth, hardpacked sand. The clam had cracked open like an egg and Jack saw raw meat inside, still twitching . . . or perhaps that was his imagination. Dont want to see this. But before he could turn away, the gulls yellow, hooked beak was pulling at the meat, stretching it like a rubber band, and he felt his stomach knot into a slick fist. In his mind he could hear that stretched tissue screamingnothing coherent, only stupid flesh crying out in pain. He tried to look away from the seagull again and he couldnt. The gulls beak opened, giving him a brief glimpse of dirty pink gullet. The clam snapped back into its cracked shell and for a moment the gull was looking at him, its eyes a deadly black, confirming every horrible truth fathers die, mothers die, uncles die even if they went to Yale and look as solid as bank walls in their threepiece Savile Row suits. Kids die too, maybe . . . and at the end all there may be is the stupid, unthinking scream of living tissue. Hey, Jack said aloud, not aware he was doing anything but thinking inside his own head. Hey, give me a break. The gull sat over its catch, regarding him with its beady black eyes. Then it began to dig at the meat again. Want some, Jack? Its still twitching! By God, its so fresh it hardly knows its dead! The strong yellow beak hooked into the meat again and pulled. Strettttchhhhhh It snapped. The gulls head went up toward the gray September sky and its throat worked. And again it seemed to be looking at him, the way the eyes in some pictures seemed always to look at you no matter where you went in the room. And the eyes . . . he knew those eyes. Suddenly he wanted his motherher dark blue eyes. He could not remember wanting her with such desperation since he had been very, very small. Lala, he heard her sing inside his head, and her voice was the winds voice, here for now, somewhere else all too soon. Lala, sleep now, Jacky, babybunting, daddys gone ahunting. And all that jazz. Memories of being rocked, his mother smoking one Herbert Tareyton after another, maybe looking at a scriptblue pages, she called them, he remembered that blue pages. Lala, Jacky, all is cool. I love you, Jacky. Shhh . . . sleep. Lala. The gull was looking at him. With sudden horror that engorged his throat like hot salt water he saw it really was looking at him. Those black eyes (whose?) were seeing him. And he knew that look. A raw strand of flesh still dangled from the gulls beak. As he looked, the gull sucked it in. Its beak opened in a weird but unmistakable grin. He turned then and ran, head down, eyes shut against the hot salt tears, sneakers digging against the sand, and if there was a way to go up, go up and up, up to some gullseye view, one would have seen only him, only his tracks, in all that gray day; Jack Sawyer, twelve and alone, running back toward the inn, Speedy Parker forgotten, his voice nearly lost in tears and wind, crying the negative over and over again no and no and no. 3 He paused at the top of the beach, out of breath. A hot stitch ran up his left side from the middle of his ribs to the deepest part of his armpit. He sat down on one of the benches the town put out for old people and pushed his hair out of his eyes. Got to get control of yourself. If Sergeant Fury goes Section Eight, whos gonna lead the Howling Commandos? He smiled and actually did feel a little better. From up here, fifty feet from the water, things looked a little better. Maybe it was the change in barometric pressure, or something. What had happened to Uncle Tommy was horrible, but he supposed he would get over it, learn to accept. That was what his mother said, anyway. Uncle Morgan had been unusually pesty just lately, but then, Uncle Morgan had always been sort of a pest. As for his mother . . . well, that was the big one, wasnt it? Actually, he thought, sitting on the bench and digging at the verge of the sand beyond the boardwalk with one toe, actually his mother might still be all right. She could be all right; it was certainly possible. After all, no one had come right out and said it was the big C, had they? No. If she had cancer, she wouldnt have brought him here, would she? More likely theyd be in Switzerland, with his mother taking cold mineral baths and scoffing goatglands, or something. And she would do it, too. So maybe A low, dry whispering sound intruded on his consciousness. He looked down and his eyes widened. The sand had begun to move by the instep of his left sneaker. The fine white grains were sliding around in a small circle perhaps a fingers length in diameter. The sand in the middle of this circle suddenly collapsed, so that now there was a dimple in the sand. It was maybe two inches deep. The sides of this dimple were also in motion around and around, moving in rapid counterclockwise circuits. Not real, he told himself immediately, but his heart began to speed up again. His breathing also began to come faster. Not real, its one of the Daydreams, thats all, or maybe its a crab or something . . . But it wasnt a crab and it wasnt one of the Daydreamsthis was not the other place, the one he dreamed about when things were boring or maybe a little scary, and it sure as hell wasnt any crab. The sand spun faster, the sound arid and dry, making him think of static electricity, of an experiment they had done in science last year with a Leyden jar. But more than either of these, the minute sound was like a long lunatic gasp, the final breath of a dying man. More sand collapsed inward and began to spin. Now it was not a dimple; it was a funnel in the sand, a kind of reverse dustdevil. The bright yellow of a gum wrapper was revealed, covered, revealed, covered, revealed againeach time it showed up again. Jack could read more of it as the funnel grew JU, then JUI, then JUICY F. The funnel grew and the sand was jerked away from the gum wrapper again. It was as quick and rude as an unfriendly hand jerking down the covers on a made bed. JUICY FRUIT, he read, and then the wrapper flapped upward. The sand turned faster and faster, in a hissing fury. Hhhhhhaaaaahhhhhhhh was the sound the sand made. Jack stared at it, fascinated at first, and then horrified. The sand was opening like a large dark eye it was the eye of the gull that had dropped the clam on the rock and then pulled the living meat out of it like a rubber band. Hhhhhhaaaahhhhh, the sandspout mocked in its dead, dry voice. That was not a mindvoice. No matter how much Jack wished it were only in his head, that voice was real. His false teeth flew, Jack, when the old WILD CHILD hit him, out they went, rattledybang! Yale or no Yale, when the old WILD CHILD van comes and knocks your false teeth out, Jacky, you got to go. And your mother Then he was running again, blindly, not looking back, his hair blown off his forehead, his eyes wide and terrified. 4 Jack walked as quickly as he could through the dim lobby of the hotel. All the atmosphere of the place forbade running it was as quiet as a library, and the gray light which fell through the tall mullioned windows softened and blurred the already faded carpets. Jack broke into a trot as he passed the desk, and the stooped ashenskinned dayclerk chose that second to emerge through an arched wooden passage. The clerk said nothing, but his permanent scowl dragged the corners of his mouth another centimeter downward. It was like being caught running in church. Jack wiped his sleeve across his forehead, made himself walk the rest of the way to the elevators. He punched the button, feeling the desk clerks frown burning between his shoulder blades. The only time this week that Jack had seen the desk clerk smile had been when the man had recognized his mother.

The smile had met only the minimum standards for graciousness. I suppose thats how old you have to be to remember Lily Cavanaugh, she had said to Jack as soon as they were alone in their rooms. There had been a time, and not so long ago, when being identified, recognized from any one of the fifty movies she had made during the fifties and sixties (Queen of the Bs, they called her; her own comment Darling of the Driveins)whether by a cabdriver, waiter, or the lady selling blouses at the Wilshire Boulevard Saksperked her mood for hours. Now even that simple pleasure had gone dry for her. Jack jigged before the unmoving elevator doors, hearing an impossible and familiar voice lifting to him from a whirling funnel of sand. For a second he saw Thomas Woodbine, solid comfortable Uncle Tommy Woodbine, who was supposed to have been one of his guardiansa strong wall against trouble and confusioncrumpled and dead on La Cienega Boulevard, his teeth like popcorn twenty feet away in the gutter. He stabbed the button again. Hurry up! Then he saw something worsehis mother hauled into a waiting car by two impassive men. Suddenly Jack had to urinate. He flattened his palm against the button, and the bent gray man behind the desk uttered a phlegmy sound of disapproval. Jack pressed the edge of his other hand into that magic place just beneath his stomach which lessened the pressure on his bladder. Now he could hear the slow whir of the descending elevator. He closed his eyes, squeezed his legs together. His mother looked uncertain, lost and confused, and the men forced her into the car as easily as they would a weary collie dog. But that was not really happening, he knew; it was a memorypart of it must have been one of the Daydreamsand it had happened not to his mother but to him. As the mahogany doors of the elevator slid away to reveal a shadowy interior from which his own face met him in a foxed and peeling mirror, that scene from his seventh year wrapped around him once again, and he saw one mans eyes turn to yellow, felt the others hand alter into something clawlike, hard and inhuman . . . he jumped into the elevator as if he had been jabbed with a fork. Not possible the Daydreams were not possible, he had not seen a mans eyes turning from blue to yellow, and his mother was fine and dandy, there was nothing to be scared of, nobody was dying, and danger was what a seagull meant to a clam. He closed his eyes and the elevator toiled upward. That thing in the sand had laughed at him. Jack squeezed through the opening as soon as the doors began to part. He trotted past the closed mouths of the other elevators, turned right into the panelled corridor and ran past the sconces and paintings toward their rooms. Here running seemed less a sacrilege. They had 407 and 408, consisting of two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and a living room with a view of the long smooth beach and the vastness of the ocean. His mother had appropriated flowers from somewhere, arranged them in vases, and set her little array of framed photographs beside them. Jack at five, Jack at eleven, Jack as an infant in the arms of his father. His father, Philip Sawyer, at the wheel of the old DeSoto he and Morgan Sloat had driven to California in the unimaginable days when they had been so poor they had often slept in the car. When Jack threw open 408, the door to the living room, he called out, Mom? Mom? The flowers met him, the photographs smiled; there was no answer. Mom! The door swung shut behind him. Jack felt his stomach go cold. He rushed through the living room to the large bedroom on the right. Mom! Another vase of tall bright flowers. The empty bed looked starched and ironed, so stiff a quarter would bounce off the quilt. On the bedside table stood an assortment of brown bottles containing vitamins and other pills. Jack backed out. His mothers window showed black waves rolling and rolling toward him. Two men getting out of a nondescript car, themselves nondescript, reaching for her . . . Mom! he shouted. I hear you, Jack, came his mothers voice through the bathroom door. What on earth . . . ? Oh, he said, and felt all his muscles relax. Oh, sorry. I just didnt know where you were. Taking a bath, she said. Getting ready for dinner. Is that still allowed? Jack realized that he no longer had to go to the bathroom. He dropped into one of the overstuffed chairs and closed his eyes in relief. She was still okay Still okay for now, a dark voice whispered, and in his mind he saw that sand funnel open again, whirling. 5 Seven or eight miles up the coast road, just outside Hampton Township, they found a restaurant called The Lobster Chateau. Jack had given a very sketchy account of his dayalready he was backing away from the terror he had experienced on the beach, letting it diminish in his memory. A waiter in a red jacket printed with the yellow image of a lobster across the back showed them to a table beside a long streaky window. Would Madam care for a drink? The waiter had a stonycold offseason New England face, and looking at it, suspecting the resentment of his Ralph Lauren sport coat and his mothers carelessly worn Halston afternoon dress behind those watery blue eyes, Jack felt a more familiar terror needle himsimple homesickness. Mom, if youre not really sick, what the hell are we doing here? The place is empty! Its creepy! Jesus! Bring me an elementary martini, she said. The waiter raised his eyebrows. Madam? Ice in a glass, she said. Olive on ice. Tanqueray gin over olive. Thenare you getting this? Mom, for Gods sake, cant you see his eyes? You think youre being charminghe thinks youre making fun of him! Cant you see his eyes? No. She couldnt. And that failure of empathy, when she had always been so sharp about how other people were feeling, was another stone against his heart. She was withdrawing . . . in all ways. Yes, madam. Then, she said, you take a bottle of vermouthany brandand hold it against the glass. Then you put the vermouth back on the shelf and bring the glass to me. Kay? Yes, madam. Waterycold New England eyes, staring at his mother with no love at all. Were alone here, Jack thought, really realizing it for the first time. Jeez, are we. Young sir? Id like a Coke, Jack said miserably. The waiter left. Lily rummaged in her purse, came up with a package of Herbert Tarrytoons (so she had called them since he had been a baby, as in Bring me my Tarrytoons from over there on the shelf, Jacky, and so he still thought of them) and lit one. She coughed out smoke in three harsh bursts. It was another stone against his heart. Two years ago, his mother had given up smoking entirely. Jack had waited for her to backslide with that queer fatalism which is the flip side of childish credulity and innocence. His mother had always smoked; she would soon smoke again. But she had not . . . not until three months ago, in New York. Carltons. Walking around the living room in the apartment on Central Park West, puffing like a choochoo, or squatting in front of the record cabinet, pawing through her old rock records or her dead husbands old jazz records. You smoking again, Mom? hed asked her. Yeah, Im smoking cabbage leaves, shed said. I wish you wouldnt. Why dont you turn on the TV? shed responded with uncharacteristic sharpness, turning toward him, her lips pressed tightly together. Maybe you can find Jimmy Swaggart or Reverend Ike. Get down there in the hallelujah corner with the amen sisters. Sorry, hed muttered. Wellit was only Carltons. Cabbage leaves. But here were the Herbert Tarrytoonsthe blueandwhite oldfashioned pack, the mouthpieces that looked like filters but which werent. He could remember, vaguely, his father telling somebody that he smoked Winstons and his wife smoked Black Lungers. See anything weird, Jack? she asked him now, her overbright eyes fixed on him, the cigarette held in its old, slightly eccentric position between the second and third fingers of the right hand. Daring him to say something. Daring him to say, Mom, I notice youre smoking Herbert Tarrytoons againdoes this mean you figure you dont have anything left to lose? No, he said. That miserable, bewildered homesickness swept him again, and he felt like weeping. Except this place. Its a little weird. She looked around and grinned. Two other waiters, one fat, one thin, both in red jackets with golden lobsters on the back, stood by the swing doors to the kitchen, talking quietly. A velvet rope hung across the entrance to a huge dining room beyond the alcove where Jack and his mother sat. Chairs were overturned in ziggurat shapes on the tables in this dark cave. At the far end, a huge windowwall looked out on a gothic shorescape that made Jack think of Deaths Darling, a movie his mother had been in. She had played a young woman with a lot of money who married a dark and handsome stranger against her parents wishes. The dark and handsome stranger took her to a big house by the ocean and tried to drive her crazy. Deaths Darling had been more or less typical of Lily Cavanaughs careershe had starred in a lot of blackandwhite films in which handsome but forgettable actors drove around in Ford convertibles with their hats on. The sign hanging from the velvet rope barring the entrance to this dark cavern was ludicrously understated THIS SECTION CLOSED. It is a little grim, isnt it? she said. Its like the Twilight Zone, he replied, and she barked her harsh, infectious, somehow lovely laugh. Yeah, Jacky, Jacky, Jacky, she said, and leaned over to ruffle his toolong hair, smiling. He pushed her hand away, also smiling (but oh, her fingers felt like bones, didnt they? Shes almost dead, Jack . . . ). Dont toucha da moichendise. Off my case. Pretty hip for an old bag. Oh boy, try to get movie money out of me this week. Yeah. They smiled at each other, and Jack could not ever remember a need to cry so badly, or remember loving her so much. There was a kind of desperate toughness about her now . . . going back to the Black Lungers was part of that. Their drinks came. She tipped her glass toward his. Us. Okay. They drank. The waiter came with menus. Did I pull his string a little hard before, Jacky? Maybe a little, he said. She thought about it, then shrugged it away. What are you having? Sole, I guess. Make it two. So he ordered for both of them, feeling clumsy and embarrassed but knowing it was what she wantedand he could see in her eyes when the waiter left that he hadnt done too bad a job. A lot of that was Uncle Tommys doing. After a trip to Hardees Uncle Tommy had said I think theres hope for you, Jack, if we can just cure this revolting obsession with processed yellow cheese. The food came. He wolfed his sole, which was hot and lemony and good. Lily only toyed with hers, ate a few green beans, and then pushed things around on her plate. School started up here two weeks ago, Jack announced halfway through the meal. Seeing the big yellow buses with ARCADIA DISTRICT SCHOOLS written on the sides had made him feel guiltyunder the circumstances he thought that was probably absurd, but there it was. He was playing hooky. She looked at him, enquiring. She had ordered and finished a second drink; now the waiter brought a third. Jack shrugged. Just thought Id mention it. Do you want to go? Huh? No! Not here! Good, she said. Because I dont have your goddam vaccination papers. They wont let you in school without a pedigree, chum. Dont call me chum, Jack said, but Lily didnt crack a smile at the old joke. Boy, why aint you in school? He blinked as if the voice had spoken aloud instead of only in his mind. Something? she asked. No. Well . . . theres a guy at the amusement park. Funworld. Janitor, caretaker, something like that. An old black guy. He asked me why I wasnt in school. She leaned forward, no humor in her now, almost frighteningly grim. What did you tell him? Jack shrugged. I said I was getting over mono. You remember that time Richard had it? The doctor told Uncle Morgan Richard had to stay out of school for six weeks, but he could walk around outside and everything. Jack smiled a little. I thought he was lucky. Lily relaxed a little. I dont like you talking to strangers, Jack. Mom, hes just a I dont care who he is. I dont want you talking to strangers. Jack thought of the black man, his hair gray steel wool, his dark face deeply lined, his odd, lightcolored eyes. He had been pushing a broom in the big arcade on the pierthe arcade was the only part of Arcadia Funworld that stayed open the year around, but it had been deserted then except for Jack and the black man and two old men far in the back. The two were playing SkeeBall in apathetic silence. But now, sitting here in this slightly creepy restaurant with his mother, it wasnt the black man who asked the question; it was himself. Why arent I in school? It be just like she say, son. Got no vaccination, got no pedigree. You think she come down here with your birth certificate? That what you think? She on the run, son, and you on the run with her. You Have you heard from Richard? she broke in, and when she said it, it came to himno, that was too gentle. It crashed into him. His hands twitched and his glass fell off the table. It shattered on the floor. Shes almost dead, Jack. The voice from the swirling sandfunnel. The one he had heard in his mind. It had been Uncle Morgans voice. Not maybe, not almost, not sorta like. It had been a real voice. The voice of Richards father. 6 Going home in the car, she asked him, What happened to you in there, Jack? Nothing. My heart did this funny little Gene Krupa riff. He ran off a quick one on the dashboard to demonstrate. Threw a PCV, just like on General Hospital. Dont wise off to me, Jacky. In the glow of the dashboard instruments she looked pale and haggard. A cigarette smouldered between the second and third fingers of her right hand. She was driving very slowlynever over fortyas she always drove when shed had too much to drink. Her seat was pulled all the way forward, her skirt was hiked up so her knees floated, storklike, on either side of the steering column, and her chin seemed to hang over the wheel. For a moment she looked haglike, and Jack quickly looked away. Im not, he mumbled. What? Im not wising off, he said. It was like a twitch, thats all. Im sorry. Its okay, she said. I thought it was something about Richard Sloat. No. His father talked to me out of a hole in the sand down on the beach, thats all. In my head he talked to me, like in a movie where you hear a voiceover. He told me you were almost dead. Do you miss him, Jack? Who, Richard? NoSpiro Agnew. Of course Richard. Sometimes. Richard Sloat was now going to school in Illinoisone of those private schools where chapel was compulsory and no one had acne. Youll see him. She ruffled his hair. Mom, are you all right? The words burst out of him. He could feel his fingers biting into his thighs. Yes, she said, lighting another cigarette (she slowed down to twenty to do it; an old pickup swept by them, its horn blatting). Never better. How much weight have you lost? Jacky, you can never be too thin or too rich. She paused and then smiled at him. It was a tired, hurt smile that told him all the truth he needed to know. Mom No more, she said. Alls well. Take my word for it. See if you can find us some bebop on the FM. But Find us some bop, Jacky, and shut up. He found some jazz on a Boston stationan alto saxophone elucidating All the Things You Are. But under it, a steady, senseless counterpoint, was the ocean. And later, he could see the great skeleton of the roller coaster against the sky. And the rambling wings of the Alhambra Inn. If this was home, they were home. 3 Speedy Parker 1 The next day the sun was backa hard bright sun that layered itself like paint over the flat beach and the slanting, redtiled strip of roof Jack could see from his bedroom window. A long low wave far out in the water seemed to harden in the light and sent a spear of brightness straight toward his eyes. To Jack this sunlight felt different from the light in California. It seemed somehow thinner, colder, less nourishing. The wave out in the dark ocean melted away, then hoisted itself up again, and a hard dazzling streak of gold leaped across it. Jack turned away from his window. He had already showered and dressed, and his bodys clock told him that it was time to start moving toward the schoolbus stop. Sevenfifteen. But of course he would not go to school today, nothing was normal anymore, and he and his mother would just drift like ghosts through another twelve hours of daytime. No schedule, no responsibilities, no homework . . . no order at all except for that given them by mealtimes. Was today even a schoolday? Jack stopped short beside his bed, feeling a little flicker of panic that his world had become so formless . . . he didnt think this was a Saturday. Jack counted back to the first absolutely identifiable day his memory could find, which was the previous Sunday. Counting forward made it Thursday. On Thursdays he had computer class with Mr. Balgo and an early sports period. At least that was what hed had when his life had been normal, a time that now seemedthough it had come to an end only months agoirretrievably lost. He wandered out of his bedroom into the living room. When he tugged at the drawstring for the curtains the hard bright light flooded into the room, bleaching the furniture. Then he punched the button on the television set and dropped himself onto the stiff couch. His mother would not be up for at least another fifteen minutes. Maybe longer, considering that shed had three drinks with dinner the night before. Jack glanced toward the door to his mothers room. Twenty minutes later he rapped softly at her door. Mom? A thick mumble answered him. Jack pushed the door open a crack and looked in. She was lifting her head off the pillow and peering back through halfclosed eyes. Jacky. Morning. What time? Around eight. God. You starving? She sat up and pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes. Kind of. Im sort of sick of sitting in here. I just wondered if you were getting up soon. Not if I can help it. You mind? Go down to the dining room, get some breakfast. Mess around on the beach, okay? Youll have a much better mother today if you give her another hour in bed. Sure, he said. Okay. See you later. Her head had already dropped back down on the pillow. Jack switched off the television and let himself out of the room after making sure his key was in the pocket of his jeans. The elevator smelled of camphor and ammoniaa maid had tipped a bottle off a cart. The doors opened, and the gray desk clerk frowned at him and ostentatiously turned away. Being a movie stars brat doesnt make you anything special around here, sonny . . . and why arent you in school? Jack turned into the panelled entrance to the dining roomThe Saddle of Lamband saw rows of empty tables in a shadowy vastness. Perhaps six had been set up. A waitress in a white blouse and red ruffled skirt looked at him, then looked away. Two exhaustedlooking old people sat across a table from each other at the other end of the room. There were no other breakfasters. As Jack looked on, the old man leaned over the table and unselfconsciously cut his wifes fried egg into fourinch square sections. Table for one? The woman in charge of The Saddle of Lamb during the day had materialized beside him, and was already plucking a menu off a stack beside the reservation book. Changed my mind, sorry. Jack escaped. The Alhambras coffee shop, The Beachcomber Lounge, lay all the way across the lobby and down a long bleak corridor lined with empty display cases. His hunger died at the thought of sitting by himself at the counter and watching the bored cook slap down strips of bacon on the crusty grill. He would wait until his mother got up or, better yet, he would go out and see if he could get a doughnut and a little carton of milk at one of the shops up the street on the way into town. He pushed open the tall heavy front door of the hotel and went out into the sunlight. For a moment the sudden brightness stung his eyesthe world was a flat glaring dazzle. Jack squinted, wishing he had remembered to bring his sunglasses downstairs. He went across the apron of red brick and down the four curving steps to the main pathway through the gardens at the front of the hotel. What happened if she died? What happened to himwhere would he go, who would take care of him, if the worst thing in the world actually took place and she died, for good and all died, up in that hotel room? He shook his head, trying to send the terrible thought away before a lurking panic could rush up out of the Alhambras wellordered gardens and blast him apart. He would not cry, he would not let that happen to himand he would not let himself think about the Tarrytoons and the weight she had lost, the feeling that he sometimes had that she was too helpless and without direction. He was walking very quickly now, and he shoved his hands into his pockets as he jumped down off the curving path through the gardens onto the hotels drive. She on the run, son, and you on the run with her. On the run, but from whom? And to where? Herejust to here, this deserted resort? He reached the wide street that travelled up the shoreline toward the town, and now all of the empty landscape before him was a whirlpool that could suck him down into itself and spit him out into a black place where peace and safety had never existed. A gull sailed out over the empty road, wheeled around in a wide curve, and dipped back toward the beach. Jack watched it go, shrinking in the air to a smudge of white above the erratic line of the rollercoaster track. Lester Speedy Parker, a black man with crinkly gray hair and heavy lines cutting down through his cheeks, was down there somewhere inside Funworld and it was Speedy he had to see. That was as clear to Jack as his sudden insight about his friend Richards father. A gull screeched, a wave bounced hard gold light toward him, and Jack saw Uncle Morgan and his new friend Speedy as figures almost allegorically opposed, as if they were statues of NIGHT and DAY, stuck up on plinths, MOON and SUNthe dark and the light. What Jack had understood as soon as he had known that his father would have liked Speedy Parker was that the exbluesman had no harm in him. Uncle Morgan, now . . . he was another kind of being altogether. Uncle Morgan lived for business, for dealmaking and hustling; and he was so ambitious that he challenged every even faintly dubious call in a tennis match, so ambitious in fact that he cheated in the pennyante card games his son had now and then coaxed him into joining. At least, Jack thought that Uncle Morgan had been cheating in a couple of their games . . . not a man who thought that defeat demanded graciousness. NIGHT and DAY, MOON and SUN; DARK and LIGHT, and the black man was the light in these polarities. And when Jacks mind had pushed him this far, all that panic he had fought off in the hotels tidy gardens swarmed toward him again. He lifted his feet and ran. 2 When the boy saw Speedy kneeling down outside the gray and peeling arcade buildingwrapping electricians tape around a thick cord, his steelwool head bent almost to the pier and his skinny buttocks poking out the worn green seat of his workpants, the dusty soles of his boots toed down like a pair of upended surfboardshe realized that he had no idea of what he had been planning to say to the custodian, or even if he intended to say anything at all. Speedy gave the roll of black tape another twist around the cord, nodded, took a battered Palmer knife from the flap pocket of his workshirt and sliced the tape off the roll with a flat surgical neatness. Jack would have escaped from here, too, if he couldhe was intruding on the mans work, and anyhow, it was crazy to think that Speedy could really help him in any way. What kind of help could he give, an old janitor in an empty amusement park? Then Speedy turned his head and registered the boys presence with an expression of total and warming welcomenot so much a smile as a deepening of all those heavy lines in his faceand Jack knew that he was at least no intrusion. Travellin Jack, Speedy said. I was beginnin to get afraid you decided to stay away from me. Just when we got to be friends, too. Good to see you again, son. Yeah, Jack said. Good to see you, too. Speedy popped the metal knife back into his shirt pocket and lifted his long bony body upright so easily, so athletically, that he seemed weightless. This whole place comin down around my ears, he said. I just fix it a little bit at a time, enough so everything works more or less the way it should. He stopped in midsentence, having had a good look at Jacks face. Old worlds not so fine right now, seems like. Travellin Jack got buckled up to a load of worries. That the way it is? Yeah, sort of, Jack beganhe still had no idea of how to begin expressing the things that troubled him. They could not be put into ordinary sentences, for ordinary sentences made everything seem rational. One . . . two . . . three Jacks world no longer marched in those straight lines. All he could not say weighed in his chest. He looked miserably at the tall thin man before him. Speedys hands were thrust deep into his pockets; his thick gray eyebrows pushed toward the deep vertical furrow between them. Speedys eyes, so light they were almost no color at all, swung up from the blistered paint of the pier and met Jacks ownand suddenly Jack felt better again. He did not understand why, but Speedy seemed to be able to communicate emotion directly to him as if they had not met just a week before, but years ago, and had shared far more than a few words in a deserted arcade. Well, thats enough work for now, Speedy said, glancing up in the direction of the Alhambra. Do any more and I just spoil em. Dont suppose you ever saw my office, did you? Jack shook his head. Time for a little refreshment, boy. The time is right. He set off down the pier in his longlegged gait, and Jack trotted after him. As they jumped down the steps of the pier and began going across the scrubby grass and packed brown earth toward the buildings on the far side of the park, Speedy astonished Jack by starting to sing. Travellin Jack, ole Travellin Jack, Got a far long way to go, Longer way to come back. It was not exactly singing, Jack thought, but sort of halfway between singing and talking. If it were not for the words, he would have enjoyed listening to Speedys rough, confident voice. Long long way for that boy to go, Longer way to come back. Speedy cast an almost twinkling look at him over his shoulder. Why do you call me that? Jack asked him. Why am I Travelling Jack? Because Im from California? They had reached the pale blue ticket booth at the entrance to the rollercoaster enclosure, and Speedy thrust his hands back in the pockets of his baggy green workpants, spun on his heel, and propped his shoulders on the little blue enclosure. The efficiency and quickness of his movements had a quality almost theatricalas if, Jack thought, he had known the boy was going to ask that particular question at that precise moment. He say he come from California, Don he know he gotta go right back . . . sang Speedy, his ponderous sculptured face filled with emotion that seemed almost reluctant to Jack. Say he come all that way, Poor Travellin Jack gotta go right back . . . What? Jack said. Go back? I think my mom even sold the houseor she rented it or something. I dont know what the hell youre trying to do, Speedy. He was relieved when Speedy did not answer him in his chanting, rhythmic singsong, but said in a normal voice Bet you dont remember meetin me before, Jack. You dont, do you? Meeting you before? Where was this? Californiaat least, I think we met back there. Not sos youd remember, Travellin Jack. It was a pretty busy couple of minutes. Would have been in . . . let me see . . . would have been about fourfive years ago. Nineteen seventysix. Jack looked up at him in pure befuddlement. Nineteen seventysix? He would have been seven years old. Lets go find my little office, Speedy said, and pushed himself off the ticket booth with that same weightless grace. Jack followed after him, winding through the tall supports of the roller coasterblack shadows like the grids of tictactoe diagrams overlaid a dusty wasteland sprinkled with beercans and candy wrappers. The tracks of the roller coaster hung above them like an unfinished skyscraper. Speedy moved, Jack saw, with a basketball players rangy ease, his head up and his arms dangling. The angle of his body, his posture in the crisscrossed gloom beneath the struts, seemed very youngSpeedy could have been in his twenties. Then the custodian stepped out again into the harsh sunlight, and fifty extra years grayed his hair and seamed the back of his neck. Jack paused as he reached the final row of uprights, sensing as if Speedy Parkers illusory juvenescence were the key to them that the Daydreams were somehow very near, hovering all about him. Nineteen seventysix? California? Jack trailed off after Speedy, who was going toward a tiny redpainted wooden shack back up against the smoothwire fence on the far side of the amusement park. He was sure that he had never met Speedy in California . . . but the almost visible presence of his fantasies had brought back to him another specific memory of those days, the visions and sensations of a late afternoon of his sixth year, Jacky playing with a black toy taxi behind the couch in his fathers office . . . and his father and Uncle Morgan unexpectedly, magically talking about the Daydreams. They have magic like we have physics, right? An agrarian monarchy, using magic instead of science. But can you begin to understand how much fucking clout wed swing if we gave them electricity? If we got modern weapons to the right guys over there? Do you have any idea? Hold on there, Morgan, I have a lot of ideas that apparently have yet to occur to you. . . . Jack could almost hear his fathers voice, and the peculiar and unsettling realm of the Daydreams seemed to stir in the shadowy wasteland beneath the roller coaster. He began again to trot after Speedy, who had opened the door of the little red shack and was leaning against it, smiling without smiling. You got something on your mind, Travellin Jack. Something thats buzzin in there like a bee. Get on inside the executive suite and tell me about it. If the smile had been broader, more obvious, Jack might have turned and run the spectre of mockery still hung humiliatingly near. But Speedys whole being seemed to express a welcoming concernthe message of all those deepened lines in his faceand Jack went past him through the door. Speedys office was a small board rectanglethe same red as its exteriorwithout a desk or a telephone. Two upended orange crates leaned against one of the side walls, flanking an unplugged electrical heater that resembled the grille of a midfifties Pontiac. In the middle of the room a wooden roundback school chair kept company with an overstuffed chair of faded gray material. The arms of the overstuffed chair seemed to have been clawed open by several generations of cats dingy wisps of stuffing lay across the arms like hair; on the back of the school chair was a complex graffito of scratchedin initials. Junkyard furniture. In one of the corners stood two neat foothigh piles of paperback books, in another the square fakealligator cover of a cheap record player. Speedy nodded at the heater and said, You come round here in January, February, boy, you see why I got that. Cold? Shoo. But Jack was now looking at the pictures taped to the wall over the heater and orange crates. All but one of the pictures were nudes cut from mens magazines.

Women with breasts as large as their heads lolled back against uncomfortable trees and splayed columnar, hardworked legs. To Jack, their faces looked both fascinating and rapaciousas if these women would take bites out of his skin after they kissed him. Some of the women were no younger than his mother; others seemed only a few years older than himself. Jacks eyes grazed over this needful fleshall of it, young and unyoung, pink or chocolatebrown or honeyyellow, seemed to press toward his touch, and he was too conscious of Speedy Parker standing beside him, watching. Then he saw the landscape in the midst of the nude photographs, and for a second he probably forgot to breathe. It too was a photograph; and it too seemed to reach out for him, as if it were threedimensional. A long grassy plain of a particular, aching green unfurled toward a low, grounddown range of mountains. Above the plain and the mountains ranged a deeply transparent sky. Jack could very nearly smell the freshness of this landscape. He knew that place. He had never been there, not really, but he knew it. That was one of the places of the Daydreams. Kind of catch the eye, dont it? Speedy said, and Jack remembered where he was. A Eurasian woman with her back to the camera tilted a heartshaped rear and smiled at him over her shoulder. Yes, Jack thought. Real pretty place, Speedy said. I put that one up myself. All these here girls met me when I moved in. Didnt have the heart to rip em off the wall. They sort of do remind me of way back when, times I was on the road. Jack looked up at Speedy, startled, and the old man winked at him. Do you know that place, Speedy? Jack asked. I mean, do you know where it is? Maybe so, maybe not. It might be Africasomeplace in Kenya. Or that might be just my memory. Sit down, Travellin Jack. Take the comfable chair. Jack twisted the chair so that he could still see the picture of the Daydream place. Thats Africa? Might be somewhere a lot closer. Might be somewhere a fellow could get toget to anytime he liked, that is, if he wanted to see it bad enough. Jack suddenly realized that he was trembling, and had been for some time. He balled his hands into fists, and felt the trembling displace itself into his stomach. He was not sure that he wanted ever to see the Daydream place, but he looked questioningly over at Speedy, who had perched himself on the school chair. It isnt anyplace in Africa, is it? Well, I dont know. Could be. I got my own name for it, son. I just call it the Territories. Jack looked back up at the photographthe long, dimpled plain, the low brown mountains. The Territories. That was right; that was its name. They have magic like we have physics, right? An agrarian monarchy . . . modern weapons to the right guys over there . . . Uncle Morgan plotting. His father answering, putting on the brakes We have to be careful about the way we go in there, partner . . . remember, we owe them, by which I mean we really owe them . . . The Territories, he said to Speedy, tasting the name in his mouth as much as asking a question. Air like the best wine in a rich mans cellar. Soft rain. Thats the place, son. Youve been there, Speedy? Jack asked, fervently hoping for a straightforward answer. But Speedy frustrated him, as Jack had almost known he would. The custodian smiled at him, and this time it was a real smile, not just a subliminal flare of warmth. After a moment Speedy said, Hell, I never been outside these United States, Travellin Jack. Not even in the war. Never got any farther than Texas and Alabama. How do you know about the . . . the Territories? The name was just beginning to fit his mouth. Man like me, he hear all kinds of stories. Stories about twoheaded parrots, men that fly with their own wings, men who turn into wolves, stories about queens. Sick queens. . . . magic like we have physics, right? Angels and werewolves. Ive heard stories about werewolves, Jack said. Theyre even in cartoons. That doesnt mean anything, Speedy. Probably it dont. But I heard that if a man pulls a radish out of the ground, another man half a mile away will be able to smell that radishthe air so sweet and clear. But angels . . . Men with wings. And sick queens, Jack said, meaning it as a jokeman, this is some dumb place you make up, broom jockey. But the instant he spoke the words, he felt sick himself. He had remembered the black eye of a gull fixing him with his own mortality as it yanked a clam from its shell and he could hear hustlin, bustlin Uncle Morgan asking if Jack could put Queen Lily on the line. Queen of the Bs. Queen Lily Cavanaugh. Yeah, Speedy said softly. Troubles everywhere, son. Sick Queen . . . maybe dyin. Dyin, son. And a world or two waitin out there, just waitin to see if anyone can save her. Jack stared at him openmouthed, feeling more or less as if the custodian had just kicked him in the stomach. Save her? Save his mother? The panic started to flood toward him once againhow could he save her? And did all this crazy talk mean that she really was dying, back there in that room? You got a job, Travellin Jack, Speedy told him. A job that aint gonna let you go, and thats the Lords truth. I wish it was different. I dont know what youre talking about, Jack said. His breath seemed to be trapped in a hot little pocket situated at the base of his neck. He looked into another corner of the small red room and in the shadow saw a battered guitar propped against the wall. Beside it lay the neat tube of a thin rolledup mattress. Speedy slept next to his guitar. I wonder, Speedy said. There comes times, you know what I mean, you know more than you think you know. One hell of a lot more. But I dont Jack began, and then pulled himself up short. He had just remembered something. Now he was even more frightenedanother chunk of the past had rushed out at him, demanding his attention. Instantly he was filmed with perspiration, and his skin felt very coldas if he had been misted by a fine spray from a hose. This memory was what he had fought to repress yesterday morning, standing before the elevators, pretending that his bladder was not about to burst. Didnt I say it was time for a little refreshment? Speedy asked, reaching down to push aside a loose floorboard. Jack again saw two ordinarylooking men trying to push his mother into a car. Above them a huge tree dipped scalloped fronds over the automobiles roof. Speedy gently extracted a pint bottle from the gap between the floorboards. The glass was dark green, and the fluid inside looked black. This gonna help you, son. Just a little taste all you needsend you some new places, help you get started findin that job I told you bout. I cant stay, Speedy, Jack blurted out, now in a desperate hurry to get back to the Alhambra. The old man visibly checked the surprise in his face, then slid the bottle back under the loose floorboard. Jack was already on his feet. Im worried, he said. Bout your mom? Jack nodded, moving backward toward the open door. Then you better settle your mind and go see shes all right. You can come back here anytime, Travellin Jack. Okay, the boy said, and then hesitated before running outside. I think . . . I think I remember when we met before. Nah, nah, my brains got twisted, Speedy said, shaking his head and waving his hands back and forth before him. You had it right. We never met before last week. Get on back to your mom and set your mind at ease. Jack sprinted out the door and ran through the dimensionless sunlight to the wide arch leading to the street. Above it he could see the letters DLROWNUF AIDACRA outlined against the sky at night, colored bulbs would spell out the parks name in both directions. Dust puffed up beneath his Nikes. Jack pushed himself against his own muscles, making them move faster and harder, so that by the time he burst out through the arch, he felt almost as though he were flying. Nineteen seventysix. Jack had been puttering his way up Rodeo Drive on an afternoon in June? July? . . . some afternoon in the drought season, but before that time of the year when everybody started worrying about brushfires in the hills. Now he could not even remember where he had been going. A friends house? It had not been an errand of any urgency. He had, Jack remembered, just reached the point where he no longer thought of his father in every unoccupied secondfor many months after Philip Sawyers death in a hunting accident, his shade, his loss had sped toward Jack at a bruising speed whenever the boy was least prepared to meet it. Jack was only seven, but he knew that part of his childhood had been stolen from himhis sixyearold self now seemed impossibly naive and thoughtlessbut he had learned to trust his mothers strength. Formless and savage threats no longer seemed to conceal themselves in dark corners, closets with halfopen doors, shadowy streets, empty rooms. The events of that aimless summer afternoon in 1976 had murdered this temporary peace. After it, Jack slept with his light on for six months; nightmares roiled his sleep. The car pulled across the street just a few houses up from the Sawyers white threestory Colonial. It had been a green car, and that was all that Jack had known about it except that it was not a MercedesMercedes was the only kind of automobile he knew by sight. The man at the wheel had rolled down his window and smiled at Jack. The boys first thought had been that he knew this manthe man had known Phil Sawyer, and wanted just to say hello to his son. Somehow that was conveyed by the mans smile, which was easy and unforced and familiar. Another man leaned forward in the passenger seat and peered toward Jack through blindman glassesround and so dark they were nearly black. This second man was wearing a pure white suit. The driver let his smile speak for him a moment longer. Then he said, Sonny, do you know how we get to the Beverly Hills Hotel? So he was a stranger after all. Jack experienced an odd little flicker of disappointment. He pointed straight up the street. The hotel was right up there, close enough so that his father had been able to walk to breakfast meetings in the Loggia. Straight ahead? the driver asked, still smiling. Jack nodded. Youre a pretty smart little fellow, the man told him, and the other man chuckled. Any idea of how far up it is? Jack shook his head. Couple of blocks, maybe? Yeah. He had begun to get uncomfortable. The driver was still smiling, but now the smile looked bright and hard and empty. And the passengers chuckle had been wheezy and damp, as if he were sucking on something wet. Five, maybe? Six? What do you say? About five or six, I guess, Jack said, stepping backward. Well, I sure do want to thank you, little fellow, the driver said. You dont happen to like candy, do you? He extended a closed fist through the window, turned it palmup, and opened his fingers a Tootsie Roll. Its yours. Take it. Jack tentatively stepped forward, hearing in his mind the words of a thousand warnings involving strange men and candy. But this man was still in his car; if he tried anything, Jack could be half a block away before the man got his door open. And to not take it somehow seemed a breach of civility. Jack took another step nearer. He looked at the mans eyes, which were blue and as bright and hard as his smile. Jacks instincts told him to lower his hand and walk away. He let his hand drift an inch or two nearer the Tootsie Roll. Then he made a little stabbing peck at it with his fingers. The drivers hand clamped around Jacks, and the passenger in blindman glasses laughed out loud. Astonished, Jack stared into the eyes of the man gripping his hand and saw them start to changethought he saw them start to changefrom blue to yellow. But later they were yellow. The man in the other seat pushed his door open and trotted around the back of the car. He was wearing a small gold cross in the lapel of his silk suit coat. Jack pulled frantically away, but the driver smiled brightly, emptily, and held him fast. NO! Jack yelled. HELP! The man in dark glasses opened the rear door on Jacks side. HELP ME! Jack screamed. The man holding him began to squeeze him down into a shape that would fit into the open door. Jack bucked, still yelling, but the man effortlessly tightened his hold. Jack struck at his hands, then tried to push the hands off him. With horror, he realized that what he felt beneath his fingers was not skin. He twisted his head and saw that clamped to his side and protruding from the black sleeve was a hard, pinching thing like a claw or a jointed talon. Jack screamed again. From up the street came a loud voice Hey, stop messin with that boy! You! Leave that boy alone! Jack gasped with relief, and twisted as hard as he could in the mans arms. Running toward them from the end of the block was a tall thin black man, still shouting. The man holding him dropped Jack to the sidewalk and took off around the back of the car. The front door of one of the houses behind Jack slammed openanother witness. Move, move, said the driver, already stepping on the accelerator. White Suit jumped back into the passenger seat, and the car spun its wheels and squealed diagonally across Rodeo Drive, barely missing a long white Clenet driven by a suntanned man in tennis whites. The Clenets horn blared. Jack picked himself up off the sidewalk. He felt dizzy. A bald man in a tan safari suit appeared beside him and said, Who were they? Did you get their names? Jack shook his head. How do you feel? We ought to call the police. I want to sit down, Jack said, and the man backed away a step. You want me to call the police? he asked, and Jack shook his head. I cant believe this, the man said. Do you live around here? Ive seen you before, havent I? Im Jack Sawyer. My house is just down there. The white house, the man said, nodding. Youre Lily Cavanaughs kid. Ill walk you home, if you like. Wheres the other man? Jack asked him. The black manthe one who was shouting. He took an uneasy step away from the man in the safari suit. Apart from the two of them, the street was empty. Lester Speedy Parker had been the man running toward him. Speedy had saved his life back then, Jack realized, and ran all the harder toward the hotel. 3 You get any breakfast? his mother asked him, spilling a cloud of smoke out of her mouth. She wore a scarf over her hair like a turban, and with her hair hidden that way, her face looked bony and vulnerable to Jack. A halfinch of cigarette smouldered between her second and third fingers, and when she saw him glance at it, she snubbed it out in the ashtray on her dressing table. Ah, no, not really, he said, hovering in the door of her bedroom. Give me a clear yes or no, she said, turning back to the mirror. The ambiguity is killing me. Her mirrorwrist and mirrorhand, applying the makeup to Lilys face, looked stickthin. No, he said. Well, hang on for a second and when your mother has made herself beautiful shell take you downstairs and buy you whatever your heart desires. Okay, he said. It just seemed so depressing, being there all alone. I swear, what you have to be depressed about . . . She leaned forward and inspected her face in the mirror. I dont suppose youd mind waiting in the living room, Jacky? Id rather do this alone. Tribal secrets. Jack wordlessly turned away and wandered back into the living room. When the telephone rang, he jumped about a foot. Should I get that? he called out. Thank you, her cool voice came back. Jack picked up the receiver and said hello. Hey kid, I finally got you, said Uncle Morgan Sloat. What in the world is going on in your mommas head? Jesus, we could have a real situation here if somebody doesnt start paying attention to details. Is she there? Tell her she has to talk to meI dont care what she says, she has to talk to me. Trust me, kiddo. Jack let the phone dangle in his hand. He wanted to hang up, to get in the car with his mother and drive to another hotel in another state. He did not hang up. He called out, Mom, Uncle Morgans on the phone. He says you have to talk to him. She was silent for a moment, and he wished he could have seen her face. Finally she said, Ill take it in here, Jacky. Jack already knew what he was going to have to do. His mother gently shut her bedroom door; he heard her walking back to the dressing table. She picked up the telephone in her bedroom. Okay, Jacky, she called through the door. Okay, he called back. Then he put the telephone back to his ear and covered the mouthpiece with his hand so that no one would hear him breathing. Great stunt, Lily, Uncle Morgan said. Terrific. If you were still in pictures, we could probably get a little mileage out of this. Kind of a Why Has This Actress Disappeared? thing. But dont you think its time you started acting like a rational person again? How did you find me? she asked. You think youre hard to find? Give me a break, Lily, I want you to get your ass back to New York. Its time you stopped running away. Is that what Im doing, Morgan? You dont exactly have all the time in the world, Lily, and I dont have enough time to waste to chase you all over New England. Hey, hold on. Your kid never hung up his phone. Of course he did. Jacks heart had stopped some seconds earlier. Get off the line, kid, Morgan Sloats voice said to him. Dont be ridiculous, Sloat, his mother said. Ill tell you whats ridiculous, lady. You holing up in some seedy resort when you ought to be in the hospital, thats ridiculous. Jesus, dont you know we have about a million business decisions to make? I care about your sons education, too, and its a damn good thing I do. You seem to have given up on that. I dont want to talk to you anymore, Lily said. You dont want to, but you have to. Ill come up there and put you in a hospital by force if I have to. We gotta make arrangements, Lily. You own half of the company Im trying to runand Jack gets your half after youre gone. I want to make sure Jacks taken care of. And if you think that taking care of Jack is what youre doing up there in goddam New Hampshire, then youre a lot sicker than you know. What do you want, Sloat? Lily asked in a tired voice. You know what I wantI want everybody taken care of. I want whats fair. Ill take care of Jack, Lily. Ill give him fifty thousand dollars a yearyou think about that, Lily. Ill see he goes to a good college. You cant even keep him in school. Noble Sloat, his mother said. Do you think thats an answer? Lily, you need help and Im the only one offering. Whats your cut, Sloat? his mother asked. You know damn well. I get whats fair. I get whats coming to me. Your interest in Sawyer and SloatI worked my ass off for that company, and it ought to be mine. We could get the paperwork done in a morning, Lily, and then concentrate on getting you taken care of. Like Tommy Woodbine was taken care of, she said. Sometimes I think you and Phil were too successful, Morgan. Sawyer and Sloat was more manageable before you got into realestate investments and production deals. Remember when you had only a couple of deadbeat comics and a halfdozen hopeful actors and screenwriters as clients? I liked life better before the megabucks. Manageable, who are you kidding? Uncle Morgan yelled. You cant even manage yourself! Then he made an effort to calm himself. And Ill forget you mentioned Tom Woodbine. That was beneath even you, Lily. Im going to hang up now, Sloat. Stay away from here. And stay away from Jack. You are going into a hospital, Lily, and this running around is going to His mother hung up in the middle of Uncle Morgans sentence; Jack gently put down his own receiver. Then he took a couple of steps closer to the window, as if not to be seen anywhere near the livingroom phone. Only silence came from the closed bedroom. Mom? he said. Yes, Jacky? He heard a slight wobble in her voice. You okay? Is everything all right? Me? Sure. Her footsteps came softly to the door, which cracked open. Their eyes met, his blue to her blue. Lily swung the door all the way open. Again their eyes met, for a moment of uncomfortable intensity. Of course everythings all right. Why wouldnt it be? Their eyes disengaged. Knowledge of some kind had passed between them, but what? Jack wondered if she knew that he had listened to her conversation; then he thought that the knowledge they had just shared wasfor the first timethe fact of her illness. Well, he said, embarrassed now. His mothers disease, that great unspeakable subject, grew obscenely large between them. I dont know, exactly. Uncle Morgan seemed . . . He shrugged. Lily shivered, and Jack came to another great recognition. His mother was afraidat least as afraid as he was. She plugged a cigarette in her mouth and snapped open her lighter. Another stabbing look from her deep eyes. Dont pay any attention to that pest, Jack. Im just irritated because it really doesnt seem that Ill ever be able to get away from him. Your Uncle Morgan likes to bully me. She exhaled gray smoke. Im afraid that I dont have much appetite for breakfast anymore. Why dont you take yourself downstairs and have a real breakfast this time? Come with me, he said. Id like to be alone for a while, Jack. Try to understand that. Try to understand that. Trust me. These things that grownups said, meaning something else entirely. Ill be more companionable when you come back, she said. Thats a promise. And what she was really saying was I want to scream, I cant take any more of this, get out, get out! Should I bring you anything? She shook her head, smiling toughly at him, and he had to leave the room, though he no longer had any stomach for breakfast either. Jack wandered down the corridor to the elevators. Once again, there was only one place to go, but this time he knew it before he ever reached the gloomy lobby and the ashen, censorious desk clerk. 4 Speedy Parker was not in the small redpainted shack of an office; he was not out on the long pier, in the arcade where the two old boys were back playing SkeeBall as if it were a war they both knew they would lose; he was not in the dusty vacancy beneath the roller coaster. Jack Sawyer turned aimlessly in the harsh sunlight, looking down the empty avenues and deserted public places of the park. Jacks fear tightened itself up a notch. Suppose something had happened to Speedy? It was impossible, but what if Uncle Morgan had found out about Speedy (found out what, though?) and had . . . Jack mentally saw the WILD CHILD van careening around a corner, grinding its gears and picking up speed. He jerked himself into motion, hardly knowing which way he meant to go. In the bright panic of his mood, he saw Uncle Morgan running past a row of distorting mirrors, turned by them into a series of monstrous and deformed figures. Horns grew on his bald brow, a hump flowered between his fleshy shoulders, his wide fingers became shovels. Jack veered sharply off to the right, and found himself moving toward an oddly shaped, almost round building of white slatlike boards. From within it he suddenly heard a rhythmic tap tap tap. The boy ran toward the sounda wrench hitting a pipe, a hammer striking an anvil, a noise of work. In the midst of the slats he found a doorknob and pulled open a fragile slatdoor. Jack went forward into striped darkness, and the sound grew louder. The darkness changed form around him, altered its dimensions. He stretched out his hands and touched canvas. This slid aside; instantly, glowing yellow light fell about him. Travellin Jack, said Speedys voice. Jack turned toward the voice and saw the custodian seated on the ground beside a partially dismantled merrygoround. He held a wrench in his hand, and before him a white horse with a foamy mane lay impaled by a long silver stake from pommel to belly. Speedy gently put the wrench on the ground. Are you ready to talk now, son? he asked. 4 Jack Goes Over 1 Yes, Im ready now, Jack said in a perfectly calm voice, and then burst into tears. Say, Travellin Jack, Speedy said, dropping his wrench and coming to him. Say, son, take her easy, take her easy now. . . . But Jack couldnt take her easy. Suddenly it was too much, all of it, too much, and it was cry or just sink under a great wave of blacknessa wave which no bright streak of gold could illuminate. The tears hurt, but he sensed the terror would kill him if he did not cry it out. You do your weepin, Travellin Jack, Speedy said, and put his arms around him. Jack put his hot, swollen face against Speedys thin shirt, smelling the mans smellsomething like Old Spice, something like cinnamon, something like books that no one has taken out of the library in a long time. Good smells, comforting smells. He groped his arms around Speedy; his palms felt the bones in Speedys back, close to the surface, hardly covered by scant meat. You weep if it put you easy again, Speedy said, rocking him. Sometimes it does. I know. Speedy knows how far you been, Travellin Jack, and how far you got to go, and how you tired. So you weep if it put you easy. Jack barely understood the wordsonly the sounds of them, soothing and calming. My mothers really sick, he said at last against Speedys chest. I think she came here to get away from my fathers old partner. Mr. Morgan Sloat. He sniffed mightily, let go of Speedy, stepped back, and rubbed at his swollen eyes with the heels of his hands. He was surprised at his lack of embarrassmentalways before, his tears had disgusted and shamed him . . . it was almost like peeing your pants. Was that because his mother had always been so tough? He supposed that was part of it, all right; Lily Cavanaugh had little use for tears. But that aint the only reason she come here, was it? No, Jack said in a low voice. I think . . . she came here to die. His voice rose impossibly on the last word, making a squeak like an unoiled hinge. Maybe, Speedy said, looking at Jack steadily. And maybe you here to save her. Her . . . and a woman just like her. Who? Jack said through numb lips. He knew who. He didnt know her name, but he knew who. The Queen, Speedy said. Her name is Laura DeLoessian, and she is the Queen of the Territories. 2 Help me, Speedy grunted. Catch ole Silver Lady right under the tail. You be takin liberties with the Lady, but I guess she aint gonna mind if youre helpin me get her back where she belong. Is that what you call her? Silver Lady? Yeah bob, Speedy said, grinning, showing perhaps a dozen teeth, top and bottom. All carousel horses is named, dont you know that? Catch on. Travellin Jack! Jack reached under the white horses wooden tail and locked his fingers together. Grunting, Speedy wrapped his big brown hands around the Ladys forelegs. Together they carried the wooden horse over to the canted dish of the carousel, the pole pointing down, its far end sinister with layers of Quaker State oil. Little to the left . . . Speedy gasped. Yeah . . . now peg her, Travellin Jack! Peg her down good! They seated the pole and then stood back, Jack panting, Speedy grinning and gasping wheezily. The black man armed sweat from his brow and then turned his grin on Jack. My, aint we cool? If you say so, Jack answered, smiling. I say so! Oh yes! Speedy reached into his back pocket and pulled out the dark green pint bottle. He unscrewed the cap, drankand for a moment Jack felt a weird certainty he could see through Speedy. Speedy had become transparent, as ghostly as one of the spirits on the Topper show, which they showed on one of the indy stations out in L.A. Speedy was disappearing. Disappearing, Jack thought, or going someplace else? But that was another nutty thought; it made no sense at all. Then Speedy was as solid as ever. It had just been a trick his eyes had played, a momentary No. No it wasnt. For just a second he almost wasnt here! hallucination. Speedy was looking shrewdly at him. He started to hold the bottle out to Jack, then shook his head a little. He recapped it instead, and then slid it into his back pocket again. He turned to study the Silver Lady, back in her place on the carousel, now needing only to have her post bolted securely into place. He was smiling. We just as cool as we can be, Travellin Jack. Speedy All of em is named, Speedy said, walking slowly around the canted dish of the carousel, his footfalls echoing in the high building. Overhead, in the shadowy crisscross of the beams, a few barnswallows cooed softly. Jack followed him. Silver Lady . . . Midnight . . . this here roan is Scout . . . this mares Ella Speed. The black man threw back his head and sang, startling the barnswallows into flight Ella Speed was havin her lovin fun . . . let me tell you what old Bill Martin done. . . . Hoo! Look at em fly! He laughed . . . but when he turned to Jack, he was serious again. You like to take a shot at savin your mothers life, Jack? Hers, and the life of that other woman I tole you about? I . . . . . . dont know how, he meant to say, but a voice insidea voice which came from that same previously locked room from which the memory of the two men and the attempted kidnapping had come that morningrose up powerfully You do know! You might need Speedy to get you started, but you do know, Jack. You do. He knew that voice so very well. It was his fathers voice. I will if you tell me how, he said, his voice rising and falling unevenly. Speedy crossed to the rooms far walla great circular shape made of narrow slatted boards, painted with a primitive but wildly energetic mural of dashing horses. To Jack, the wall looked like the pulldown lid of his fathers rolltop desk (and that desk had been in Morgan Sloats office the last time Jack and his mother had been there, he suddenly rememberedthe thought brought a thin, milky anger with it). Speedy pulled out a gigantic ring of keys, picked thoughtfully through them, found the one he wanted, and turned it in a padlock. He pulled the lock out of the hasp, clicked it shut, and dropped it into one of his breast pockets. Then he shoved the entire wall back on its track. Gorgeously bright sunlight poured in, making Jack narrow his eyes. Water ripples danced benignly across the ceiling. They were looking at the magnificent seaview the riders of the Arcadia Funworld Carousel got each time Silver Lady and Midnight and Scout carried them past the east side of the round carousel building. A light seabreeze pushed Jacks hair back from his forehead. Best to have sunlight if were gonna talk about this, Speedy said. Come on over here, Travellin Jack, and Ill tell you what I can . . . which aint all I know. God forbid you should ever have to get all of that. 3 Speedy talked in his soft voiceit was as mellow and soothing to Jack as leather that has been well broken in. Jack listened, sometimes frowning, sometimes gaping. You know those things you call the Daydreams? Jack nodded. Those things aint dreams, Travellin Jack. Not daydreams, not nightdreams, either. That place is a real place. Real enough, anyway. Its a lot different from here, but its real. Speedy, my mom says Never mind that right now. She dont know about the Territories . . . but, in a way, she do know about them. Because your daddy, he knew. And this other man Morgan Sloat? Yeah, I reckon. He knows too. Then, cryptically, Speedy added, I know who he is over there, too. Dont I! Whooo! The picture in your office . . . not Africa? Not Africa. Not a trick? Not a trick. And my father went to this place? he asked, but his heart already knew the answerit was an answer that clarified too many things not to be true. But, true or not, Jack wasnt sure how much of it he wanted to believe. Magic lands? Sick queens? It made him uneasy. It made him uneasy about his mind. Hadnt his mother told him over and over again when he was small that he shouldnt confuse his Daydreaming with what was really real? She had been very stern about that, and she had frightened Jack a little.

Perhaps, he thought now, she had been frightened herself. Could she have lived with Jacks father for so long and not known something? Jack didnt think so. Maybe, he thought, she didnt know very much . . . just enough to scare her. Going nuts. Thats what she was talking about. People who couldnt tell the difference between real things and makebelieve were going nuts. But his father had known a different truth, hadnt he? Yes. He and Morgan Sloat. They have magic like we have physics, right? Your father went often, yes. And this other man, Groat Sloat. Yeahbob! Him. He went, too. Only your dad, Jacky, he went to see and learn. The other fella, he just went to plunder him out a fortune. Did Morgan Sloat kill my Uncle Tommy? Jack asked. Dont know nuthin bout that. You just listen to me, Travellin Jack. Because time is short. If you really think this fellow Sloat is gonna turn up here He sounded awful mad, Jack said. Just thinking about Uncle Morgan showing up in Arcadia Beach made him feel nervous. then time is shorter than ever. Because maybe he wouldnt mind so bad if your mother died. And his Twinner is sure hopin that Queen Laura dies. Twinner? Theres people in this world have got Twinners in the Territories, Speedy said. Not many, because theres a lot less people over theremaybe only one for every hundred thousand over here. But Twinners can go back and forth the easiest. This Queen . . . shes my mothers . . . her Twinner? Yeah, seems like she is. But my mother never? No. She never has. No reason. My father had a . . . a Twinner? Yes indeed he did. A fine man. Jack wet his lipswhat a crazy conversation this was! Twinners and Territories! When my father died over here, did his Twinner die over there? Yeah. Not zackly the same time, but almost. Speedy? What? Have I got a Twinner? In the Territories? And Speedy looked at him so seriously that Jack felt a deep chill go up his back. Not you, son. Theres only one of you. You special. And this fella Smoot Sloat, Jack said, smiling a little. yeah, whatever, he knows it. That be one of the reasons he be coming up here soon. And one of the reasons you got to get movin. Why? Jack burst out. What good can I do if its cancer? If its cancer and shes here instead of in some clinic, its because theres no way, if shes here, see, it means The tears threatened again and he swallowed them back frantically. It means it must be all through her. All through her. Yes. That was another truth his heart knew the truth of her accelerating weightloss, the truth of the brown shadows under her eyes. All through her, but please God, hey, God, please, man, shes my mother I mean, he finished in a thick voice, what good is that Daydream place going to do? I think we had enough jawchin for now, Speedy said. Just believe this here, Travellin Jack Id never tell you you ought to go if you couldnt do her some good. But Get quiet, Travellin Jack. Cant talk no more till I show you some of what I mean. Wouldnt do no good. Come on. Speedy put an arm around Jacks shoulders and led him around the carousel dish. They went out the door together and walked down one of the amusement parks deserted byways. On their left was the Demon Dodgem Cars building, now boarded and shuttered. On their right was a series of booths Pitch Til U Win, Famous Pier Pizza DoughBoys, the Rimfire Shooting Gallery, also boarded up (faded wild animals pranced across the boardslions and tigers and bears, o my). They reached the wide main street, which was called Boardwalk Avenue in vague imitation of Atlantic CityArcadia Funworld had a pier, but no real boardwalk. The arcade building was now a hundred yards down to their left and the arch marking the entrance to Arcadia Funworld about two hundred yards down to their right. Jack could hear the steady, grinding thunder of the breaking waves, the lonely cries of the gulls. He looked at Speedy, meaning to ask him what now, what next, could he mean any of it or was it a cruel joke . . . but he said none of those things. Speedy was holding out the green glass bottle. That Jack began. Takes you there, Speedy said. Lot of people who visit over there dont need nothin like this, but you aint been there in a while, have you, Jacky? No. When had he last closed his eyes in this world and opened them in the magic world of the Daydreams, that world with its rich, vital smells and its deep, transparent sky? Last year? No. Further back than that . . . California . . . after his father had died. He would have been about . . . Jacks eyes widened. Nine years old? That long? Three years? It was frightening to think how quietly, how unobtrusively, those dreams, sometimes sweet, sometimes darkly unsettling, had slipped awayas if a large part of his imagination had died painlessly and unannounced. He took the bottle from Speedy quickly, almost dropping it. He felt a little panicky. Some of the Daydreams had been disturbing, yes, and his mothers carefully worded admonitions not to mix up reality and makebelieve (in other words dont go crazy, Jacky, ole kid ole sock, okay?) had been a little scary, yes, but he discovered now that he didnt want to lose that world after all. He looked in Speedys eyes and thought He knows it, too. Everything I just thought, he knows. Who are you, Speedy? When you aint been there for a while, you kinda forget how to get there on your own hook, Speedy said. He nodded at the bottle. Thats why I got me some magic juice. This stuff is special. Speedy spoke this last in tones that were almost reverential. Is it from there? The Territories? Nope. They got some magic right here, Travellin Jack. Not much, but a little. This here magic juice come from California. Jack looked at him doubtfully. Go on. Have you a little sip and see if you dont go travellin. Speedy grinned. Drink enough of that, you can go just about anyplace you want. Youre lookin at one who knows. Jeez, Speedy, but He began to feel afraid. His mouth had gone dry, the sun seemed much too bright, and he could feel his pulsebeat speeding up in his temples. There was a coppery taste under his tongue and Jack thought Thats how his magic juice will tastehorrible. If you get scared and want to come back, have another sip, Speedy said. Itll come with me? The bottle? You promise? The thought of getting stuck there, in that mystical other place, while his mother was sick and Sloatbeset back here, was awful. I promise. Okay. Jack brought the bottle to his lips . . . and then let it fall away a little. The smell was awfulsharp and rancid. I dont want to, Speedy, he whispered. Lester Parker looked at him, and his lips were smiling, but there was no smile in his eyesthey were stern. Uncompromising. Frightening. Jack thought of black eyes eye of gull, eye of vortex. Terror swept through him. He held the bottle out to Speedy. Cant you take it back? he asked, and his voice came out in a strengthless whisper. Please? Speedy made no reply. He did not remind Jack that his mother was dying, or that Morgan Sloat was coming. He didnt call Jack a coward, although he had never in his life felt so much like a coward, not even the time he had backed away from the high board at Camp Accomac and some of the other kids had booed him. Speedy merely turned around and whistled at a cloud. Now loneliness joined the terror, sweeping helplessly through him. Speedy had turned away from him; Speedy had shown him his back. Okay, Jack said suddenly. Okay, if its what you need me to do. He raised the bottle again, and before he could have any second or third thoughts, he drank. The taste was worse than anything he had anticipated. He had had wine before, had even developed some taste for it (he especially liked the dry white wines his mother served with sole or snapper or swordfish), and this was something like wine . . . but at the same time it was a dreadful mockery of all the wines he had drunk before. The taste was high and sweet and rotten, not the taste of lively grapes but of dead grapes that had not lived well. As his mouth flooded with that horrible sweetpurple taste, he could actually see those grapesdull, dusty, obese and nasty, crawling up a dirty stucco wall in a thick, syrupy sunlight that was silent except for the stupid buzz of many flies. He swallowed and thin fire printed a snailtrail down his throat. He closed his eyes, grimacing, his gorge threatening to rise. He did not vomit, although he believed that if he had eaten any breakfast he would have done. Speedy He opened his eyes, and further words died in his throat. He forgot about the need to sick up that horrible parody of wine. He forgot about his mother, and Uncle Morgan, and his father, and almost everything else. Speedy was gone. The graceful arcs of the roller coaster against the sky were gone. Boardwalk Avenue was gone. He was someplace else now. He was In the Territories, Jack whispered, his entire body crawling with a mad mixture of terror and exhilaration. He could feel the hair stirring on the nape of his neck, could feel a goofedup grin pulling at the corners of his mouth. Speedy, Im here, my God, Im here in the Territories! I But wonder overcame him. He clapped a hand over his mouth and slowly turned in a complete circle, looking at this place to which Speedys magic juice had brought him. 4 The ocean was still there, but now it was a darker, richer bluethe truest indigo Jack had ever seen. For a moment he stood transfixed, the seabreeze blowing in his hair, looking at the horizonline where that indigo ocean met a sky the color of faded denim. That horizonline showed a faint but unmistakable curve. He shook his head, frowning, and turned the other way. Seagrass, high and wild and tangled, ran down from the headland where the round carousel building had been only a minute ago. The arcade pier was also gone; where it had been, a wild tumble of granite blocks ran down to the ocean. The waves struck the lowest of these and ran into ancient cracks and channels with great hollow boomings. Foam as thick as whipped cream jumped into the clear air and was blown away by the wind. Abruptly Jack seized his left cheek with his left thumb and forefinger. He pinched hard. His eyes watered, but nothing changed. Its real, he whispered, and another wave boomed onto the headland, raising white curds of foam. Jack suddenly realized that Boardwalk Avenue was still here . . . after a fashion. A rutted carttrack ran from the top of the headlandwhere Boardwalk Avenue had ended at the entrance to the arcade in what his mind persisted in thinking of as the real worlddown to where he was standing and then on to the north, just as Boardwalk Avenue ran north, becoming Arcadia Avenue after it passed under the arch at the border of Funworld. Seagrass grew up along the center of this track, but it had a bent and matted look that made Jack think that the track was still used, at least once in a while. He started north, still holding the green bottle in his right hand. It occurred to him that somewhere, in another world, Speedy was holding the cap that went on this bottle. Did I disappear right in front of him? I suppose I must have. Jeez! About forty paces along the track, he came upon a tangle of blackberry bushes. Clustered amid the thorns were the fattest, darkest, most lushlooking blackberries he had ever seen. Jacks stomach, apparently over the indignity of the magic juice, made a loud goinging sound. Blackberries? In September? Never mind. After all that had happened today (and it was not yet ten oclock), sticking at blackberries in September seemed a little bit like refusing to take an aspirin after one has swallowed a doorknob. Jack reached in, picked a handful of berries, and tossed them into his mouth. They were amazingly sweet, amazingly good. Smiling (his lips had taken on a definite bluish cast), thinking it quite possible that he had lost his mind, he picked another handful of berries . . . and then a third. He had never tasted anything so finealthough, he thought later, it was not just the berries themselves; part of it was the incredible clarity of the air. He got a couple of scratches while picking a fourth helpingit was as if the bushes were telling him to lay off, enough was enough, already. He sucked at the deepest of the scratches, on the fleshy pad below the thumb, and then headed north along the twin ruts again, moving slowly, trying to look everywhere at once. He paused a little way from the blackberry tangles to look up at the sun, which seemed somehow smaller and yet more fiery. Did it have a faint orange cast, like in those old medieval pictures? Jack thought perhaps it did. And A cry, as rusty and unpleasant as an old nail being pulled slowly out of a board, suddenly arose on his right, scattering his thoughts. Jack turned toward it, his shoulders going up, his eyes widening. It was a gulland its size was mindboggling, almost unbelievable (but there it was, as solid as stone, as real as houses). It was, in fact, the size of an eagle. Its smooth white bullethead cocked to one side. Its fishhook of a beak opened and closed. It fluttered great wings, rippling the seagrass around it. And then, seemingly without fear, it began to hop toward Jack. Faintly, Jack heard the clear, brazen note of many horns blown together in a simple flourish, and for no reason at all he thought of his mother. He glanced to the north momentarily, in the direction he had been travelling, drawn by that soundit filled him with a sense of unfocussed urgency. It was, he thought (when there was time to think), like being hungry for a specific something that you havent had in a long timeice cream, potato chips, maybe a taco. You dont know until you see itand until you do, there is only a need without a name, making you restless, making you nervous. He saw pennons and the peak of what might have been a great tenta pavillionagainst the sky. Thats where the Alhambra is, he thought, and then the gull shrieked at him. He turned toward it and was alarmed to see it was now less than six feet away. Its beak opened again, showing that dirty pink lining, making him think of yesterday, the gull that had dropped the clam on the rock and then fixed him with a horrid stare exactly like this one. The gull was grinning at himhe was sure of it. As it hopped closer, Jack could smell a low and noisome stink hanging about itdead fish and rotted seaweed. The gull hissed at him and flurried its wings again. Get out of here, Jack said loudly. His heart was pumping quick blood and his mouth had gone dry, but he did not want to be scared off by a seagull, even a big one. Get out! The gull opened its beak again . . . and then, in a terrible, openthroated series of pulses, it spokeor seemed to. Others iyyyin Ack . . . others iyyyyyyyyyyin Mothers dying, Jack. . . . The gull took another clumsy hop toward him, scaly feet clutching at the grassy tangles, beak opening and closing, black eyes fixed on Jacks. Hardly aware of what he was doing, Jack raised the green bottle and drank. Again that horrible taste made him wince his eyes shutand when he opened them he was looking stupidly at a yellow sign which showed the black silhouettes of two running kids, a little boy and a little girl. SLOW CHILDREN, this sign read. A seagullthis one of perfectly normal sizeflew up from it with a squawk, no doubt startled by Jacks sudden appearance. He looked around, and was walloped by disorientation. His stomach, full of blackberries and Speedys pustulant magic juice, rolled over, groaning. The muscles in his legs began to flutter unpleasantly, and all at once he sat down on the curb at the base of the sign with a bang that travelled up his spine and made his teeth click together. He suddenly leaned over between his splayed knees and opened his mouth wide, sure he was just going to yark up the whole works. Instead he hiccuped twice, halfgagged, and then felt his stomach slowly relax. It was the berries, he thought. If it hadnt been for the berries, I would have puked for sure. He looked up and felt the unreality wash over him again. He had walked no more than sixty paces down the carttrack in the Territories world. He was sure of that. Say his stride was two feetno, say two and a half feet, just to be on the safe side. That meant he had come a paltry hundred and fifty feet. But He looked behind him and saw the arch, with its big red letters ARCADIA FUNWORLD. Although his vision was 2020, the sign was now so far away he could barely read it. To his right was the rambling, manywinged Alhambra Inn, with the formal gardens before it and the ocean beyond it. In the Territories world he had come a hundred and fifty feet. Over here he had somehow come half a mile. Jesus Christ, Jack Sawyer whispered, and covered his eyes with his hands. 5 Jack! Jack, boy! Travellin Jack! Speedys voice rose over the washingmachine roar of an old flatheadsix engine. Jack looked uphis head felt impossibly heavy, his limbs leaden with wearinessand saw a very old International Harvester truck rolling slowly toward him. Homemade stake sides had been added to the back of the truck, and they rocked back and forth like loose teeth as the truck moved up the street toward him. The body was painted a hideous turquoise. Speedy was behind the wheel. He pulled up at the curb, gunned the engine (Whup! Whup! Whupwhupwhup!), and then killed it (Hahhhhhhhhhh . . .). He climbed down quickly. You all right, Jack? Jack held the bottle out for Speedy to take. Your magic juice really sucks, Speedy, he said wanly. Speedy looked hurt . . . then he smiled. Whoever tole you medicine supposed to taste good, Travellin Jack? Nobody, I guess, Jack said. He felt some of his strength coming backslowlyas that thick feeling of disorientation ebbed. You believe now, Jack? Jack nodded. No, Speedy said. That dont git it. Say it out loud. The Territories, Jack said. Theyre there. Real. I saw a bird He stopped and shuddered. What kind of a bird? Speedy asked sharply. Seagull. Biggest damn seagull Jack shook his head. You wouldnt believe it. He thought and then said, No, I guess you would. Nobody else, maybe, but you would. Did it talk? Lots of birds over there do. Talk foolishness, mostly. And theres some that talks a kind of sense . . . but its a evil kind of sense, and mostly its lies. Jack was nodding. Just hearing Speedy talk of these things, as if it were utterly rational and utterly lucid to do so, made him feel better. I think it did talk. But it was like He thought hard. There was a kid at the school Richard and I went to in L.A. Brandon Lewis. He had a speech impediment, and when he talked you could hardly understand him. The bird was like that. But I knew what it said. It said my mother was dying. Speedy put an arm around Jacks shoulders and they sat quietly together on the curb for a time. The desk clerk from the Alhambra, looking pale and narrow and suspicious of every living thing in the universe, came out with a large stack of mail. Speedy and Jack watched him go down to the corner of Arcadia and Beach Drive and dump the inns correspondence into the mailbox. He turned back, marked Jack and Speedy with his thin gaze, and then turned up the Alhambras main walk. The top of his head could barely be descried over the tops of the thick box hedges. The sound of the big front door opening and closing was clearly audible, and Jack was struck by a terrible sense of this places autumn desolation. Wide, deserted streets. The long beach with its empty dunes of sugarsand. The empty amusement park, with the rollercoaster cars standing on a siding under canvas tarps and all the booths padlocked. It came to him that his mother had brought him to a place very like the end of the world. Speedy had cocked his head back and sang in his true and mellow voice, Well Ive laid around . . . and played around . . . this old town too long . . . summers almost gone, yes, and winters coming on . . . winters coming on, and I feel like . . . I got to travel on He broke off and looked at Jack. You feel like you got to travel, ole Travellin Jack? Flagging terror stole through his bones. I guess so, he said. If it will help. Help her. Can I help her, Speedy? You can, Speedy said gravely. But Oh, theres a whole string of buts, Speedy said. Whole trainload of buts, Travellin Jack. I dont promise you no cakewalk. I dont promise you success. Dont promise that youll come back alive, or if you do, that youll come back with your mind still bolted together. You gonna have to do a lot of your ramblin in the Territories, because the Territories is a whole lot smaller. You notice that? Yes. Figured you would. Because you sure did get a whole mess down the road, didnt you? Now an earlier question recurred to Jack, and although it was off the subject, he had to know. Did I disappear, Speedy? Did you see me disappear? You went, Speedy said, and clapped his hands once, sharply, just like that. Jack felt a slow, unwilling grin stretch his mouth . . . and Speedy grinned back. Id like to do it sometime in Mr. Balgos computer class, Jack said, and Speedy cackled like a child. Jack joined himand the laughter felt good, almost as good as those blackberries had tasted. After a few moments Speedy sobered and said, Theres a reason you got to be in the Territories, Jack. Theres somethin you got to git. Its a mighty powerful somethin. And its over there? Yeahbob. It can help my mother? Her . . . and the other. The Queen? Speedy nodded. What is it? Where is it? When do I Hold it! Stop! Speedy held up a hand. His lips were smiling, but his eyes were grave, almost sorrowing. One thing at a time. And, Jack, I cant tell you what I dont know . . . or what Im not allowed to tell. Not allowed? Jack asked, bewildered. Who There you go again, Speedy said. Now listen, Travellin Jack. You got to leave as soon as you can, before that man Bloat can show up an bottle you up Sloat. Yeah, him. You got to get out before he comes. But hell bug my mother, Jack said, wondering why he was saying itbecause it was true, or because it was an excuse to avoid the trip that Speedy was setting before him, like a meal that might be poisoned. You dont know him! He I know him, Speedy said quietly. I know him of old, Travellin Jack. And he knows me. Hes got my marks on him. Theyre hiddenbut theyre on him. Your momma can take care of herself. At least, shes gonna have to, for a while. Because you got to go. Where? West, Speedy said. From this ocean to the other. What? Jack cried, appalled by the thought of such distance. And then he thought of an ad hed seen on TV not three nights agoa man picking up goodies at a deli buffet some thirtyfive thousand feet in the air, just as cool as a cucumber. Jack had flown from one coast to another with his mother a good two dozen times, and was always secretly delighted by the fact that when you flew from New York to L.A. you could have sixteen hours of daylight. It was like cheating time. And it was easy. Can I fly? he asked Speedy. No! Speedy almost yelled, his eyes widening in consternation. He gripped Jacks shoulder with one strong hand. Dont you let nuthin git you up in the sky! You dassnt! If you happened to flip over into the Territories while you was up there He said no more; he didnt have to. Jack had a sudden, appalling picture of himself tumbling out of that clear, cloudless sky, a screaming boyprojectile in jeans with a redandwhitestriped rugby shirt, a skydiver with no parachute. You walk, Speedy said. And thumb what rides you think you can . . . but you got to be careful, because theres strangers out there. Some are just crazy people, sissies that would like to touch you or thugs that would like to mug you. But some are real Strangers, Travellin Jack. They people with a foot in each worldthey look that way and this like a goddam Janushead. Im afraid they gonna know you comin before too long has passed. And theyll be on the watch. Are theyhe gropedTwinners? Some are. Some arent. I cant say no more right now. But you get across if you can. Get across to the other ocean. You travel in the Territories when you can and youll get across faster. You take the juice I hate it! Never mind what you hate, Speedy said sternly. You get across and youre gonna find a placeanother Alhambra. You got to go in that place. Its a scary place, a bad place. But you got to go in. How will I find it? It will call you. Youll hear it loud and clear, son. Why? Jack asked. He wet his lips. Why do I have to go there, if its so bad? Because, Speedy said, thats where the Talisman is. Somewhere in that other Alhambra. I dont know what youre talking about! You will, Speedy said. He stood up, then took Jacks hand. Jack rose. The two of them stood facetoface, old black man and young white boy. Listen, Speedy said, and his voice took on a slow, chanting rhythm. Talisman be given unto your hand, Travellin Jack. Not too big, not too small, she look just like a crystal ball. Travellin Jack, ole Travellin Jack, you be goin to California to bring her back. But heres your burden, heres your cross drop her, Jack, and all be lost. I dont know what youre talking about, Jack repeated with a scared kind of stubbornness. You have to No, Speedy said, not unkindly. I got to finish with that carousel this morning, Jack, thats what I got to do. Got no time for any more jawchin. I got to get back and you got to get on. Cant tell you no more now. I guess Ill be seein you around. Here . . . or over there. But I dont know what to do! Jack said as Speedy swung up into the cab of the old truck. You know enough to get movin, Speedy said. Youll go to the Talisman, Jack. Shell draw you to her. I dont even know what a Talisman is! Speedy laughed and keyed the ignition. The truck started up with a big blue blast of exhaust. Look it up in the dictionary! he shouted, and threw the truck into reverse. He backed up, turned around, and then the truck was rattling back toward Arcadia Funworld. Jack stood by the curb, watching it go. He had never felt so alone in his life. 5 Jack and Lily 1 When Speedys truck turned off the road and disappeared beneath the Funworld arch, Jack began to move toward the hotel. A Talisman. In another Alhambra. On the edge of another ocean. His heart seemed empty. Without Speedy beside him, the task was mountainous, so huge; vague, toowhile Speedy had been talking, Jack had had the feeling of almost understanding that macaroni of hints and threats and instructions. Now it was close to just being macaroni. The Territories were real, though. He hugged that certainty as close as he could, and it both warmed and chilled him. They were a real place, and he was going there again. Even if he did not really understand everything yeteven if he was an ignorant pilgrim, he was going. Now all he had to do was to try to convince his mother. Talisman, he said to himself, using the word as the thing, and crossed empty Boardwalk Avenue and jumped up the steps onto the path between the hedges. The darkness of the Alhambras interior, once the great door had swung shut, startled him. The lobby was a long caveyoud need a fire just to separate the shadows. The pale clerk flickered behind the long desk, stabbing at Jack with his white eyes. A message there yes. Jack swallowed and turned away. The message made him stronger, it increased him, though its intention was only scornful. He went toward the elevators with a straight back and an unhurried step. Hang around with blackies, huh? Let them put their arms around you, huh? The elevator whirred down like a great heavy bird, the doors parted, and Jack stepped inside. He turned to punch the button marked with a glowing 4. The clerk was still posed spectrally behind the desk, sending out his dumdums message. Niggerlover Niggerlover Niggerlover (like it that way, hey brat? Hot and black, thats for you, hey?). The doors mercifully shut. Jacks stomach fell toward his shoes, the elevator lurched upward. The hatred stayed down there in the lobby the very air in the elevator felt better once it had risen above the first floor. Now all Jack had to do was to tell his mother that he had to go to California by himself. Just dont let Uncle Morgan sign any papers for you. . . . As Jack stepped out of the elevator, he wondered for the first time in his life whether Richard Sloat understood what his father was really like. 2 Down past the empty sconces and paintings of little boats riding foamy, corrugated seas, the door marked 408 slanted inward, revealing a foot of the suites pale carpet. Sunlight from the livingroom windows made a long rectangle on the inner wall. Hey Mom, Jack said, entering the suite. You didnt close the door, whats the big He was alone in the room. Idea? he said to the furniture. Mom? Disorder seemed to ooze from the tidy rooman overflowing ashtray, a halffull tumbler of water left on the coffee table. This time, Jack promised himself, he would not panic. He turned in a slow circle. Her bedroom door was open, the room itself as dark as the lobby because Lily had never pulled open the curtains. Hey, I know youre here, he said, and then walked through her empty bedroom to knock at her bathroom door. No reply. Jack opened this door and saw a pink toothbrush beside the sink, a forlorn hairbrush on the dressing table. Bristles snarled with light hairs. Laura DeLoessian, announced a voice in Jacks mind, and he stepped backward out of the little bathroomthat name stung him. Oh, not again, he said to himself. Whered she go? Already he was seeing it. He saw it as he went to his own bedroom, saw it as he opened his own door and surveyed his rumpled bed, his flattened knapsack and little stack of paperback books, his socks balled up on top of the dresser. He saw it when he looked into his own bathroom, where towels lay in oriental disarray over the floor, the sides of the tub, and the Formica counters. Morgan Sloat thrusting through the door, grabbing his mothers arms and hauling her downstairs . . . Jack hurried back into the living room and this time looked behind the couch. . . . yanking her out a side door and pushing her into a car, his eyes beginning to turn yellow. . . . He picked up the telephone and punched 0. This is, ah, Jack Sawyer, and Im in, ah, room fouroheight. Did my mother leave any message for me? She was supposed to be here and . . . and for some reason . . . ah . . . Ill check, said the girl, and Jack clutched the phone for a burning moment before she returned. No message for fouroheight, sorry. How about fourohseven? Thats the same slot, the girl told him. Ah, did she have any visitors in the last half hour or so? Anybody come this morning? To see her, I mean. That would be Reception, the girl said. I wouldnt know. Do you want me to check for you? Please, Jack said. Oh, Im happy to have something to do in this morgue, she told him. Stay on the line. Another burning moment. When she came back to him, it was with No visitors. Maybe she left a note somewhere in your rooms. Yes, Ill look, Jack said miserably and hung up. Would the clerk tell the truth? Or would Morgan Sloat have held out a hand with a twentydollar bill folded like a stamp into his meaty palm? That, too, Jack could see. He dropped himself on the couch, stifling an irrational desire to look under the cushions. Of course Uncle Morgan could not have come to the rooms and abducted herhe was still in California. But he could have sent other people to do it for him. Those people Speedy had mentioned, the Strangers with a foot in each world. Then Jack could stay in the room no longer. He bounced off the couch and went back into the corridor, closing the door after him. When he had gone a few paces down the hall, he twirled around in midstep, went back, and opened the door with his own key. He pushed the door an inch in, and then trotted back toward the elevators.

It was always possible that she had gone out without her keyto the shop in the lobby, to the newsstand for a magazine or a paper. Sure. He had not seen her pick up a newspaper since the beginning of summer. All the news she cared about came over an internal radio. Out for a walk, then. Yeah, out exercising and breathing deeply. Or jogging, maybe maybe Lily Cavanaugh had suddenly gone in for the hundredyard dash. Shed set up hurdles down on the beach and was in training for the next Olympics. . . . When the elevator deposited him in the lobby he glanced into the shop, where an elderly blond woman behind a counter peered at him over the tops of her glasses. Stuffed animals, a tiny pile of thin newspapers, a display rack of flavored Chap Stick. Leaning out of pockets in a wallstand were People and Us and New Hampshire Magazine. Sorry, Jack said, and turned away. He found himself staring at the bronze plaque beside a huge, dispirited fern . . . has begun to sicken and must soon die. The woman in the shop cleared her throat. Jack thought that he must have been staring at those words of Daniel Websters for entire minutes. Yes? the woman said behind him. Sorry, Jack repeated, and pulled himself into the center of the lobby. The hateful clerk lifted an eyebrow, then turned sideways to stare at a deserted staircase. Jack made himself approach the man. Mister, he said when he stood before the desk. The clerk was pretending to try to remember the capital of North Carolina or the principal export of Peru. Mister. The man scowled to himself he was nearly there, he could not be disturbed. All of this was an act, Jack knew, and he said, I wonder if you can help me. The man decided to look at him after all. Depends on what the help is, sonny. Jack consciously decided to ignore the hidden sneer. Did you see my mother go out a little while ago? Whats a little while? Now the sneer was almost visible. Did you see her go out? Thats all Im asking. Afraid she saw you and your sweetheart holding hands out there? God, youre such a creep, Jack startled himself by saying. No, Im not afraid of that. Im just wondering if she went out, and if you werent such a creep, youd tell me. His face had grown hot, and he realized that his hands were bunched into fists. Well okay, she went out, the clerk said, drifting away toward the bank of pigeonholes behind him. But youd better watch your tongue, boy. You better apologize to me, fancy little Master Sawyer. I got eyes, too. I know things. You run your mouth and I run my business, Jack said, dredging the phrase up from one of his fathers old recordsperhaps it did not quite fit the situation, but it felt right in his mouth, and the clerk blinked satisfactorily. Maybe shes in the gardens, I dont know, the man said gloomily, but Jack was already on his way toward the door. The Darling of the Driveins and Queen of the Bs was nowhere in the wide gardens before the hotel, Jack saw immediatelyand he had known that she would not be in the gardens, for he would have seen her on his way into the hotel. Besides, Lily Cavanaugh did not dawdle through gardens that suited her as little as did setting up hurdles on the beach. A few cars rolled down Boardwalk Avenue. A gull screeched far overhead, and Jacks heart tightened. The boy pushed his fingers through his hair and looked up and down the bright street. Maybe she had been curious about Speedymaybe shed wanted to check out this unusual new pal of her sons and had wandered down to the amusement park. But Jack could not see her in Arcadia Funworld any more than he could see her lingering picturesquely in the gardens. He turned in the less familiar direction, toward the town line. Separated from the Alhambras grounds by a high thick hedge, the Arcadia Tea and Jam Shoppe stood first in a row of brightly colored shops. It and New England Drugs were the only shops in the terrace to remain open after Labor Day. Jack hesitated a moment on the cracked sidewalk. A tea shop, much less shoppe, was an unlikely situation for the Darling of the Driveins. But since it was the first place he might expect to find her, he moved across the sidewalk and peered in the window. A woman with piledup hair sat smoking before a cash register. A waitress in a pink rayon dress leaned against the far wall. Jack saw no customers. Then at one of the tables near the Alhambra end of the shop he saw an old woman lifting a cup. Apart from the help, she was alone. Jack watched the old woman delicately replace the cup in the saucer, then fish a cigarette from her bag, and realized with a sickening jolt that she was his mother. An instant later, the impression of age had disappeared. But he could remember itand it was as if he were seeing her through bifocals, seeing both Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer and that fragile old woman in the same body. Jack gently opened the door, but still he set off the tinkle of the bell that he had known was above it. The blond woman at the register nodded, smiling. The waitress straightened up and smoothed the lap of her dress. His mother stared at him with what looked like genuine surprise, and then gave him an open smile. Well, Wandering Jack, youre so tall that you looked just like your father when you came through that door, she said. Sometimes I forget youre only twelve. 3 You called me Wandering Jack, he said, pulling a chair out and dropping himself into it. Her face was very pale, and the smudges beneath her eyes looked almost like bruises. Didnt your father call you that? I just happened to think of ityouve been on the move all morning. He called me Wandering Jack? Something like that . . . sure he did. When you were tiny. Travelling Jack, she said firmly. That was it. He used to call you Travelling Jackyou know, when wed see you tearing down the lawn. It was funny, I guess. I left the door open, by the way. Didnt know if you remembered to take your key with you. I saw, he said, still tingling with the new information she had so casually given him. Want any breakfast? I just couldnt take the thought of eating another meal in that hotel. The waitress had appeared beside them. Young man? she asked, lifting her order pad. How did you know Id find you here? Where else is there to go? his mother reasonably asked, and told the waitress, Give him the threestar breakfast. Hes growing about an inch a day. Jack leaned against the back of his chair. How could he begin this? His mother glanced at him curiously, and he beganhe had to begin, now. Mom, if I had to go away for a while, would you be all right? What do you mean, all right? And what do you mean, go away for a while? Would you be ableah, would you have trouble from Uncle Morgan? I can handle old Sloat, she said, smiling tautly. I can handle him for a while, anyhow. Whats this all about, Jacky? Youre not going anywhere. I have to, he said. Honest. Then he realized that he sounded like a child begging for a toy. Mercifully, the waitress arrived with toast in a rack and a stubby glass of tomato juice. He looked away for a moment, and when he looked back, his mother was spreading jam from one of the pots on the table over a triangular section of toast. I have to go, he said. His mother handed him the toast; her face moved with a thought, but she said nothing. You might not see me for a while, Mom, he said. Im going to try to help you. Thats why I have to go. Help me? she asked, and her cool incredulity, Jack reckoned, was about seventyfive percent genuine. I want to try to save your life, he said. Is that all? I can do it. You can save my life. Thats very entertaining, Jackyboy; it ought to make prime time someday. Ever think about going into network programming? She had put down the redsmeared knife and was widening her eyes in mockery but beneath the deliberate incomprehension he saw two things. A flareup of her terror; a faint, almost unrecognized hope that he might after all be able to do something. Even if you say I cant try, Im going to do it anyhow. So you might as well give me your permission. Oh, thats a wonderful deal. Especially since I dont have any idea of what youre talking about. I think you do, thoughI think you do have some idea, Mom. Because Dad would have known exactly what Im talking about. Her cheeks reddened; her mouth thinned into a line. Thats so unfair its despicable, Jacky. You cant use what Philip might have known as a weapon against me. What he did know, not what he might have known. Youre talking total horseshit, sonny boy. The waitress, setting a plate of scrambled eggs, home fries, and sausages before Jack, audibly inhaled. After the waitress had paraded off, his mother shrugged. I dont seem able to find the right tone with the help around here. But horseshit is still horseshit is still horseshit, to quote Gertrude Stein. Im going to save your life, Mom, he repeated. And I have to go a long way away and bring something back to do it. And so thats what Im going to do. I wish I knew what you were talking about. Just an ordinary conversation, Jack told himself as ordinary as asking permission to spend a couple of nights at a friends house. He cut a sausage in half and popped one of the pieces in his mouth. She was watching him carefully. Sausage chewed and swallowed, Jack inserted a forkful of egg into his mouth. Speedys bottle lumped like a rock against his backside. I also wish youd act as though you could hear the little remarks I send your way, as obtuse as they may be. Jack stolidly swallowed the eggs and inserted a salty wad of the crisp potatoes into his mouth. Lily put her hands in her lap. The longer he said nothing, the more she would listen when he did talk. He pretended to concentrate on his breakfast, eggs sausage potatoes, sausage potatoes eggs, potatoes eggs sausage, until he sensed that she was near to shouting at him. My father called me Travelling Jack, he thought to himself. This is right; this is as right as Ill ever get. Jack Mom, he said, sometimes didnt Dad call you up from a long way away, and you knew he was supposed to be in town? She raised her eyebrows. And sometimes didnt you, ah, walk into a room because you thought he was there, maybe even knew he was therebut he wasnt? Let her chew on that. No, she said. Both of them let the denial fade away. Almost never. Mom, it even happened to me, Jack said. There was always an explanation, you know there was. My fatherthis is what you knowwas never too bad at explaining things. Especially the stuff that really couldnt be explained. He was very good at that. Thats part of the reason he was such a good agent. Now she was silent again. Well, I know where he went, Jack said. Ive been there already. I was there this morning. And if I go there again, I can try to save your life. My life doesnt need you to save it, it doesnt need anyone to save it, his mother hissed. Jack looked down at his devastated plate and muttered something. What was that? she drilled at him. I think it does, I said. He met her eyes with his own. Suppose I ask how you propose to go about saving my life, as you put it. I cant answer. Because I dont really understand it yet. Mom, Im not in school, anyhow . . . give me a chance. I might only be gone a week or so. She raised her eyebrows. It could be longer, he admitted. I think youre nuts, she said. But he saw that part of her wanted to believe him, and her next words proved it. IfifI were mad enough to allow you to go off on this mysterious errand, Id have to be sure that you wouldnt be in any danger. Dad always came back, Jack pointed out. Id rather risk my life than yours, she said, and this truth, too, lay hugely between them for a long moment. Ill call when I can. But dont get too worried if a couple of weeks go by without my calling. Ill come back, too, just like Dad always did. This whole thing is nuts, she said. Me included. How are you going to get to this place you have to go to? And where is it? Do you have enough money? I have everything I need, he said, hoping that she would not press him on the first two questions. The silence stretched out and out, and finally he said, I guess Ill mainly walk. I cant talk about it much, Mom. Travelling Jack, she said. I can almost believe . . . Yes, Jack said. Yes. He was nodding. And maybe, he thought, you know some of what she knows, the real Queen, and thats why you are letting go this easily. Thats right. I can believe, too. Thats what makes it right. Well . . . since you say youll go no matter what I say . . . I will, too. . . . then I guess it doesnt matter what I say. She looked at him bravely. It does matter, though. I know. I want you to get back here as quick as you can, sonny boy. Youre not going right away, are you? I have to. He inhaled deeply. Yes. I am going right away. As soon as I leave you. I could almost believe in this rigamarole. Youre Phil Sawyers son, all right. You havent found a girl somewhere in this place, have you . . . ? She looked at him very sharply. No. No girl. Okay. Save my life. Off with you. She shook her head, and he thought he saw an extra brightness in her eyes. If youre going to leave, get out of here, Jacky. Call me tomorrow. If I can. He stood up. If you can. Of course. Forgive me. She looked down at nothing, and he saw that her eyes were unfocused. Red dots burned in the middle of her cheeks. Jack leaned over and kissed her, but she just waved him away. The waitress stared at the two of them as if they were performing a play. Despite what his mother had just said, Jack thought that he had brought the level of her disbelief down to something like fifty percent; which meant that she no longer knew what to believe. She focused on him for a moment, and he saw that hectic brightness blazing in her eyes again. Anger; tears? Take care, she said, and signalled the waitress. I love you, Jack said. Never get off on a line like that. Now she was almost smiling. Get travelling, Jack. Get going before I realize how crazy this is. Im gone, he said, and turned away and marched out of the restaurant. His head felt tight, as if the bones in his skull had just grown too large for their covering of flesh. The empty yellow sunlight attacked his eyes. Jack heard the door of the Arcadia Tea and Jam Shoppe banging shut an instant after the little bell had sounded. He blinked; ran across Boardwalk Avenue without looking for cars. When he reached the pavement on the other side, he realized that he would have to go back to their suite for some clothes. His mother had still not emerged from the tea shop by the time Jack was pulling open the hotels great front door. The desk clerk stepped backward and sullenly stared. Jack felt some sort of emotion steaming off the man, but for a second could not remember why the clerk should react so strongly to the sight of him. The conversation with his motheractually much shorter than he had imagined it would beseemed to have lasted for days. On the other side of the vast gulf of time hed spent in the Tea and Jam Shoppe, he had called the clerk a creep. Should he apologize? He no longer actually remembered what had caused him to flare up at the clerk. . . . His mother had agreed to his goingshe had given him permission to take his journey, and as he walked through the crossfire of the deskmans glare he finally understood why. He had not mentioned the Talisman, not explicitly, but even if he hadif he had spoken of the most lunatic aspect of his missionshe would have accepted that too. And if hed said that he was going to bring back a footlong butterfly and roast it in the oven, shed have agreed to eat roast butterfly. It would have been an ironic, but a real, agreement. In part this showed the depth of her fear, that she would grasp at such straws. But she would grasp because at some level she knew that these were bricks, not straws. His mother had given him permission to go because somewhere inside her she, too, knew about the Territories. Did she ever wake up in the night with that name, Laura DeLoessian, sounding in her mind? Up in 407 and 408, he tossed clothes into his knapsack almost randomly if his fingers found it in a drawer and it was not too large, in it went. Shirts, socks, a sweater, Jockey shorts. Jack tightly rolled up a pair of tan jeans and forced them in, too; then he realized that the pack had become uncomfortably heavy, and pulled out most of the shirts and socks. The sweater, too, came out. At the last minute he remembered his toothbrush. Then he slid the straps over his shoulders and felt the pull of the weight on his backnot too heavy. He could walk all day, carrying only these few pounds. Jack simply stood quiet in the suites living room a moment, feelingunexpectedly powerfullythe absence of any person or thing to whom he could say goodbye. His mother would not return to the suite until she could be sure he was gone if she saw him now, shed order him to stay. He could not say goodbye to these three rooms as he could to a house he had loved hotel rooms accepted departures emotionlessly. In the end he went to the telephone pad printed with a drawing of the hotel on eggshellthin paper, and with the Alhambras blunt narrow pencil wrote the three lines that were most of what he had to say Thanks I love you and will be back 4 Jack moved down Boardwalk Avenue in the thin northern sun, wondering where he should . . . flip. That was the word for it. And should he see Speedy once more before he flipped into the Territories? He almost had to talk to Speedy once more, because he knew so little about where he was going, whom he might meet, what he was looking for. . . . she look just like a crystal ball. Was that all the instruction Speedy intended to give him about the Talisman? That, and the warning not to drop it? Jack felt almost sick with lack of preparationas if he had to take a final exam in a course hed never attended. He also felt that he could flip right where he stood, he was that impatient to begin, to get started, to move. He had to be in the Territories again, he suddenly understood; in the welter of his emotions and longings, that thread brightly shone. He wanted to breathe that air; he hungered for it. The Territories, the long plains and ranges of low mountains, called him, the fields of tall grass and the streams that flashed through them. Jacks entire body yearned for that landscape. And he might have taken the bottle out of his pocket and forced a mouthful of the awful juice down his throat on the spot if he had not just then seen the bottles former owner tucked up against a tree, butt on heels and hands laced across his knees. A brown grocery bag lay beside him, and atop the bag was an enormous sandwich of what looked like liver sausage and onion. Youre movin now, Speedy said, smiling up at him. Youre on your way, I see. Say your goodbyes? Your momma know you wont be home for a while? Jack nodded, and Speedy held up the sandwich. You hungry? This one, its too much for me. I had something to eat, the boy said. Im glad I can say goodbye to you. Ole Jack on fire, he rarin to go, Speedy said, cocking his long head sideways. Boy gonna move. Speedy? But dont take off without a few little things I brought for you. I got em here in this bag, you wanna see? Speedy? The man squinted up at Jack from the base of the tree. Did you know that my father used to call me Travelling Jack? Oh, I probably heard that somewhere, Speedy said, grinning at him. Come over here and see what I brought you. Plus, I have to tell you where to go first, dont I? Relieved, Jack walked across the sidewalk to Speedys tree. The old man set his sandwich in his lap and fished the bag closer to him. Merry Christmas, Speedy said, and brought forth a tall, battered old paperback book. It was, Jack saw, an old Rand McNally road atlas. Thanks, Jack said, taking the book from Speedys outstretched hand. Aint no maps over there, so you stick as much as you can to the roads in ole Rand McNally. That way youll get where youre goin. Okay, Jack said, and slipped out of the knapsack so that he could slide the big book down inside it. The next thing dont have to go in that fancy rig you carryin on your back, Speedy said. He put the sandwich on the flat paper bag and stood up all in one long smooth motion. No, you can carry this right in your pocket. He dipped his fingers into the left pocket of his workshirt. What emerged, clamped between his second and third fingers like one of Lilys Tarrytoons, was a white triangular object it took the boy a moment to recognize as a guitarpick. You take this and keep it. Youll want to show it to a man. Hell help you. Jack turned the pick over in his fingers. He had never seen one like itof ivory, with scrimshaw filigrees and patterns winding around it in slanted lines like some kind of unearthly writing. Beautiful in the abstract, it was almost too heavy to be a useful fingerpick. Whos the man? Jack asked. He slipped the pick into one of his pants pockets. Big scar on his faceyoull see him pretty soon after you land in the Territories. Hes a guard. Fact is, hes a Captain of the Outer Guards, and hell take you to a place where you can see a lady you has to see. Well, a lady you ought to see. So you know the other reason youre puttin your neck on the line. My friend over there, hell understand what youre doin and hell figure out a way to get you to the lady. This lady . . . Jack began. Yep, Speedy said. You got it. Shes the Queen. You take a good look at her, Jack. You see what you see when you sees her. You see what she is, understand? Then you hit out for the west. Speedy stood examining him gravely, almost as if he were just now doubting that hed ever see Jack Sawyer again, and then the lines in his face twitched and he said, Steer clear of ole Bloat. Watch for his trailhis own and his Twinners. Ole Bloat can find out where you went if youre not careful, and if he finds out hes gonna be after you like a fox after a goose. Speedy shoved his hands in his pockets and regarded Jack again, looking very much as though he wished he could think of more to say. Get the Talisman, son, he concluded. Get it and bring it back safe. It gonna be your burden but you got to be bigger than your burden. Jack was concentrating so hard on what Speedy was telling him that he squinted into the mans seamed face. Scarred man, Captain of the Outer Guards. The Queen. Morgan Sloat, after him like a predator. In an evil place over on the other side of the country. A burden. Okay, he said, wishing suddenly that he were back in the Tea and Jam Shoppe with his mother. Speedy smiled jaggedly, warmly. Yeahbob. Ole Travellin Jack is okeydoke. The smile deepened. Bout time for you to sip at that special juice, wouldnt you say? I guess it is, Jack said. He tugged the dark bottle out of his hip pocket and unscrewed the cap. He looked back up at Speedy, whose pale eyes stabbed into his own. Speedyll help you when he can. Jack nodded, blinked, and raised the neck of the bottle to his mouth. The sweetly rotten odor which leaped out of the bottle nearly made his throat close itself in an involuntary spasm. He tipped the bottle up and the taste of the odor invaded his mouth. His stomach clenched. He swallowed, and rough, burning liquid spilled down his throat. Long seconds before Jack opened his eyes, he knew from the richness and clarity of the smells about him that he had flipped into the Territories. Horses, grass, a dizzying scent of raw meat; dust; the clear air itself. Interlude Sloat in This World (I) I know I work too hard, Morgan Sloat told his son Richard that evening. They were speaking on the telephone, Richard standing at the communal telephone in the downstairs corridor of his dormitory, his father sitting at his desk on the top floor of one of Sawyer Sloats first and sweetest realestate deals in Beverly Hills. But I tell you kid, there are a lot of times when you have to do something yourself to get it done right. Especially when my late partners family is involved. Its just a short trip, I hope. Probably Ill get everything nailed down out there in goddam New Hampshire in less than a week. Ill give you another call when its all over. Maybe well go railroading in California, just like the old days. Therell be justice yet. Trust your old man. The deal for the building had been particularly sweet because of Sloats willingness to do things himself. After he and Sawyer had negotiated the purchase of a shortterm lease, then (after a gunfire of lawsuits) a longterm lease, they had fixed their rental rates at so much per square foot, done the necessary alterations, and advertised for new tenants. The only holdover tenant was the Chinese restaurant on the ground floor, dribbling in rent at about a third of what the space was worth. Sloat had tried reasonable discussions with the Chinese, but when they saw that he was trying to talk them into paying more rent, they suddenly lost the ability to speak or understand English. Sloats attempts at negotiation limped along for a few days, and then he happened to see one of the kitchen help carrying a bucket of grease out through the back door of the kitchen. Feeling better already, Sloat followed the man into a dark, narrow culdesac and watched him tip the grease into a garbage can. He needed no more than that. A day later, a chainlink fence separated the culdesac from the restaurant; yet another day later, a Health Department inspector served the Chinese with a complaint and a summons. Now the kitchen help had to take all their refuse, grease included, out through the dining area and down a chainlink dog run Sloat had constructed alongside the restaurant. Business fell off the customers caught odd, unpleasant odors from the nearby garbage. The owners rediscovered the English language, and volunteered to double their monthly payment. Sloat responded with a gratefulsounding speech that said nothing. And that night, having primed himself with three large martinis, Sloat drove from his house to the restaurant and took a baseball bat from the trunk of his car and smashed in the long window which had once given a pleasant view of the street but now looked out at a corridor of fencing which ended in a huddle of metal bins. He had done those things . . . but he hadnt exactly been Sloat when he did them. The next morning the Chinese requested another meeting and this time offered to quadruple their payment. Now youre talking like men, Sloat told the stonyfaced Chinese. And Ill tell you what! Just to prove were all on the same team, well pay half the cost of replacing your window. Within nine months of Sawyer Sloats taking possession of the building, all the rents had increased significantly and the initial cost and profit projections had begun to look wildly pessimistic. By now this building was one of Sawyer Sloats more modest ventures, but Morgan Sloat was as proud of it as of the massive new structures they had put up downtown. Just walking past the place where hed put up the fence as he came in to work in the morning reminded himdailyof how much he had contributed to Sawyer Sloat, how reasonable were his claims! This sense of the justice of his ultimate desires kindled within him as he spoke to Richardafter all, it was for Richard that he wanted to take over Phil Sawyers share of the company. Richard was, in a sense, his immortality. His son would be able to go to the best business schools and then pick up a law degree before he came into the company; and thus fully armed, Richard Sloat would carry all the complex and delicate machinery of Sawyer Sloat into the next century. The boys ridiculous ambition to become a chemist could not long survive his fathers determination to murder itRichard was smart enough to see that what his father did was a hell of a lot more interesting, not to mention vastly more remunerative, than working with a test tube over a Bunsen burner. That research chemist stuff would fade away pretty quickly, once the boy had a glimpse of the real world. And if Richard was concerned about being fair to Jack Sawyer, he could be made to understand that fifty thousand a year and a guaranteed college education was not only fair but magnanimous. Princely. Who could say that Jack wanted any part of the business, anyhow, or that he would possess any talent for it? Besides, accidents happened. Who could even say that Jack Sawyer would live to see twenty? Well, its really a matter of getting all the papers, all the ownership stuff, finally straight, Sloat told his son. Lilys been hiding out from me for too long. Her brain is strictly cottage cheese by now, take my word for it. She probably has less than a year to live. So if I dont hump myself off to see her now that I have her pinned down, she could stall long enough to put everything into probateor into a trust fund, and I dont think your friends momma would let me administer it. Hey, I dont want to bore you with my troubles. I just wanted to tell you that I wont be home for a few days, in case you call. Send me a letter or something. And remember about the train, okay? We gotta do that again. The boy promised to write, to work hard, to not worry about his father or Lily Cavanaugh or Jack. And sometime when this obedient son was, say, in his senior year at Stanford or Yale, Sloat would introduce him to the Territories. Richard would be six or seven years younger than he had been himself when Phil Sawyer, cheerfully crackbrained on grass in their first little North Hollywood office, had first puzzled, then infuriated (because Sloat had been certain Phil was laughing at him), then intrigued his partner (for surely Phil was too stoned to have invented all this sciencefiction crapola about another world). And when Richard saw the Territories, that would be itif he had not already done it by himself, theyd change his mind for him. Even a small peek into the Territories shook your confidence in the omniscience of scientists. Sloat ran the palm of his hand over the shiny top of his head, then luxuriantly fingered his moustache. The sound of his sons voice had obscurely, irrelevantly comforted him as long as there was Richard politely coming along behind him, all was well and all was well and all manner of things was well. It was night already in Springfield, Illinois, and in Nelson House, Thayer School, Richard Sloat was padding down a green corridor back to his desk, perhaps thinking of the good times theyd had, and would have again, aboard Morgans toy train line in coastal California. Hed be asleep by the time his fathers jet punished the resistant air far above and some hundred miles farther north; but Morgan Sloat would push aside the panel over his firstclass window and peer down, hoping for moonlight and a parting of the clouds. He wanted to go home immediatelyhome was only thirty minutes away from the officeso that he could change clothes and get something to eat, maybe snort a little coke, before he had to get to the airport. But instead he had to pound out along the freeway to the Marina an appointment with a client who had freaked out and was on the verge of being dumped from a picture, then a meeting with a crowd of spoilers who claimed that a Sawyer Sloat project just up from Marina del Rey was polluting the beachthings that could not be postponed. Though Sloat promised himself that as soon as he had taken care of Lily Cavanaugh and her boy he was going to begin dropping clients from his listhe had much bigger fish to fry now. Now there were whole worlds to broker, and his piece of the action would be no mere ten percent. Looking back on it, Sloat wasnt sure how he had tolerated Phil Sawyer for as long as he had. His partner had never played to win, not seriously; he had been encumbered by sentimental notions of loyalty and honor, corrupted by the stuff you told kids to get them halfway civilized before you finally tore the blindfold off their eyes.

Mundane as it might be in light of the stakes he now played for, he could not forget that the Sawyers owed him, all rightindigestion flowered in his chest like a heart attack at the thought of how much, and before he reached his car in the stillsunny lot beside the building, he shoved his hand into his jacket pocket and fished out a crumpled package of DiGel. Phil Sawyer had underestimated him, and that still rankled. Because Phil had thought of him as a sort of trained rattlesnake to be let out of his cage only under controlled circumstances, so had others. The lot attendant, a hillbilly in a broken cowboy hat, eyed him as he marched around his little car, looking for dents and dings. The DiGel melted most of the fiery ball in his chest. Sloat felt his collar growing clammy with sweat. The attendant knew better than to try to buddy up Sloat had verbally peeled the mans hide weeks ago, after discovering a tiny wrinkle in the BMWs door. In the midst of his rant, he had seen violence begin to darken in the hillbillys green eyes, and a sudden upsurge of joy had made him waddle in toward the man, still cutting off skin, almost hoping that the attendant would take a poke at him. Abruptly, the hillbilly had lost his momentum; feebly, indeed apologetically suggested that maybe thatthere lil nuthin of a ding came from somewhere else? Parking service at a restaurant, maybe? The way those bozos treat cars, yknow, and the light aint so good that time a night, why . . . Shut your stinking mouth, Sloat had said. That little nothing, as you call it, is going to cost me about twice what you make in a week. I should fire you right now, cowpoke, and the only reason Im not going to is that theres about a two percent chance you might be right; when I came out of Chasens last night maybe I didnt look under the door handle, maybe I DID and maybe I DIDNT, but if you ever talk to me again, if you ever say any more than Hello, Mr. Sloat or Goodbye, Mr. Sloat, Ill get you fired so fast youll think you were beheaded. So the hillbilly watched him inspect his car, knowing that if Sloat found any imperfections in the cars finish he would bring down the axe, afraid even to come close enough to utter the ritual goodbye. Sometimes from the window that overlooked the parking lot Sloat had seen the attendant furiously wiping some flaw, bird dropping or splash of mud, off the BMWs hood. And thats management, buddy. When he pulled out of the lot he checked the rearview mirror and saw on the hillbillys face an expression very like the last one Phil Sawyer had worn in the final seconds of his life, out in the middle of nowhere in Utah. He smiled all the way to the freeway onramp. Philip Sawyer had underestimated Morgan Sloat from the time of their first meeting, when they were freshmen at Yale. It could have been, Sloat reflected, that he had been easy to underestimatea pudgy eighteenyearold from Akron, graceless, overweighted with anxieties and ambitions, out of Ohio for the first time in his life. Listening to his classmates talk easily about New York, about 21 and the Stork Club, about seeing Brubeck at Basin Street and Erroll Garner at the Vanguard, hed sweated to hide his ignorance. I really like the downtown part, hed thrown in, as casually as he could. Palms wet, cramped by curledin fingers. (Mornings, Sloat often found his palms tattooed with dented bruises left by his fingernails.) What downtown part, Morgan? Tom Woodbine had asked him. The others cackled. You know, Broadway and the Village. Around there. More cackles, harsher. He had been unattractive and badly dressed; his wardrobe consisted of two suits, both charcoalgray and both apparently made for a man with a scarecrows shoulders. He had begun losing his hair in high school, and pink scalp showed through his short, flatteneddown haircuts. No, no beauty had Sloat been, and that had been part of it. The others made him feel like a clenched fist those morning bruises were shadowy little photographs of his soul. The others, all interested in the theater like himself and Sawyer, possessed good profiles, flat stomachs, easy careless manners. Sprawled across the lounge chairs of their suite in Davenport while Sloat, in a haze of perspiration, stood that he might not wrinkle his suit pants and thereby get a few more days wear out of them, they sometimes resembled a gathering of young godscashmere sweaters draped over their shoulders like the golden fleece. They were on their way to becoming actors, playwrights, songwriters. Sloat had seen himself as a director entangling them all in a net of complications and designs which only he could unwind. Sawyer and Tom Woodbine, both of whom seemed unimaginably rich to Sloat, were roommates. Woodbine had only a lukewarm interest in theater and hung around their undergraduate drama workshop because Phil did. Another gilded privateschool boy, Thomas Woodbine differed from the others because of his absolute seriousness and straightforwardness. He intended to become a lawyer, and already seemed to have the probity and impartiality of a judge. (In fact, most of Woodbines acquaintances imagined that he would wind up on the Supreme Court, much to the embarrassment of the boy himself.) Woodbine was without ambition in Sloats terms, being interested far more in living rightly than in living well. Of course he had everything, and what he by some accident lacked other people were quick to give him how could he, so spoiled by nature and friendships, be ambitious? Sloat almost unconsciously detested Woodbine, and could not bring himself to call him Tommy. Sloat directed two plays during his four years at Yale No Exit, which the student paper called a furious confusion, and Volpone. This was described as churning, cynical, sinister, and almost unbelievably messy. Sloat was held responsible for most of these qualities. Perhaps he was not a director after allhis vision too intense and crowded. His ambitions did not lessen, they merely shifted. If he was not eventually to be behind the camera, he could be behind the people in front of it. Phil Sawyer had also begun to think this wayPhil had never been certain where his love of theater might take him, and thought he might have a talent for representing actors and writers. Lets go to Los Angeles and start an agency, Phil said to him in their senior year. Its nutty as hell and our parents will hate it, but maybe well make it work. So we starve for a couple of years. Phil Sawyer, Sloat had learned since their freshman year, was not rich after all. He just looked rich. And when we can afford him, well get Tommy to be our lawyer. Hell be out of law school by then. Sure, okay, Sloat had said, thinking that he could stop that one when the time came. What should we call ourselves? Anything you like. Sloat and Sawyer? Or should we stick to the alphabet? Sawyer and Sloat, sure, thats great, alphabetical order, Sloat said, seething because he imagined that his partner had euchred him into forever suggesting that he was somehow secondary to Sawyer. Both sets of parents did hate the idea, as Phil had predicted, but the partners in the infant talent agency drove to Los Angeles in the old DeSoto (Morgans, another demonstration of how much Sawyer owed him), set up an office in a North Hollywood building with a happy population of rats and fleas, and started hanging around the clubs, passing out their spandynew business cards. Nothingnearly four months of total failure. They had a comic who got too drunk to be funny, a writer who couldnt write, a stripper who insisted on being paid in cash so that she could stiff her agents. And then late one afternoon, high on marijuana and whiskey, Phil Sawyer had gigglingly told Sloat about the Territories. You know what I can do, you ambitious soandso? Oh, can I travel, partner. All the way. Shortly after that, both of them travelling now, Phil Sawyer met a rising young actress at a studio party and within an hour had their first important client. And she had three friends similarly unhappy with their agents. And one of the friends had a boyfriend who had actually written a decent filmscript and needed an agent, and the boyfriend had a boyfriend . . . Before their third year was over, they had a new office, new apartments, a slice of the Hollywood pie. The Territories, in a fashion that Sloat accepted but never understood, had blessed them. Sawyer dealt with the clients; Sloat with the money, the investments, the business side of the agency. Sawyer spent moneylunches, airplane ticketsSloat saved it, which was all the justification he needed to skim a little of the cream off the top. And it was Sloat who kept pushing them into new areas, land development, real estate, production deals. By the time Tommy Woodbine arrived in Los Angeles, Sawyer Sloat was a multimilliondollar business. Sloat discovered that he still detested his old classmate; Tommy Woodbine had put on thirty pounds, and looked and acted, in his blue threepiece suits, more than ever like a judge. His cheeks were always slightly flushed (alcoholic? Sloat wondered), his manner still kindly and ponderous. The world had left its marks on himclever little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the eyes themselves infinitely more guarded than those of the gilded boy at Yale. Sloat understood almost at once, and knew that Phil Sawyer would never see it unless he were told, that Tommy Woodbine lived with an enormous secret whatever the gilded boy might have been, Tommy was now a homosexual. Probably hed call himself gay. And that made everything easierin the end, it even made it easier to get rid of Tommy. Because queers are always getting killed, arent they? And did anybody really want a twohundredandtenpound pansy responsible for bringing up a teenage boy? You could say that Sloat was just saving Phil Sawyer from the posthumous consequences of a serious lapse of judgment. If Sawyer had made Sloat the executor of his estate and the guardian of his son, there would have been no problems. As it was, the murderers from the Territoriesthe same two who had bungled the abduction of the boyhad blasted through a stoplight and nearly been arrested before they could return home. Things all would have been so much simpler, Sloat reflected for perhaps the thousandth time, if Phil Sawyer had never married. If no Lily, no Jack; if no Jack, no problems. Phil may never even have looked at the reports about Lily Cavanaughs early life Sloat had compiled they listed where and how often and with whom, and should have killed that romance as readily as the black van turned Tommy Woodbine into a lump on the road. If Sawyer read those meticulous reports, they left him amazingly unaffected. He wanted to marry Lily Cavanaugh, and he did. As his damned Twinner had married Queen Laura. More underestimation. And repaid in the same fashion, which seemed fitting. Which meant, Sloat thought with some satisfaction, that after a few details were taken care of, everything would finally be settled. After so many yearswhen he came back from Arcadia Beach, he should have all of Sawyer Sloat in his pocket. And in the Territories, all was placed just so poised on the brink, ready to fall into Morgans hands. As soon as the Queen died, her consorts former deputy would rule the country, introducing all the interesting little changes both he and Sloat desired. And then watch the money roll in. Sloat thought, turning off the freeway into Marina del Rey. Then watch everything roll in! His client, Asher Dondorf, lived in the bottom half of a new condo in one of the Marinas narrow, alleylike streets just off the beach. Dondorf was an old character actor who had achieved a surprising level of prominence and visibility in the late seventies through a role on a television series; hed played the landlord of the young coupleprivate detectives, and both cute as baby pandaswho were the series stars. Dondorf got so much mail from his few appearances in the early episodes that the writers increased his part, making him an unofficial father to the young detectives, letting him solve a murder or two, putting him in danger, etc., etc. His salary doubled, tripled, quadrupled, and when the series was cancelled after six years, he went back into film work. Which was the problem. Dondorf thought he was a star, but the studios and producers still considered him a character actorpopular, but not a serious asset to any project. Dondorf wanted flowers in his dressing room, he wanted his own hairdresser and dialogue coach, he wanted more money, more respect, more love, more everything. Dondorf, in fact, was a putz. When he pulled his car tight into the parking bay and eased himself out, being careful not to scratch the edge of his door on the brick, Sloat came to a realization if he learned, or even suspected, sometime in the next few days, that Jack Sawyer had discovered the existence of the Territories, he would kill him. There was such a thing as an unacceptable risk. Sloat smiled to himself, popping another DiGel into his mouth, and rapped on the condos door. He knew it already Asher Dondorf was going to kill himself. Hed do it in the living room in order to create as much mess as possible. A temperamental jerk like his soontobeexclient would think a really sloppy suicide was revenge on the bank that held his mortgage. When a pale, trembling Dondorf opened the door, the warmth of Sloats greeting was quite genuine. TWO THE ROAD OF TRIALS 6 The Queens Pavillion 1 The sawtoothed blades of grass directly before Jacks eyes seemed as tall and stiff as sabres. They would cut the wind, not bend to it. Jack groaned as he lifted his head. He did not possess such dignity. His stomach still felt threateningly liquid, his forehead and eyes burned. Jack pushed himself up on his knees and then forced himself to stand. A long horsedrawn cart rumbled toward him down the dusty track, and its driver, a bearded redfaced man roughly the same shape and size as the wooden barrels rattling behind him, was staring at him. Jack nodded and tried to take in as much as he could about the man while giving the appearance of a loafing boy who had perhaps run off for an illicit snooze. Upright, he no longer felt ill; he felt, in fact, better than at any time since leaving Los Angeles, not merely healthy but somehow harmonious, mysteriously in tune with his body. The warm, drifting air of the Territories patted his face with the gentlest, most fragrant of touchesits own delicate and flowery scent quite distinct beneath the stronger odor of raw meat it carried. Jack ran his hands over his face and peeked at the driver of the cart, his first sample of Territories Man. If the driver addressed him, how should he answer? Did they even speak English here? His kind of English? For a moment Jack imagined himself trying to pass unnoticed in a world where people said Prithee and Dost thou go crossgartered, yonder varlet? and decided that if that was how things went, hed pretend to be a mute. The driver finally took his eyes off Jack and clucked something decidedly not 1980s American English to his horses. But perhaps that was just the way you spoke to horses. Slusha, slusha! Jack edged backward into the seagrass, wishing that he had managed to get on his feet a couple of seconds earlier. The man glanced at him again, and surprised Jack by noddinga gesture neither friendly nor unfriendly, merely a communication between equals. Ill be glad when this days work is done, brother. Jack returned the nod, tried to put his hands in his pockets, and for a moment must have looked halfwitted with astonishment. The driver laughed, not unpleasantly. Jacks clothes had changedhe wore coarse, voluminous woolen trousers instead of the corduroy jeans. Above the waist a closefitting jacket of soft blue fabric covered him. Instead of buttons, the jacketa jerkin? he speculatedhad a row of cloth hooks and eyes. Like the trousers, it was clearly handmade. The Nikes, too, were gone, replaced by flat leather sandals. The knapsack had been transmogrified into a leather sack held by a thin strap over his shoulder. The cartdriver wore clothing almost exactly similarhis jerkin was of leather stained so deeply and continuously that it showed rings within rings, like an old trees heart. All rattle and dust, the cart pulled past Jack. The barrels radiated a yeasty musk of beer. Behind the barrels stood a triple pile of what Jack unthinkingly took to be truck tires. He smelled the tires and noticed that they were perfectly, flawlessly bald in the same momentit was a creamy odor, full of secret depths and subtle pleasures, that instantly made him hungry. Cheese, but no cheese that he had ever tasted. Behind the wheels of cheese, near the back of the cart, an irregular mound of raw meatlong, peeledlooking sides of beef, big slablike steaks, a heap of ropy internal organs he could not identifyslithered beneath a glistening mat of flies. The powerful smell of the raw meat assailed Jack, killing the hunger evoked by the cheese. He moved into the middle of the track after the cart had passed him and watched it jounce toward the crest of a little rise. A second later he began to follow after, walking north. He had gone only halfway up the rise when he once again saw the peak of the great tent, rigid in the midst of a rank of narrow fluttering flags. That, he assumed, was his destination. Another few steps past the blackberry bushes where hed paused the last time (remembering how good theyd been, Jack popped two of the enormous berries in his mouth) and he could see the whole of the tent. It was actually a big rambling pavillion, long wings on each side, with gates and a courtyard. Like the Alhambra, this eccentric structurea summer palace, Jacks instincts told himstood just above the ocean. Little bands of people moved through and around the great pavillion, driven by forces as powerful and invisible as the effect on iron filings of a magnet. The little groups met, divided, poured on again. Some of the men wore bright, richlooking clothes, though many seemed to be dressed much as Jack was. A few women in long shining white gowns or robes marched through the courtyard, as purposeful as generals. Outside the gates stood a collection of smaller tents and impromptulooking wooden huts; here, too, people moved, eating or buying or talking, though more easily and randomly. Somewhere down in that busy crowd he would have to find the man with a scar. But first he looked behind him, down the length of the rutted track, to see what had happened to Funworld. When he saw two small dark horses pulling plows, perhaps fifty yards off, he thought that the amusement park had become a farm, but then he noticed the crowd watching the plowing from the top of the field and understood that this was a contest. Next his eye was taken by the spectacle of a huge redhaired man, stripped to the waist, whirling about like a top. His outstretched hands held some long heavy object. The man abruptly stopped whirling and released the object, which flew a long way before it thudded and bounced on the grass and revealed itself to be a hammer. Funworld was a fair, not a farmJack now saw tables heaped with food, children on their fathers shoulders. In the midst of the fair, making sure that every strap and harness was sound, every oven stoked with wood, was there a Speedy Parker? Jack hoped so. And was his mother still sitting by herself in the Tea and Jam Shoppe, wondering why she had let him go? Jack turned back and watched the long cart rattle through the gates of the summer palace and swing off to the left, separating the people who moved there as a car making a turn off Fifth Avenue separates pedestrians on a crosstown street. A moment later he set off after it. 2 He had feared that all the people on the pavillion grounds would turn toward him staring, instantly sensing his difference from them. Jack carefully kept his eyes lowered whenever he could and imitated a boy on a complicated errandhe had been sent out to assemble a list of things; his face showed how he was concentrating to remember them. A shovel, two picks, a ball of twine, a bottle of goose grease . . . But gradually he became aware that none of the adults before the summer palace paid him any attention at all. They rushed or dawdled, inspected the merchandiserugs, iron pots, braceletsdisplayed in the little tents, drank from wooden mugs, plucked at anothers sleeve to make a comment or start a conversation, argued with the guards at the gate, each wholly taken up by his own business. Jacks impersonation was so unnecessary as to be ridiculous. He straightened up and began to work his way, moving generally in an irregular halfcircle, toward the gate. He had seen almost immediately that he would not be able just to stroll through itthe two guards on either side stopped and questioned nearly everyone who tried to reach the interior of the summer palace. Men had to show their papers, or display badges or seals which gave them access. Jack had only Speedy Parkers fingerpick, and he didnt think that would get him past the guards inspection. One man just now stepping up to the gate flashed a round silver badge and was waved through; the man following him was stopped. He argued; then the tone of his manner changed, and Jack saw that he was pleading. The guard shook his head and ordered the man off. His men dont have any trouble getting in, someone to Jacks right said, instantly solving the problem of Territories language, and Jack turned his head to see if the man had spoken to him. But the middleaged man walking beside him was speaking to another man, also dressed in the plain, simple clothes of most of the men and women outside the palace grounds. Theyd better not, the second man answered. Hes on his waysupposed to be here today sometime, I guess. Jack fell in behind these two and followed them toward the gate. The guards stepped forward as the men neared, and as they both approached the same guard, the other gestured to the man nearest him. Jack hung back. He still had not seen anyone with a scar, nor had he seen any officers. The only soldiers in sight were the guards, both young and countrifiedwith their broad red faces above the elaborately pleated and ruffled uniforms, they looked like farmers in fancy dress. The two men Jack had been following must have passed the guards tests, for after a few moments conversation the uniformed men stepped back and admitted them. One of the guards looked sharply at Jack, and Jack turned his head and stepped back. Unless he found the Captain with the scar, he would never get inside the palace grounds. A group of men approached the guard who had stared at Jack, and immediately began to wrangle. They had an appointment, it was crucial they be let in, much money depended on it, regrettably they had no papers. The guard shook his head, scraping his chin across his uniforms white ruff. As Jack watched, still wondering how he could find the Captain, the leader of the little group waved his hands in the air, pounded his fist into a palm. He had become as redfaced as the guard. At length he began jabbing the guard with his forefinger. The guards companion joined himboth guards looked bored and hostile. A tall straight man in a uniform subtly different from the guardsit might have been the way the uniform was worn, but it looked as though it might serve in battle as well as in an operettanoiselessly materialized beside them. He did not wear a ruff, Jack noticed a second later, and his hat was peaked instead of threecornered. He spoke to the guards, and then turned to the leader of the little group. There was no more shouting, no more fingerjabbing. The man spoke quietly. Jack saw the danger ebb out of the group. They shifted on their feet, their shoulders sank. They began to drift away. The officer watched them go, then turned back to the guards for a final word. For the moment while the officer faced in Jacks direction, in effect shooing the group of men away with his presence, Jack saw a long pale lightningbolt of a scar zigzagging from beneath his right eye to just above his jawline. The officer nodded to the guards and stepped briskly away. Looking neither to the left nor to the right, he wove through the crowd, apparently headed for whatever lay to the side of the summer palace. Jack took off after him. Sir! he yelled, but the officer marched on through the slowmoving crowd. Jack ran around a group of men and women hauling a pig toward one of the little tents, shot through a gap between two other bands of people approaching the gate, and finally was close enough to the officer to reach out and touch his elbow. Captain? The officer wheeled around, freezing Jack where he stood. Up close, the scar seemed thick and separate, a living creature riding on the mans face. Even unscarred, Jack thought, this mans face would express a forceful impatience. What is it, boy? the man asked. Captain, Im supposed to talk to youI have to see the Lady, but I dont think I can get into the palace. Oh, youre supposed to see this. He dug into the roomy pocket of the unfamiliar pants and closed his fingers around a triangular object. When he displayed it on his palm, he felt shock boom through himwhat he held in his hand was not a fingerpick but a long tooth, a sharks tooth perhaps, inlaid with a winding, intricate pattern of gold. When Jack looked up at the Captains face, halfexpecting a blow, he saw his shock echoed there. The impatience which had seemed so characteristic had utterly vanished. Uncertainty and even fear momentarily distorted the mans strong features. The Captain lifted his hand to Jacks, and the boy thought he meant to take the ornate tooth he would have given it to him, but the man simply folded the boys fingers over the object on his palm. Follow me, he said. They went around to the side of the great pavillion, and the Captain led Jack behind the shelter of a great sailshaped flap of stiff pale canvas. In the glowing darkness behind the flap, the soldiers face looked as though someone had drawn on it with thick pink crayon. That sign, he said calmly enough. Where did you get it? From Speedy Parker. He said that I should find you and show it to you. The man shook his head. I dont know the name. I want you to give me the sign now. Now. He firmly grasped Jacks wrist. Give it to me, and then tell me where you stole it. Im telling the truth, Jack said. I got it from Lester Speedy Parker. He works at Funworld. But it wasnt a tooth when he gave it to me. It was a guitarpick. I dont think you understand whats going to happen to you, boy. You know him, Jack pleaded. He described youhe told me you were a Captain of the Outer Guards. Speedy told me to find you. The Captain shook his head and gripped Jacks wrist more firmly. Describe this man. Im going to find out if youre lying right now, boy, so Id make this good if I were you. Speedys old, Jack said. He used to be a musician. He thought he saw recognition of some kind flash in the mans eyes. Hes blacka black man. With white hair. Deep lines in his face. And hes pretty thin, but hes a lot stronger than he looks. A black man. You mean, a brown man? Well, black people arent really black. Like white people arent really white. A brown man named Parker. The Captain gently released Jacks wrist. He is called Parkus here. So you are from . . . He nodded toward some distant invisible point on the horizon. Thats right, Jack said. And Parkus . . . Parker . . . sent you to see our Queen. He said he wanted me to see the Lady. And that you could take me to her. This will have to be fast, the Captain said. I think I know how to do it, but we dont have any time to waste. He had shifted his mental direction with a military smoothness. Now listen to me. We have a lot of bastards around here, so were going to pretend that you are my son on tother side of the sheets. You have disobeyed me in connection with some little job, and I am angry with you. I think no one will stop us if we make this performance convincing. At least I can get you insidebut it might be a little trickier once we are in. You think you can do it? Convince people that youre my son? My mothers an actress, Jack said, and felt that old pride in her. Well, then, lets see what youve learned, the Captain said, and surprised Jack by winking at him. Ill try not to cause you any pain. Then he startled Jack again, and clamped a very strong hand over the boys upper arm. Lets go, he said, and marched out of the shelter of the flap, halfdragging Jack behind him. When I tell you to wash the flagstones behind the kitchen, wash flagstones is what youll do, the Captain said loudly, not looking at him. Understand that? You will do your job. And if you do not do your job, you must be punished. But I washed some of the flagstones . . . Jack wailed. I didnt tell you to wash some of the flagstones! the Captain yelled, hauling Jack along behind him. The people around them parted to let the Captain through. Some of them grinned sympathetically at Jack. I was going to do it all, honest, I was going to go back in a minute . . . The soldier pulled him toward the gate without even glancing at the guards, and yanked him through. No, Dad! Jack squalled. Youre hurting me! Not as much as Im going to hurt you, the Captain said, and pulled him across the wide courtyard Jack had seen from the carttrack. At the other end of the court the soldier pulled him up wooden steps and into the great palace itself. Now your acting had better be good, the man whispered, and immediately set off down a long corridor, squeezing Jacks arm hard enough to leave bruises. I promise Ill be good! Jack shouted. The man hauled him into another, narrower corridor. The interior of the palace did not at all resemble the inside of a tent, Jack saw. It was a mazelike warren of passages and little rooms, and it smelled of smoke and grease. Promise! the Captain bawled out. I promise! I do! Ahead of them as they emerged from yet another corridor, a group of elaborately clothed men either leaning against a wall or draped over couches turned their heads to look at this noisy duo. One of them, who had been amusing himself by giving orders to a pair of women carrying stacks of sheets folded flat across their arms, glanced suspiciously at Jack and the Captain. And I promise to beat the sin out of you, the Captain said loudly. A couple of the men laughed. They wore soft widebrimmed hats trimmed with fur and their boots were of velvet. They had greedy, thoughtless faces. The man talking to the maids, the one who seemed to be in charge, was skeletally tall and thin. His tense, ambitious face tracked the boy and the soldier as they hurried by. Please dont! Jack wailed. Please! Each please is another strapping, the soldier growled, and the men laughed again. The thin one permitted himself to display a smile as cold as a knifeblade before he turned back to the maids. The Captain yanked the boy into an empty room filled with dusty wooden furniture. Then at last he released Jacks aching arm. Those were his men, he whispered. What life will be like when He shook his head, and for a moment seemed to forget his haste. It says in The Book of Good Farming that the meek shall inherit the earth, but those fellows dont have a teaspoonful of meekness among them. Takings all theyre good for. They want wealth, they want He glanced upward, unwilling or unable to say what else the men outside wanted. Then he looked back at the boy. Well have to be quick about this, but there are still a few secrets his men havent learned about the palace. He nodded sideways, indicating a faded wooden wall. Jack followed him, and understood when the Captain pushed two of the flat brown nailheads left exposed at the end of a dusty board.

A panel in the faded wall swung inward, exposing a narrow black passageway no taller than an upended coffin. Youll only get a glimpse of her, but I suppose thats all you need. Its all you can have, anyhow. The boy followed the silent instruction to slip into the passageway. Just go straight ahead until I tell you, the Captain whispered. When he closed the panel behind them, Jack began to move slowly forward through perfect blackness. The passage wound this way and that, occasionally illuminated by faint light spilling in through a crack in a concealed door or through a window set above the boys head. Jack soon lost all sense of direction, and blindly followed the whispered directions of his companion. At one point he caught the delicious odor of roasting meat, at another the unmistakable stink of sewage. Stop, the Captain finally said. Now Ill have to lift you up. Raise your arms. Will I be able to see? Youll know in a second, the Captain said, and put a hand just beneath each of Jacks armpits and lifted him cleanly off the floor. There is a panel in front of you now, he whispered. Slide it to the left. Jack blindly reached out before him and touched smooth wood. It slid easily aside, and enough light fell into the passage for him to see a kittensized spider scrambling toward the ceiling. He was looking down into a room the size of a hotel lobby, filled with women in white and furniture so ornate that it brought back to the boy all the museums he and his parents had visited. In the center of the room a woman lay sleeping or unconscious on an immense bed, only her head and shoulders visible above the sheet. And then Jack nearly shouted with shock and terror, because the woman on the bed was his mother. That was his mother, and she was dying. You saw her, the Captain whispered, and braced his arms more firmly. Openmouthed, Jack stared in at his mother. She was dying, he could not doubt that any longer even her skin seemed bleached and unhealthy, and her hair, too, had lost several shades of color. The nurses around her bustled about, straightening the sheets or rearranging books on a table, but they assumed this busy and purposeful manner because they had no real idea of how to help their patient. The nurses knew that for such a patient there was no real help. If they could stave off death for another month, or even a week, they were at the fullest extent of their powers. He looked back at the face turned upward like a waxen mask and finally saw that the woman on the bed was not his mother. Her chin was rounder, the shape of her nose slightly more classical. The dying woman was his mothers Twinner; it was Laura DeLoessian. If Speedy had wanted him to see more, he was not capable of it that white moveless face told him nothing of the woman behind it. Okay, he whispered, pushing the panel back into place, and the Captain lowered him to the floor. In the darkness he asked, Whats wrong with her? Nobody can find that out, came from above him. The Queen cannot see, she cannot speak, she cannot move. . . . There was silence for a moment, and then the Captain touched his hand and said, We must return. They quietly emerged from blackness into the dusty empty room. The Captain brushed ropy cobwebs from the front of his uniform. His head cocked to one side, he considered Jack for a long moment, worry very plain upon his face. Now you must answer a question of mine, he said. Yes. Were you sent here to save her? To save the Queen? Jack nodded. I think soI think thats part of it. Tell me just one thing. He hesitated. Why dont those creeps out there just take over? She sure couldnt stop them. The Captain smiled. There was no humor in that smile. Me, he said. My men. Wed stop them. I know not what they may have gotten up to in the Outposts, where order is thinbut here we hold to the Queen. A muscle just below the eye on the unscarred cheekbone jumped like a fish. He was pressing his hands together, palm to palm. And your directions, your orders, whatever, are to . . . ah, to go west, is that correct? Jack could practically feel the man vibrating, controlling his growing agitation only from a lifetimes habit of selfdiscipline. Thats right, he said. Im supposed to go west. Isnt that right? Shouldnt I go west? To the other Alhambra? I cant say, I cant say, the Captain blurted, taking a step backward. We have to get you out of here right now. I cant tell you what to do. He could not even look at Jack now, the boy saw. But you cant stay here a minute longerlets, ah, lets see if we can get you out and away before Morgan gets here. Morgan? Jack said, almost thinking that he had not heard the name correctly. Morgan Sloat? Is he coming here? 7 Farren 1 The Captain appeared not to have heard Jacks question. He was looking away into the corner of this empty unused room as if there were something there to see. He was thinking long and hard and fast; Jack recognized that. And Uncle Tommy had taught him that interrupting an adult who was thinking hard was just as impolite as interrupting an adult who was speaking. But Steer clear of ole Bloat. Watch for his trailhis own and his Twinners . . . hes gonna be after you like a fox after a goose. Speedy had said that, and Jack had been concentrating so hard on the Talisman that he had almost missed it. Now the words came back and came home with a nasty doublethud that was like being hit in the back of the neck. What does he look like? he asked the Captain urgently. Morgan? the Captain asked, as if startled out of some interior dream. Is he fat? Is he fat and sorta going bald? Does he go like this when hes mad? And employing the innate gift for mimicry hed always hada gift which had made his father roar with laughter even when he was tired and feeling downJack did Morgan Sloat. Age fell into his face as he laddered his brow the way Uncle Morgans brow laddered into lines when he was pissed off about something. At the same time, Jack sucked his cheeks in and pulled his head down to create a double chin. His lips flared out in a fishy pout and he began to waggle his eyebrows rapidly up and down. Does he go like that? No, the Captain said, but something flickered in his eyes, the way something had flickered there when Jack told him that Speedy Parker was old. Morgans tall. He wears his hair longthe Captain held a hand by his right shoulder to show Jack how longand he has a limp. One foots deformed. He wears a builtup boot, but He shrugged. You looked like you knew him when I did him! You Shhh! Not so Godpounding loud, boy! Jack lowered his voice. I think I know the guy, he saidand for the first time he felt fear as an informed emotion . . . something he could grasp in a way he could not as yet grasp this world. Uncle Morgan here? Jesus! Morgan is just Morgan. No one to fool around with, boy. Come on, lets get out of here. His hand closed around Jacks upper arm again. Jack winced but resisted. Parker becomes Parkus. And Morgan . . . its just too big a coincidence. Not yet, he said. Another question had occurred to him. Did she have a son? The Queen? Yes. She had a son, the Captain replied reluctantly. Yes. Boy, we cant stay here. We Tell me about him! There is nothing to tell, the Captain answered. The babe died an infant, not six weeks out of her womb. There was talk that one of Morgans menOsmond, perhapssmothered the lad. But talk of that sort is always cheap. I have no love for Morgan of Orris but everyone knows that one child in every dozen dies acrib. No one knows why; they die mysteriously, of no cause. Theres a sayingGod pounds His nails. Not even a royal child is excepted in the eyes of the Carpenter. He . . . Boy? are you all right? Jack felt the world go gray around him. He reeled, and when the Captain caught him, his hard hands felt as soft as feather pillows. He had almost died as an infant. His mother had told him the storyhow she had found him still and apparently lifeless in his crib, his lips blue, his cheeks the color of funeral candles after they have been capped and thus put out. She had told him how she had run screaming into the living room with him in her arms. His father and Sloat were sitting on the floor, stoned on wine and grass, watching a wrestling match on TV. His father had snatched him from his mothers arms, pinching his nostrils savagely shut with his left hand (You had bruises there for almost a month, Jacky, his mother had told him with a jittery laugh) and then plunging his mouth over Jacks tiny mouth, while Morgan cried I dont think thats going to help him, Phil. I dont think thats going to help him! (Uncle Morgan was funny, wasnt he, Mom? Jack had said. Yes, very funny, JackO, his mother had replied, and she had smiled an oddly humorless smile, and lit another Herbert Tarrytoon from the butt of the one smouldering in the ashtray.) Boy! the Captain whispered, and shook him so hard that Jacks lolling head snapped on his neck. Boy! Dammit! If you faint on me . . . Im okay, Jack saidhis voice seemed to come from far away; it sounded like the voice of the Dodgers announcer when you were cruising by Chavez Ravine at night with the top down, echoing and distant, the playbyplay of baseball in a sweet dream. Okay, lay off me, what do you say? Give me a break. The Captain stopped shaking him but looked at him warily. Okay, Jack said again, and abruptly he slapped his own cheek as hard as he couldOw! But the world came swimming back into focus. He had almost died in his crib. In that apartment theyd had back then, the one he barely remembered, the one his mother always called the Technicolor Dream Palace because of the spectacular view of the Hollywood Hills from the living room. He had almost died in his crib, and his father and Morgan Sloat had been drinking wine, and when you drank a lot of wine you had to pee a lot, and he remembered the Technicolor Dream Palace well enough to know that you got from the living room to the nearest bathroom by going through the room that had been his when he was a baby. He saw it Morgan Sloat getting up, grinning easily, saying something like Just a sec while I make some room, Phil; his father hardly looking around because Haystack Calhoun was getting ready to put the Spinner or the Sleeper on some hapless opponent; Morgan passing from the TVbrightness of the living room into the ashy dimness of the nursery, where little Jacky Sawyer lay sleeping in his Pooh pajamas with the feet, little Jacky Sawyer warm and secure in a dry diaper. He saw Uncle Morgan glancing furtively back at the bright square of the door to the living room, his balding brow turning to ladderrungs, his lips pursing like the chilly mouth of a lake bass; he saw Uncle Morgan take a throwpillow from a nearby chair, saw him put it gently and yet firmly over the sleeping babys entire head, holding it there with one hand while he held the other hand flat on the babys back. And when all movement had stopped, he saw Uncle Morgan put the pillow back on the chair where Lily sat to nurse, and go into the bathroom to urinate. If his mother hadnt come in to check on him almost immediately . . . Chilly sweat broke out all over his body. Had it been that way? It could have been. His heart told him it had been. The coincidence was too utterly perfect, too seamlessly complete. At the age of six weeks, the son of Laura DeLoessian, Queen of the Territories, had died in his crib. At the age of six weeks, the son of Phil and Lily Sawyer had almost died in his crib . . . and Morgan Sloat had been there. His mother always finished the story with a joke how Phil Sawyer had almost racked up their Chrysler, roaring to the hospital after Jacky had already started breathing again. Pretty funny, all right. Yeah. 2 Now come on, the Captain said. All right, Jack said. He still felt weak, dazed. All right, lets g Shhhh! The Captain looked around sharply at the sound of approaching voices. The wall to their right was not wood but heavy canvas. It stopped four inches short of the floor, and Jack saw booted feet passing by in the gap. Five pair. Soldiers boots. One voice cut through the babble . . . didnt know he had a son. Well, a second answered, bastards sire bastardsa fact you should well know, Simon. There was a roar of brutal, empty laughter at thisthe sort of laughter Jack heard from some of the bigger boys at school, the ones who busted joints behind the woodshop and called the younger boys mysterious but somehow terrifying names queerboy and humpajumpa and morphadite. Each of these somehow slimy terms was followed by a coarse ribband of laughter exactly like this. Cork it! Cork it up!a third voice. If he hears you, youll be walking Outpost Line before thirty suns have set! Mutters. A muffled burst of laughter. Another jibe, this one unintelligible. More laughter as they passed on. Jack looked at the Captain, who was staring at the short canvas wall with his lips drawn back from his teeth all the way to the gumlines. No question who they were talking about. And if they were talking, there might be someone listening . . . the wrong somebody. Somebody who might be wondering just who this suddenly revealed bastard might really be. Even a kid like him knew that. You heard enough? the Captain said. Weve got to move. He looked as if he would like to shake Jack . . . but did not quite dare. Your directions, your orders, whatever, are to . . . ah, go west, is that correct? He changed, Jack thought. He changed twice. Once when Jack showed him the sharks tooth that had been a filigreed guitarpick in the world where delivery trucks instead of horsedrawn carts ran the roads. And he had changed again when Jack confirmed that he was going west. He had gone from threat to a willingness to help to . . . what? I cant say . . . I cant tell you what to do. To something like religious awe . . . or religious terror. He wants to get out of here because hes afraid well be caught, Jack thought. But theres more, isnt there? Hes afraid of me. Afraid of Come on, the Captain said. Come on, for Jasons sake. Whose sake? Jack asked stupidly, but the Captain was already propelling him out. He pulled Jack hard left and halfled, halfdragged him down a corridor that was wood on one side and stiff, mouldysmelling canvas on the other. This isnt the way we came, Jack whispered. Dont want to go past those fellows we saw coming in, the Captain whispered back. Morgans men. Did you see the tall one? Almost skinny enough to look through? Yes. Jack remembered the thin smile, and the eyes which did not smile. The others had looked soft. The thin man had looked hard. He had looked crazy. And one thing more he had looked dimly familiar. Osmond, the Captain said, now pulling Jack to the right. The smell of roasting meat had been growing gradually stronger, and now the air was redolent of it. Jack had never smelled meat he wanted so badly to taste in his whole life. He was scared, he was mentally and emotionally on the ropes, perhaps rocking on the edge of madness . . . but his mouth was watering crazily. Osmond is Morgans righthand man, the Captain grunted. He sees too much, and Id just as soon he didnt see you twice, boy. What do you mean? Hsssst! He clamped Jacks aching arm even tighter. They were approaching a wide cloth drape that hung in a doorway. To Jack it looked like a showercurtainexcept the cloth was burlap of a weave so coarse and wide that it was almost netlike, and the rings it hung from were bone rather than chrome. Now cry, the Captain breathed warmly in Jacks ear. He swept the curtain back and pulled Jack into a huge kitchen which fumed with rich aromas (the meat still predominating) and billows of steamy heat. Jack caught a confused glimpse of braziers, of a great stonework chimney, of womens faces under billowy white kerchiefs that reminded him of nuns wimples. Some of them were lined up at a long iron trough which stood on trestles, their faces red and beaded with sweat as they washed pots and cooking utensils. Others stood at a counter which ran the width of the room, slicing and dicing and coring and paring. Another was carrying a wire rack filled with uncooked pies. They all stared at Jack and the Captain as they pushed through into the kitchen. Never again! the Captain bellowed at Jack, shaking him as a terrier shakes a rat . . . and all the while he continued to move them both swiftly across the room, toward the doublehung doors at the far side. Never again, do you hear me? The next time you shirk your duty, Ill split your skin down the back and peel you like a baked potato! And under his breath, the Captain hissed, Theyll all remember and theyll all talk, so cry, dammit! And now, as the Captain with the scarred face dragged him across the steaming kitchen by the scruff of his neck and one throbbing arm, Jack deliberately called up the dreadful image of his mother lying in a funeral parlor. He saw her in billowing folds of white organdyshe was lying in her coffin and wearing the wedding dress she had worn in Drag Strip Rumble (RKO, 1953). Her face came clearer and clearer in Jacks mind, a perfect wax effigy, and he saw she was wearing her tiny goldcross earrings, the ones Jack had given her for Christmas two years ago. Then the face changed. The chin became rounder, the nose straighter and more patrician. The hair went a shade lighter and became somehow coarser. Now it was Laura DeLoessian he saw in that coffinand the coffin itself was no longer a smoothly anonymous funeral parlor special, but something that looked as if it had been hacked with rude fury from an old loga Vikings coffin, if there had ever been such a thing; it was easier to imagine this coffin being torched alight on a bier of oiled logs than it was to imagine it being lowered into the unprotesting earth. It was Laura DeLoessian, Queen of the Territories, but in this imagining which had become as clear as a vision, the Queen was wearing his mothers wedding dress from Drag Strip Rumble and the goldcross earrings Uncle Tommy had helped him pick out in Sharps of Beverly Hills. Suddenly his tears came in a hot and burning floodnot sham tears but real ones, not just for his mother but for both of these lost women, dying universes apart, bound by some unseen cord which might rot but would never breakat least, not until they were both dead. Through the tears he saw a giant of a man in billowing whites rush across the room toward them. He wore a red bandanna instead of a puffy chefs hat on his head, but Jack thought its purpose was the sameto identify the wearer as the boss of the kitchen. He was also brandishing a wickedlooking threetined wooden fork. GedOUT! the chef screeched at them, and the voice emerging from that huge barrel chest was absurdly flutelikeit was the voice of a willowy gay giving a shoeclerk a piece of his mind. But there was nothing absurd about the fork; it looked deadly. The women scattered before his charge like birds. The bottommost pie dropped out of the piewomans rack and she uttered a high, despairing cry as it broke apart on the boards. Strawberry juice splattered and ran, the red as fresh and bright as arterial blood. GEDDOUT MY KIDCHEN, YOU SLUGS! DIS IS NO SHORDCUD! DIS IS NO RAZETRAG! DIS IS MY KIDCHEN AND IF YOU CADT REMEMBER DAT, ILL BY GOD THE CARBENDER CARVE YOUR AZZES FOR YOU! He jabbed the fork at them, simultaneously halfturning his head and squinching his eyes mostly shut, as if in spite of his tough talk the thought of hot flowing blood was just too gauche to be borne. The Captain removed the hand that had been on the scruff of Jacks neck and reached outalmost casually, it seemed to Jack. A moment later the chef was on the floor, all six and a half feet of him. The meatfork was lying in a puddle of strawberry sauce and chunks of white unbaked pastry. The chef rolled back and forth, clutching his broken right wrist and screaming in that high, flutelike voice. The news he screamed out to the room in general was certainly woeful enough he was dead, the Captain had surely murdered him (pronounced murdirt in the chefs odd, almost Teutonic accent); he was at the very least crippled, the cruel and heartless Captain of the Outer Guards having destroyed his good right hand and thus his livelihood, and so ensuring a miserable beggars life for him in the years to come; the Captain had inflicted terrible pain on him, a pain beyond belief, such as was not to be borne Shut up! the Captain roared, and the chef did. Immediately. He lay on the floor like a great baby, his right hand curled on his chest, his red bandanna drunkenly askew so that one ear (a small black pearl was set in the center of the lobe) showed, his fat cheeks quivering. The kitchen women gasped and twittered as the Captain bent over the dreaded chief ogre of the steaming cave where they spent their days and nights. Jack, still weeping, caught a glimpse of a black boy (brown boy, his mind amended) standing at one end of the largest brazier. The boys mouth was open, his face as comically surprised as a face in a minstrel show, but he kept turning the crank in his hands, and the haunch suspended over the glowing coals kept revolving. Now listen and Ill give you some advice you wont find in The Book of Good Farming, the Captain said. He bent over the chef until their noses almost touched (his paralyzing grip on Jacks armwhich was now going mercifully numbnever loosened the smallest bit). Dont you ever . . . dont you ever . . . come at a man with a knife . . . or a fork . . . or a spear . . . or with so much as a Godpounding splinter in your hand unless you intend to kill him with it. One expects temperament from chefs, but temperament does not extend to assaults upon the person of the Captain of the Outer Guards. Do you understand me? The chef moaned out a teary, defiant somethingorother. Jack couldnt make it all outthe mans accent seemed to be growing steadily thickerbut it had something to do with the Captains mother and the dumpdogs beyond the pavillion. That may well be, the Captain said. I never knew the lady. But it certainly doesnt answer my question. He prodded the chef with one dusty, scuffed boot. It was a gentle enough prod, but the chef screeched as if the Captain had drawn his foot back and kicked him as hard as he could. The women twittered again. Do we or do we not have an understanding on the subject of chefs and weapons and Captains? Because if we dont, a little more instruction might be in order. We do! the chef gasped. We do! We do! We Good. Because Ive had to give far too much instruction already today. He shook Jack by the scruff of the neck. Havent I, boy? He shook him again, and Jack uttered a wail that was completely unfeigned. Well . . . I suppose thats all he can say. The boys a simpleton. Like his mother. The Captain threw his dark, gleaming glance around the kitchen. Good day, ladies. Queens blessings upon you. And you, good sir, the eldest among them managed, and dropped an awkward, ungraceful curtsey. The others followed suit. The Captain dragged Jack across the kitchen. Jacks hip bumped the edge of the washing trough with excruciating force and he cried out again. Hot water flew. Smoking droplets hit the boards and ran, hissing, between them. Those women had their hands in that, Jack thought. How do they stand it? Then the Captain, who was almost carrying him by now, shoved Jack through another burlap curtain and into the hallway beyond. Phew! the Captain said in a low voice. I dont like this, not any of it, it all smells bad. Left, right, then right again. Jack began to sense that they were approaching the outer walls of the pavillion, and he had time to wonder how the place could seem so much bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside. Then the Captain was pushing him through a flap and they were in daylight againmidafternoon daylight so bright after the shifting dimness of the pavillion that Jack had to wince his eyes shut against a burst of pain. The Captain never hesitated. Mud squelched and smooched underfoot. There was the smell of hay and horses and shit. Jack opened his eyes again and saw they were crossing what might have been a paddock or a corral or maybe just a barnyard. He saw an open canvassided hallway and heard chickens clucking somewhere beyond it. A scrawny man, naked except for a dirty kilt and thong sandals, was tossing hay into an open stall, using a pitchfork with wooden tines to do the job. Inside the stall, a horse not much bigger than a Shetland pony looked moodily out at them. They had already passed the stall when Jacks mind was finally able to accept what his eyes had seen the horse had two heads. Hey! he said. Can I look back in that stall? That No time. But that horse had No time, I said. He raised his voice and shouted And if I ever catch you laying about again when theres work to be done, youll get twice this! You wont! Jack screamed (in truth he felt as if this scene were getting a bit old). I swear you wont! I told you Id be good! Just ahead of them, tall wooden gates loomed in a wall made of wooden posts with the bark still on themit was like a stockade wall in an old Western (his mother had made a few of those, too). Heavy brackets were screwed into the gates, but the bar the brackets were meant to hold was not in place. It leaned against the woodpile to the left, thick as a railroad crosstie. The gates stood open almost six inches. Some muddled sense of direction in Jacks head suggested that they had worked their way completely around the pavillion to its far side. Thank God, the Captain said in a more normal voice. Now Captain, a voice called from behind them. The voice was low but carrying, deceptively casual. The Captain stopped in his tracks. It had called just as Jacks scarred companion had been in the act of reaching for the left gate to push it open; it was as if the voices owner had watched and waited for just that second. Perhaps you would be good enough to introduce me to your . . . ah . . . son. The Captain turned, turning Jack with him. Standing, halfway across the paddock area, looking unsettling out of place there, was the skeletal courtier the Captain had been afraid ofOsmond. He looked at them from dark gray melancholy eyes. Jack saw something stirring in those eyes, something deep down. His fear was suddenly sharper, something with a point, jabbing into him. Hes crazythis was the intuition which leaped spontaneously into his mind. Nuttier than a damned fruitcake. Osmond took two neat steps toward them. In his left hand he held the rawhidewrapped haft of a bullwhip. The handle narrowed only slightly into a dark, limber tendon coiled thrice around his shoulderthe whips central stalk was as thick as a timber rattlesnake. Near its tip, this central stalk gave birth to perhaps a dozen smaller offshoots, each of woven rawhide, each tipped with a crudely made but bright metal spur. Osmond tugged the whips handle and the coils slithered from his shoulder with a dry hiss. He wiggled the handle, and the metaltipped strands of rawhide writhed slowly in the strawlittered mud. Your son? Osmond repeated, and took another step toward them. And Jack suddenly understood why this man had looked familiar before. The day he had almost been kidnappedhadnt this man been White Suit? Jack thought that perhaps he had been. 3 The Captain made a fist, brought it to his forehead, and bent forward. After only a moments hesitation, Jack did the same. My son, Lewis, the Captain said stiffly. He was still bent over, Jack saw, cutting his eyes to the left. So he remained bent over himself, his heart racing. Thank you, Captain. Thank you, Lewis. Queens blessings upon you. When he touched him with the haft of the bullwhip, Jack almost cried out. He stood straight again, biting the cry in. Osmond was only two paces away now, regarding Jack with that mad, melancholy gaze. He wore a leather jacket and what might have been diamond studs. His shirt was extravagantly ruffled. A bracelet of links clanked ostentatiously upon his right wrist (from the way he handled the bullwhip, Jack guessed that his left was his working hand). His hair was drawn back and tied with a wide ribbon that might have been white satin. There were two odors about him. The top was what his mother called all those mens perfumes, meaning aftershave, cologne, whatever. The smell about Osmond was thick and powdery. It made Jack think of those old blackandwhite British films where some poor guy was on trial in the Old Bailey. The judges and lawyers in those films always wore wigs, and Jack thought the boxes those wigs came out of would smell like Osmonddry and crumblysweet, like the worlds oldest powdered doughnut. Beneath it, however, was a more vital, even less pleasant smell it seemed to pulse out at him. It was the smell of sweat in layers and dirt in layers, the smell of a man who bathed seldom, if ever. Yes. This was one of the creatures that had tried to steal him that day. His stomach knotted and roiled. I did not know you had a son, Captain Farren, Osmond said. Although he spoke to the Captain, his eyes remained on Jack. Lewis, he thought, Im Lewis, dont forget Would that I did not, the Captain replied, looking at Jack with anger and contempt. I honor him by bringing him to the great pavillion and then he slinks away like a dog. I caught him playing at d Yes, yes, Osmond said, smiling remotely. He doesnt believe a word, Jack thought wildly, and felt his mind take another clumsy step toward panic. Not a single word! Boys are bad. All boys are bad. Its axiomatic. He tapped Jack lightly on the wrist with the haft of the bullwhip. Jack, his nerves screwed up to an unbearable pitch, screamed . . . and immediately flushed with hot shame. Osmond giggled. Bad, oh yes, its axiomatic, all boys are bad. I was bad; and Ill wager you were bad, Captain Farren. Eh? Eh? Were you bad? Yes, Osmond, the Captain said. Very bad? Osmond asked. Incredibly, he had begun to prance in the mud. Yet there was nothing swishy about this Osmond was willowy and almost delicate, but Jack got no feeling of true homosexuality from the man; if there was that innuendo in his words, then Jack sensed intuitively that it was hollow. No, what came through most clearly here was a sense of malignity . . . and madness. Very bad? Most awfully bad? Yes, Osmond, Captain Farren said woodenly. His scar glowed in the afternoon light, more red than pink now. Osmond ceased his impromptu little dance as abruptly as he had begun it. He looked coldly at the Captain. No one knew you had a son, Captain. Hes a bastard, the Captain said. And simple. Lazy as well, it now turns out. He pivoted suddenly and struck Jack on the side of the face. There was not much force behind the blow, but Captain Farrens hand was as hard as a brick. Jack howled and fell into the mud, clutching his ear. Very bad, most awfully bad, Osmond said, but now his face was a dreadful blank, thin and secretive. Get up, you bad boy. Bad boys who disobey their fathers must be punished. And bad boys must be questioned. He flicked the whip to one side. It made a dry pop. Jacks tottery mind made another strange connectionreaching, he supposed later, for home in every way it knew how. The sound of Osmonds whip was like the pop of the Daisy air rifle hed had when he was eight. He and Richard Sloat had both had rifles like that. Osmond reached out and grasped Jacks muddy arm with one white, spiderlike hand. He drew Jack toward him, into those smellsold sweet powder and old rancid filth. His weird gray eyes peered solemnly into Jacks blue ones. Jack felt his bladder grow heavy, and he struggled to keep from wetting his pants. Who are you? Osmond asked. 4 The words hung in the air over the three of them. Jack was aware of the Captain looking at him with a stern expression that could not quite hide his despair. He could hear hens clucking; a dog barking; somewhere the rumble of a large approaching cart.

Tell me the truth; I will know a lie, those eyes said. You look like a certain bad boy I first met in Californiaare you that boy? And for a moment, everything trembled on his lips Jack, Im Jack Sawyer, yeah, Im the kid from California, the Queen of this world was my mother, only I died, and I know your boss, I know MorganUncle Morganand Ill tell you anything you want to know if only youll stop looking at me with those freakedout eyes of yours, sure, because Im only a kid, and thats what kids do, they tell, they tell everything Then he heard his mothers voice, tough, on the edge of a jeer You gonna spill your guts to this guy, JackO? THIS guy? He smells like a distress sale at the mens cologne counter and he looks like a medieval version of Charles Manson . . . but you suit yourself. You can fool him if you wantno sweatbut you suit yourself. Who are you? Osmond asked again, drawing even closer, and on his face Jack now saw total confidencehe was used to getting the answers he wanted from people . . . and not just from twelveyearold kids, either. Jack took a deep, trembling breath (When you want max volumewhen you want to get it all the way up to the back row of the balconyyou gotta bring it from your diaphragm, Jacky. It just kind of gets passed through the old voxbox on the way up) and screamed I WAS GOING TO GO RIGHT BACK! HONEST TO GOD! Osmond, who had been leaning even farther forward in anticipation of a broken and strengthless whisper, recoiled as if Jack had suddenly reached out and slapped him. He stepped on the trailing rawhide tails of his whip with one booted foot and came close to tripping over them. You damned Godpounding little I WAS GOING TO! PLEASE DONT WHIP ME OSMOND I WAS GOING TO GO BACK! I NEVER WANTED TO COME HERE I NEVER I NEVER I NEVER Captain Farren lunged forward and struck him in the back. Jack sprawled fulllength in the mud, still screaming. Hes simpleminded, as I told you, he heard the Captain saying. I apologize, Osmond. You can be sure hell be beaten within an inch of his life. He Whats he doing here in the first place? Osmond shrieked. His voice was now as high and shrewish as any fishwifes. Whats your snotnosed puling bratbastard doing here at all? Dont offer to show me his pass! I know he has no pass! You sneaked him in to feed at the Queens table . . . to steal the Queens silver, for all I know . . . hes bad . . . one looks enough to tell anyone that hes very, intolerably, most indubitably bad! The whip came down again, not the mild cough of a Daisy air rifle this time but the loud clean report of a .22, and Jack had time to think I know where thats going, and then a large fiery hand clawed into his back. The pain seemed to sink into his flesh, not diminishing but actually intensifying. It was hot and maddening. He screamed and writhed in the mud. Bad! Most awfully bad! Indubitably bad! Each bad was punctuated by another crack of Osmonds whip, another fiery handprint, another scream from Jack. His back was burning. He had no idea how long it might have gone onOsmond seemed to be working himself into a hotter frenzy with each blowbut then a new voice shouted Osmond! Osmond! There you are! Thank God! A commotion of running footsteps. Osmonds voice, furious and slightly out of breath Well? Well? What is it? A hand grasped Jacks elbow and helped him to his feet. When he staggered, the arm attached to the hand slipped around his waist and supported him. It was difficult to believe that the Captain who had been so hard and sure during their bewildering tour of the pavillion could now be so gentle. Jack staggered again. The world kept wanting to swim out of focus. Trickles of warm blood ran down his back. He looked at Osmond with swiftawakening hatred, and it was good to feel that hatred. It was a welcome antidote to the fear and the confusion. You did thatyou hurt me, you cut me. And listen to me, Jiggs, if I get a chance to pay you back Are you all right? the Captain whispered. Yes. What? Osmond screamed at the two men who had interrupted Jacks whipping. The first was one of the dandies Jack and the Captain had passed going to the secret room. The other looked a bit like the carter Jack had seen almost immediately upon his return to the Territories. This fellow looked badly frightened, and hurt as wellblood was welling from a gash on the left side of his head and had covered most of the left side of his face. His left arm was scraped and his jerkin was torn. What are you saying, you jackass? My wagon overturned coming around the bend on the far side of AllHands Village, the carter said. He spoke with the slow, dazed patience of one in deep shock. My sons kilt, my Lord. Crushed to death under the barrels. He was just sixteen last MayFarm Day. His mother What? Osmond screamed again. Barrels? Ale? Not the Kingsland? You dont mean to tell me youve overturned a full wagonload of Kingsland Ale, you stupid goats penis? You dont mean to tell me that, do yoooooouuuuuuu? Osmonds voice rose on the last word like the voice of a man making savage mockery of an operatic diva. It wavered and warbled. At the same time he began to dance again . . . but in rage this time. The combination was so weird that Jack had to raise both hands to stifle an involuntary giggle. The movement caused his shirt to scrape across his welted back, and that sobered him even before the Captain muttered a warning word. Patiently, as if Osmond had missed the only important fact (and so it must have seemed to him), the carter began again He was just sixteen last MayFarm Day. His mother didnt want him to come with me. I cant think what Osmond raised his whip and brought it whickering down with blinding and unexpected speed. At one moment the handle was grasped loosely in his left hand, the whip itself with its rawhide tails trailing in the mud; at the next there was a whipcrack not like the sound of a .22 but more like that of a toy rifle. The carter staggered back, shrieking, his hands clapped to his face. Fresh blood ran loosely through his dirty fingers. He fell over, screaming, My Lord! My Lord! My Lord! in a muffled, gargling voice. Jack moaned Lets get out of here. Quick! Wait, the Captain said. The grim set of his face seemed to have loosened the smallest bit. There might have been hope in his eyes. Osmond whirled to the dandy, who took a step back, his thick red mouth working. Was it the Kingsland? Osmond panted. Osmond, you shouldnt tax yourself so Osmond flicked his left wrist upward; the whips steeltipped rawhide tails clattered against the dandys boots. The dandy took another step backward. Dont tell me what I should or shouldnt do, he said. Only answer my questions. Im vexed, Stephen, Im most intolerably, indubitably vexed. Was it the Kingsland? Yes, Stephen said. I regret to say it, but On the Outpost Road? Osmond On the Outpost Road, you dripping penis? Yes, Stephen gulped. Of course, Osmond said, and his thin face was split by a hideous white grin. Where is AllHands Village, if not on the Outpost Road? Can a village fly? Huh? Can a village somehow fly from one road to another, Stephen? Can it? Can it? No, Osmond, of course not. No. And so there are barrels all over the Outpost Road, is that correct? Is it correct for me to assume that there are barrels and an overturned alewagon blocking the Outpost Road while the best ale in the Territories soaks into the ground for the earthworms to carouse on? Is that correct? Yes . . . yes. But Morgan is coming by the Outpost Road! Osmond screamed. Morgan is coming and you know how he drives his horses! If his diligence comes around a bend and upon that mess, his driver may not have time to stop! He could be overturned! He could be killed! DearGod, Stephen said, all as one word. His pallid face went two shades whiter. Osmond nodded slowly. I think, if Morgans diligence were to overturn, we would all do better to pray for his death than for his recovery. Butbut Osmond turned from him and almost ran back to where the Captain of the Outer Guards stood with his son. Behind Osmond, the hapless carter still writhed in the mud, bubbling My Lords. Osmonds eyes touched Jack and then swept over him as if he werent there. Captain Farren, he said. Have you followed the events of the last five minutes? Yes, Osmond. Have you followed them closely? Have you gleaned them? Have you gleaned them most closely? Yes. I think so. Do you think so? What an excellent Captain you are, Captain! We will talk more, I think, about how such an excellent Captain could produce such a frogs testicle of a son. His eyes touched Jacks face briefly, coldly. But theres no time for that now, is there? No. I suggest that you summon a dozen of your brawniest men and that you doubletime themno, tripletime themout to the Outpost Road. Youll be able to follow your nose, to the site of the accident, wont you? Yes, Osmond. Osmond glanced quickly at the sky. Morgan is expected at six of the clockperhaps a little sooner. It is nowtwo. I would say two. Would you say two, Captain? Yes, Osmond. And what would you say, you little turd? Thirteen? Twentythree? Eightyone of the clock? Jack gaped. Osmond grimaced contemptuously, and Jack felt the clear tide of his hate rise again. You hurt me, and if I get the chance! Osmond looked back at the Captain. Until five of the clock, I suggest that you be at pains to save whatever barrels may still be whole. After five, I suggest you simply clear the road as rapidly as you can. Do you understand? Yes, Osmond. Then get out of here. Captain Farren brought a fist to his forehead and bowed. Gaping stupidly, still hating Osmond so fiercely that his brains seemed to pulse, Jack did the same. Osmond had whirled away from them before the salute was even fairly begun. He was striding back toward the carter, popping his whip, making it cough out those Daisy air rifle sounds. The carter heard Osmonds approach and began to scream. Come on, the Captain said, pulling Jacks arm for the last time. You dont want to see this. No, Jack managed. God, no. But as Captain Farren pushed the righthand gate open and they finally left the pavillion, Jack heard itand he heard it in his dreams that night one whistling carbinecrack after another, each followed by a scream from the doomed carter. And Osmond was making a sound. The man was panting, out of breath, and so it was hard to tell exactly what that sound was, without turning around to look at his facesomething Jack did not want to do. He was pretty sure he knew, though. He thought Osmond was laughing. 5 They were in the public area of the pavillion grounds now. The strollers glanced at Captain Farren from the corners of their eyes . . . and gave him a wide berth. The Captain strode swiftly, his face tight and dark with thought. Jack had to trot in order to catch up. We were lucky, the Captain said suddenly. Damned lucky. I think he meant to kill you. Jack gaped at him, his mouth dry and hot. Hes mad, you know. Mad as the man who chased the cake. Jack had no idea what that might mean, but he agreed that Osmond was mad. What Wait, the Captain said. They had come back around to the small tent where the Captain had taken Jack after seeing the sharks tooth. Stand right here and wait for me. Speak to no one. The Captain entered the tent. Jack stood watching and waiting. A juggler passed him, glancing at Jack but never losing his rhythm as he tossed half a dozen balls in a complex and airy pattern. A straggle of dirty children followed him as the children followed the Piper out of Hamelin. A young woman with a dirty baby at one huge breast told him she could teach him something to do with his little man besides let piss out of it, if he had a coin or two. Jack looked uncomfortably away, his face hot. The girl cawed laughter. Oooooo, this pretty young mans SHY! Come over here, pretty! Come Get out, slut, or youll finish the day in the underkitchens. It was the Captain. He had come out of the tent with another man. This second fellow was old and fat, but he shared one characteristic with Farrenhe looked like a real soldier rather than one from Gilbert and Sullivan. He was trying to fasten the front of his uniform over his bulging gut while holding a curly, French hornlike instrument at the same time. The girl with the dirty baby scurried away with never another look at Jack. The Captain took the fat mans horn so he could finish buttoning, and passed another word with him. The fat man nodded, finished with his shirt, took his horn back, and then strode off, blowing it. It was not like the sound Jack had heard on his first flip into the Territories; that had been many horns, and their sound had been somehow showy the sound of heralds. This was like a factory whistle, announcing work to be done. The Captain returned to Jack. Come with me, he said. Where? Outpost Road, Captain Farren said, and then he cast a wondering, halffearful eye down on Jack Sawyer. What my fathers father called Western Road. It goes west through smaller and smaller villages until it reaches the Outposts. Beyond the Outposts it goes into nowhere . . . or hell. If youre going west, youll need God with you, boy. But Ive heard it said He Himself never ventures beyond the Outposts. Come on. Questions crowded Jacks minda million of thembut the Captain set a killer pace and he didnt have the spare breath to ask them. They breasted the rise south of the great pavillion and passed the spot where he had first flipped back out of the Territories. The rustic funfair was now closeJack could hear a barker cajoling patrons to try their luck on Wonder the DevilDonkey; to stay on two minutes was to win a prize, the barker cried. His voice came on the seabreeze with perfect clarity, as did the mouthwatering smell of hot foodroast corn as well as meat this time. Jacks stomach rumbled. Now safely away from Osmond the Great and Terrible, he was ravenous. Before they quite reached the fair, they turned right on a road much wider than the one which led toward the great pavillion. Outpost Road, Jack thought, and then, with a little chill of fear and anticipation in his belly, he corrected himself No . . . Western Road. The way to the Talisman. Then he was hurrying after Captain Farren again. 6 Osmond had been right; they could have followed their noses, if necessary. They were still a mile outside the village with that odd name when the first sour tang of spilled ale came to them on the breeze. Eastwardbearing traffic on the road was heavy. Most of it was wagons drawn by lathered teams of horses (none with two heads, however). The wagons were, Jack supposed, the Diamond Reos and Peterbilts of this world. Some were piled high with bags and bales and sacks, some with raw meat, some with clacking cages of chickens. On the outskirts of AllHands Village, an open wagon filled with women swept by them at an alarming pace. The women were laughing and shrieking. One got to her feet, raised her skirt all the way to her hairy crotch, and did a tipsy bump and grind. She would have tumbled over the side of the wagon and into the ditchprobably breaking her neckif one of her colleagues hadnt grabbed her by the back of the skirt and pulled her rudely back down. Jack blushed again he saw the girls white breast, its nipple in the dirty babys working mouth. Oooooo, this pretty young mans SHY! God! Farren muttered, walking faster than ever. They were all drunk! Drunk on spilled Kingsland! Whores and driver both! Hes apt to wreck them on the road or drive them right off the seacliffsno great loss. Diseased sluts! At least, Jack panted, the road must be fairly clear, if all this traffic can get through. Mustnt it? They were in AllHands Village now. The wide Western Road had been oiled here to lay the dust. Wagons came and went, groups of people crossed the street, and everyone seemed to be talking too loudly. Jack saw two men arguing outside what might have been a restaurant. Abruptly, one of them threw a punch. A moment later, both men were rolling on the ground. Those whores arent the only ones drunk on Kingsland, Jack thought. I think everyone in this towns had a share. All of the big wagons that passed us came from here, Captain Farren said. Some of the smaller ones may be getting through, but Morgans diligence isnt small, boy. Morgan Never mind Morgan now. The smell of the ale grew steadily sharper as they passed through the center of the village and out the other side. Jacks legs ached as he struggled to keep up with the Captain. He guessed they had now come perhaps three miles. How far is that in my world? he thought, and that thought made him think of Speedys magic juice. He groped frantically in his jerkin, convinced it was no longer therebut it was, held securely within whatever Territories undergarment had replaced his Jockey shorts. Once they were on the western side of the village, the wagontraffic decreased, but the pedestrian traffic headed east increased dramatically. Most of the pedestrians were weaving, staggering, laughing. They all reeked of ale. In some cases, their clothes were dripping, as if they had lain fulllength in it and drunk of it like dogs. Jack supposed they had. He saw a laughing man leading a laughing boy of perhaps eight by the hand. The man bore a nightmarish resemblance to the hateful desk clerk at the Alhambra, and Jack understood with perfect clarity that this man was that mans Twinner. Both he and the boy he led by the hand were drunk, and as Jack turned to look after them, the little boy began to vomit. His fatheror so Jack supposed him to bejerked him hard by the arm as the boy attempted to flounder his way into the brushy ditch, where he could be sick in relative privacy. The kid reeled back to his father like a curdog on a short leash, spraying puke on an elderly man who had collapsed by the side of the road and was snoring there. Captain Farrens face grew blacker and blacker. God pound them all, he said. Even those furthest into their cups gave the scarred Captain a wide and prudent berth. While in the guardpost outside the pavillion, he had belted a short, businesslike leather scabbard around his waist. Jack assumed (not unreasonably) that it contained a short, businesslike sword. When any of the sots came too close, the Captain touched the sword and the sot detoured quickly away. Ten minutes lateras Jack was becoming sure he could no longer keep upthey arrived at the site of the accident. The driver had been coming out of the turn on the inside when the wagon had tilted and gone over. As a result, the kegs had sprayed all the way across the road. Many of them were smashed, and the road was a quagmire for twenty feet. One horse lay dead beneath the wagon, only its hindquarters visible. Another lay in the ditch, a shattered chunk of barrelstave protruding from its ear. Jack didnt think that could have happened by accident. He supposed the horse had been badly hurt and someone had put it out of its misery by the closest means at hand. The other horses were nowhere to be seen. Between the horse under the wagon and the one in the ditch lay the carters son, spreadeagled on the road. Half of his face stared up at the bright blue Territories sky with an expression of stupid amazement. Where the other half had been was now only red pulp and splinters of white bone like flecks of plaster. Jack saw that his pockets had been turned out. Wandering around the scene of the accident were perhaps a dozen people. They walked slowly, often bending over to scoop ale twohanded from a hoofprint or to dip a handkerchief or a tornoff piece of singlet into another puddle. Most of them were staggering. Voices were raised in laughter and in quarrelsome shouts. After a good deal of pestering, Jacks mother had allowed him to go with Richard to see a midnight double feature of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead at one of Westwoods dozen or so movie theaters. The shuffling, drunken people here reminded him of the zombies in those two films. Captain Farren drew his sword. It was as short and businesslike as Jack had imagined, the very antithesis of a sword in a romance. It was little more than a long butchers knife, pitted and nicked and scarred, the handle wrapped in old leather that had been sweated dark. The blade itself was dark . . . except for the cutting edge. That looked bright and keen and very sharp. Make away, then! Farren bawled. Make away from the Queens ale, Godpounders! Make away and keep your guts where they belong! Growls of displeasure met this, but they moved away from Captain Farrenall except one hulk of a man with tufts of hair growing at wildly random points from his otherwise bald skull. Jack guessed his weight at close to three hundred pounds, his height at just shy of seven feet. Dyou like the idea of taking on all of us, sojer? this hulk asked, and waved one grimy hand at the knot of villagers who had stepped away from the swamp of ale and the litter of barrels at Farrens order. Sure, Captain Farren said, and grinned at the big man. I like it fine, just as long as youre first, you great drunken clot of shit. Farrens grin widened, and the big man faltered away from its dangerous power. Come for me, if you like. Carving you will be the first good thing thats happened to me all day. Muttering, the drunken giant slouched away. Now, all of you! Farren shouted. Make away! Theres a dozen of my men just setting out from the Queens pavillion! Theyll not be happy with this duty and I dont blame them and I cant be responsible for them! I think youve just got time to get back to the village and hide in your cellars before they arrive there! It would be prudent to do so! Make away! They were already streaming back toward the village of AllHands, the big man who had challenged the Captain in their van. Farren grunted and then turned back to the scene of the accident. He removed his jacket and covered the face of the carters son with it. I wonder which of them robbed the lads pockets as he lay dead or dying in the roadstead, Farren said meditatively. If I knew, Id have them hung on a cross by nightfall. Jack made no answer. The Captain stood looking down at the dead boy for a long time, one hand rubbing at the smooth, ridged flesh of the scar on his face. When he looked up at Jack, it was as if he had just come to. Youve got to leave now, boy. Right away. Before Osmond decides hed like to investigate my idiot son further. How bad is it going to be with you? Jack asked. The Captain smiled a little. If youre gone, Ill have no trouble. I can say that I sent you back to your mother, or that I was overcome with rage and hit you with a chunk of wood and killed you. Osmond would believe either. Hes distracted. They all are. Theyre waiting for her to die. It will be soon. Unless . . . He didnt finish. Go, Farren said. Dont tarry. And when you hear Morgans diligence coming, get off the road and get deep into the woods. Deep. Or hell smell you like a cat smells a rat. He knows instantly if something is out of order. His order. Hes a devil. Will I hear it coming? His diligence? Jack asked timidly. He looked at the road beyond the litter of barrels. It rose steadily upward, toward the edge of a piney forest. It would be dark in there, he thought . . . and Morgan would be coming the other way. Fear and loneliness combined in the sharpest, most disheartening wave of unhappiness he had ever known. Speedy, I cant do this! Dont you know that? Im just a kid! Morgans diligence is drawn by six pairs of horses and a thirteenth to lead, Farren said. At the full gallop, that damned hearse sounds like thunder rolling along the earth. Youll hear it, all right. Plenty of time to burrow down. Just make sure you do. Jack whispered something. What? Farren asked sharply. I said I dont want to go, Jack said, only a little louder. Tears were close and he knew that once they began to fall he was going to lose it, just blow his cool entirely and ask Captain Farren to get him out of it, protect him, something I think its too late for your wants to enter into the question, Captain Farren said. I dont know your tale, boy, and I dont want to. I dont even want to know your name. Jack stood looking at him, shoulders slumped, eyes burning, his lips trembling. Get your shoulders up! Farren shouted at him with sudden fury. Who are you going to save? Where are you going? Not ten feet, looking like that! Youre too young to be a man, but you can at least pretend, cant you? You look like a kicked dog! Stung, Jack straightened his shoulders and blinked his tears back. His eyes fell on the remains of the carters son and he thought At least Im not like that, not yet. Hes right. Being sorry for myself is a luxury I cant afford. It was true. All the same, he could not help hating the scarred Captain a little for reaching inside him and pushing the right buttons so easily. Better, Farren said dryly. Not much, but a little. Thanks, Jack said sarcastically. You cant cry off, boy. Osmonds behind you. Morgan will soon be behind you as well. And perhaps . . . perhaps there are problems wherever you came from, too. But take this. If Parkus sent you to me, hed want me to give you this. So take it, and then go. He was holding out a coin. Jack hesitated, then took it. It was the size of a Kennedy halfdollar, but much heavieras heavy as gold, he guessed, although its color was dull silver. What he was looking at was the face of Laura DeLoessian in profilehe was struck again, briefly but forcibly, by her resemblance to his mother. No, not just resemblancein spite of such physical dissimilarities as the thinner nose and rounder chin, she was his mother. Jack knew it. He turned the coin over and saw an animal with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. It seemed to be looking at Jack. It made him a little nervous, and he put the coin inside his jerkin, where it joined the bottle of Speedys magic juice. Whats it for? he asked Farren. Youll know when the time comes, the Captain replied. Or perhaps you wont. Either way, Ive done my duty by you. Tell Parkus so, when you see him. Jack felt wild unreality wash over him again. Go, son, Farren said. His voice was lower, but not necessarily more gentle. Do your job . . . or as much of it as you can. In the end, it was that feeling of unrealitythe pervasive sense that he was no more than a figment of someone elses hallucinationthat got him moving. Left foot, right foot, hay foot, straw foot. He kicked aside a splinter of alesoaked wood. Stepped over the shattered remnants of a wheel. Detoured around the end of the wagon, not impressed by the blood drying there or the buzzing flies. What was blood or buzzing flies in a dream? He reached the end of the muddy, wood and barrellittered stretch of road, and looked back . . . but Captain Farren had turned the other way, perhaps to look for his men, perhaps so he would not have to look at Jack. Either way, Jack reckoned, it came to the same thing. A back was a back. Nothing to look at. He reached inside his jerkin, tentatively touched the coin Farren had given him, and then gripped it firmly. It seemed to make him feel a little better. Holding it as a child might hold a quarter given him to buy a treat at the candy store, Jack went on. 7 It might have been as little as two hours later when Jack heard the sound Captain Farren had described as thunder rolling along the earthor it might have been as long as four. Once the sun passed below the western rim of the forest (and it did that not long after Jack had entered it), it became difficult to judge the time. On a number of occasions vehicles came out of the west, presumably bound for the Queens pavillion. Hearing each one come (and vehicles could be heard a long way away here; the clarity with which sound carried made Jack think of what Speedy had said about one man pulling a radish out of the ground and another smelling it half a mile away) made him think of Morgan, and each time he hurried first down into the ditch and then up the other side, and so into the woods. He didnt like being in these dark woodsnot even a little way in, where he could still peer around the trunk of a tree and see the road; it was no restcure for the nerves, but he liked the idea of Uncle Morgan (for so he still believed Osmonds superior to be, in spite of what Captain Farren had said) catching him out on the road even less. So each time he heard a wagon or carriage approaching he got out of sight, and each time the vehicle passed he went back to the road. Once, while he was crossing the damp and weedy righthand ditch, something ranor slitheredover his foot, and Jack cried out. The traffic was a pain in the tail, and it wasnt exactly helping him to make better time, but there was also something comforting about the irregular passage of wagonsthey served notice that he wasnt alone, at least. He wanted to get the hell out of the Territories altogether. Speedys magic juice was the worst medicine hed ever had in his life, but he would gladly have taken a bellychoking swig of it if someoneSpeedy himself, for examplehad just happened to appear in front of him and assure him that, when he opened his eyes again, the first thing he would see would be a set of McDonalds golden archeswhat his mother called The Great Tits of America. A sense of oppressive danger was growing in hima feeling that the forest was indeed dangerous, that there were things in it aware of his passage, that perhaps the forest itself was aware of his passage. The trees had gotten closer to the road, hadnt they? Yes. Before, they had stopped at the ditches. Now they infested those as well. Before, the forest had seemed composed solely of pines and spruces. Now other sorts of trees had crept in, some with black boles that twisted together like gnarls of rotted strings, some that looked like weird hybrids of firs and fernsthese latter had nastylooking gray roots that gripped at the ground like pasty fingers. Our boy? these nasty things seemed to whisper inside of Jacks head. OUR boy? All in your mind, JackO. Youre just freaking out a little. Thing was, he didnt really believe that. The trees were changing. That sense of thick oppression in the airthat sense of being watchedwas all too real. And he had begun to think that his minds obsessive return to monstrous thoughts was almost something he was picking up from the forest . . . as if the trees themselves were sending to him on some horrible shortwave. But Speedys bottle of magic juice was only halffull. Somehow that had to last him all the way across the United States. It wouldnt last until he was out of New England if he sipped a little every time he got the willies. His mind also kept returning to the amazing distance he had travelled in his world when he had flipped back from the Territories. A hundred and fifty feet over here had equalled half a mile over there. At that rateunless the ratio of distance travelled were somehow variable, and Jack recognized that it might behe could walk ten miles over here and be damn near out of New Hampshire over there. It was like wearing sevenleague boots. Still, the trees . . . those gray, pasty roots . . . When it starts to get really darkwhen the sky goes from blue to purpleIm flipping back. Thats it; thats all she wrote. Im not walking through these woods after dark. And if I run out of magic juice in Indiana or something, ole Speedy can just send me another bottle by UPS, or something. Still thinking these thoughtsand thinking how much better it made him feel to have a plan (even if the plan only encompassed the next two hours or so)Jack suddenly realized he could hear another vehicle and a great many horses. Cocking his head, he stopped in the middle of the road.

His eyes widened, and two pictures suddenly unspooled behind his eyes with shutterlike speed the big car the two men had been inthe car that had not been a Mercedesand then the WILD CHILD van, speeding down the street and away from Uncle Tommys corpse, blood dripping from the broken plastic fangs of its grille. He saw the hands on the vans steering wheel . . . but they werent hands. They were weird, articulated hooves. At the full gallop, that damned hearse sounds like thunder rolling along the earth. Now, hearing itthe sound still distant but perfectly clear in the pure airJack wondered how he could have even thought those other approaching wagons might be Morgans diligence. He would certainly never make such a mistake again. The sound he heard now was perfectly ominious, thick with a potential for evilthe sound of a hearse, yes, a hearse driven by a devil. He stood frozen in the road, almost hypnotized, as a rabbit is hypnotized by headlights. The sound grew steadily louderthe thunder of the wheels and hooves, the creak of leather rigging. Now he could hear the drivers voice Heeyah! Heeeyahhh! HEEEEEYAHHHH! He stood in the road, stood there, his head drumming with horror. Cant move, oh dear God oh dear Christ I cant move Mom Mom Muhhhhhmeeeee! He stood in the road and the eye of his imagination saw a huge black thing like a stagecoach tearing up the road, pulled by black animals that looked more like pumas than horses; he saw black curtains flapping in and out of the coachs windows; he saw the driver standing on the teeterboard, his hair blown back, his eyes as wild and crazed as those of a psycho with a switchblade. He saw it coming toward him, never slowing. He saw it run him down. That broke the paralysis. He ran to the right, skidding down the side of the road, catching his foot under one of those gnarled roots, falling, rolling. His back, relatively quiet for the last couple of hours, flared with fresh pain, and Jack drew his lips back with a grimace. He got to his feet and scurried into the woods, hunched over. He slipped first behind one of the black trees, but the touch of the gnarly trunkit was a bit like the banyans he had seen while on vacation on Hawaii year before lastwas oily and unpleasant. Jack moved to the left and behind the trunk of a pine. The thunder of the coach and its outriders grew steadily louder. At every second Jack expected the company to flash by toward AllHands Village. Jacks fingers squeezed and relaxed on the pines gummy back. He bit at his lips. Directly ahead was a narrow but perfectly clear sightline back to the road, a tunnel with sides of leaf and fern and pine needles. And just when Jack had begun to think that Morgans party would never arrive, a dozen or more mounted soldiers passed heading east, riding at a gallop. The one in the lead carried a banner, but Jack could not make out its device . . . nor was he sure he wanted to. Then the diligence flashed across Jacks narrow sightline. The moment of its passage was briefno more than a second, perhaps less than thatbut Jacks recall of it was total. The diligence was a gigantic vehicle, surely a dozen feet high. The trunks and bundles lashed with stout cord to the top added another three feet. Each horse in the team which pulled it wore a black plume on its headthese plumes were blown back almost flat in a speedgenerated wind. Jack thought later that Morgan must need a new team for every run, because these looked close to the end of their endurance. Foam and blood sprayed back from their working mouths in curds; their eyes rolled crazily, showing arcs of white. As in his imaginingor his visionblack crepe curtains flew and fluttered through glassless windows. Suddenly a white face appeared in one of those black oblongs, a white face framed in strange, twisted carvingwork. The sudden appearance of that face was as shocking as the face of a ghost in the ruined window of a haunted house. It was not the face of Morgan Sloat . . . but it was. And the owner of that face knew that Jackor some other danger, just as hated and just as personalwas out there. Jack saw this in the widening of the eyes and the sudden vicious downtwist of the mouth. Captain Farren had said Hell smell you like a rat, and now Jack thought dismally Ive been smelled, all right. He knows Im here, and what happens now? Hell stop the whole bunch of them, I bet, and send the soldiers into the woods after me. Another band of soldiersthese protecting Morgans diligence from the rearswept by. Jack waited, his hands frozen to the bark of the pine, sure that Morgan would call a halt. But no halt came; soon the heavy thunder of the diligence and its outriders began to fade. His eyes. Thats whats the same. Those dark eyes in that white face. And Our boy? YESSSS! Something slithered over his foot . . . and up his ankle. Jack screamed and floundered backward, thinking it must be a snake. But when he looked down he saw that one of those gray roots had slipped up his foot . . . and now it ringed his calf. Thats impossible, he thought stupidly. Roots dont move He pulled back sharply, yanking his leg out of the rough gray manacle the root had formed. There was thin pain in his calf, like the pain of a ropeburn. He raised his eyes and felt sick fear slip into his heart. He thought he knew now why Morgan had sensed him and gone on anyway; Morgan knew that walking in this forest was like walking into a jungle stream infested with piranhas. Why hadnt Captain Farren warned him? All Jack could think was that the scarred Captain must not have known; must never have been this far west. The grayish roots of those firfern hybrids were all moving nowrising, falling, scuttling along the mulchy ground toward him. Ents and Entwives, Jack thought crazily. BAD Ents and Entwives. One particularly thick root, its last six inches dark with earth and damp, rose and wavered in front of him like a cobra piped up from a fakirs basket. OUR boy! YESS! It darted toward him and Jack backed away from it, aware that the roots had now formed a living screen between him and the safety of the road. He backed into a tree . . . and then lurched away from it, screaming, as its bark began to ripple and twitch against his backit was like feeling a muscle which has begun to spasm wildly. Jack looked around and saw one of those black trees with the gnarly trunks. Now the trunk was moving, writhing. Those twisted knots of bark formed something like a dreadful runnelled face, one eye widely, blackly open, the other drawn down in a hideous wink. The tree split open lower down with a grinding, rending sound, and whitishyellow sap began to drool out. OURS! Oh, yesssss! Roots like fingers slipped between Jacks upper arm and ribcage, as if to tickle. He tore away, holding on to the last of his rationality with a huge act of will, groping in his jerkin for Speedys bottle. He was awarefaintlyof a series of gigantic ripping sounds. He supposed the trees were tearing themselves right out of the ground. Tolkien had never been like this. He got the bottle by the neck and pulled it out. He scrabbled at the cap, and then one of those gray roots slid easily around his neck. A moment later it pulled as bitterly tight as a hangmans noose. Jacks breath stopped. The bottle tumbled from his fingers as he grappled with the thing that was choking him. He managed to work his fingers under the root. It was not cold and stiff but warm and limber and fleshlike. He struggled with it, aware of the choked gargling sound coming from him and the slick of spittle on his chin. With a final convulsive effort he tore the root free. It tried to circle his wrist then, and Jack whipped his arm away from it with a cry. He looked down and saw the bottle twisting and bumping away, one of those gray roots coiled about its neck. Jack leaped for it. Roots grabbed his legs, circled them. He fell heavily to the earth, stretching, reaching, the tips of his fingers digging at the thick black forest soil for an extra inch He touched the bottles slick green side . . . and seized it. He pulled as hard as he could, dimly aware that the roots were all over his legs now, crisscrossing like bonds, holding him firmly. He spun the cap off the bottle. Another root floated down, cobweblight, and tried to snatch the bottle away from him. Jack pushed it away and raised the bottle to his lips. That smell of sickish fruit suddenly seemed everywhere, a living membrane. Speedy, please let it work! As more roots slid over his back and around his waist, turning him helplessly this way and that, Jack drank, cheap wine splattering both of his cheeks. He swallowed, groaning, praying, and it was no good, it wasnt working, his eyes were still closed but he could feel the roots entangling his arms and legs, could feel 8 the water soaking into his jeans and his shirt, could smell Water? mud and damp, could hear Jeans? Shirt? the steady croak of frogs and Jack opened his eyes and saw the orange light of the setting sun reflected from a wide river. Unbroken forest grew on the east side of this river; on the western side, the side that he was on, a long field, now partially obscured with evening groundmist, rolled down to the waters edge. The ground here was wet and squelchy. Jack was lying at the edge of the water, in the boggiest area of all. Thick weeds still grew herethe hard frosts that would kill them were still a month or more awayand Jack had gotten entangled in them, the way a man awakening from a nightmare may entangle himself in the bedclothes. He scrambled and stumbled to his feet, wet and slimed with the fragrant mud, the straps of his pack pulling under his arms. He pushed the weedy fragments from his arms and face with horror. He started away from the water, then looked back and saw Speedys bottle lying in the mud, the cap beside it. Some of the magic juice had either run out or been spilled in his struggle with the malignant Territories trees. Now the bottle was no more than a third full. He stood there a moment, his caked sneakers planted in the oozy muck, looking out at the river. This was his world; this was the good old United States of America. He didnt see the golden arches he had hoped for, or a skyscraper, or an earth satellite blinking overhead in the darkening sky, but he knew where he was as well as he knew his own name. The question was, had he ever been in that other world at all? He looked around at the unfamiliar river, the likewise unfamiliar countryside, and listened to the distant mellow mooing of cows. He thought Youre somewhere different. This sure isnt Arcadia Beach anymore, JackO. No, it wasnt Arcadia Beach, but he didnt know the area surrounding Arcadia Beach well enough to say for sure that he was more than four or five miles awayjust enough inland, say, to no longer be able to smell the Atlantic. He had come back as if waking from a nightmarewas it not possible that was all it had been, the whole thing, from the carter with his load of flycrawling meat to the living trees? A sort of waking nightmare in which sleepwalking had played a part? It made sense. His mother was dying, and he now thought he had known that for quite a whilethe signs had been there, and his subconscious had drawn the correct conclusion even while his conscious mind denied it. That would have contributed the correct atmosphere for an act of selfhypnosis, and that crazy wino Speedy Parker had gotten him in gear. Sure. It all hung together. Uncle Morgan would have loved it. Jack shivered and swallowed hard. The swallow hurt. Not the way a sore throat hurts, but the way an abused muscle hurts. He raised his left hand, the one not holding the bottle, and rubbed his palm gently against his throat. For a moment he looked absurdly like a woman checking for dewlaps or wrinkles. He found a welted abrasion just above his adams apple. It hadnt bled much, but it was almost too painful to touch. The root that had closed about his throat had done that. True, Jack whispered, looking out at the orange water, listening to the twank of the bullfrogs and the mooing, distant cows. All true. 9 Jack began walking up the slope of the field, setting the riverand the eastat his back. After he had gone half a mile, the steady rub and shift of the pack against his throbbing back (the strokes Osmond had laid on were still there, too, the shifting pack reminded him) triggered a memory. He had refused Speedys enormous sandwich, but hadnt Speedy slipped the remains into his pack anyway, while Jack was examining the guitarpick? His stomach pounced on the idea. Jack unshipped the pack then and there, standing in a curdle of groundmist beneath the evening star. He unbuckled one of the flaps, and there was the sandwich, not just a piece or a half, but the whole thing, wrapped up in a sheet of newspaper. Jacks eyes filled with a warmth of tears and he wished that Speedy were here so he could hug him. Ten minutes ago you were calling him a crazy old wino. His face flamed at that, but his shame didnt stop him from gobbling the sandwich in half a dozen big bites. He rebuckled his pack and reshouldered it. He went on, feeling betterwith that whistling hole in his gut stopped up for the time being, Jack felt himself again. Not long after, lights twinkled up out of the growing darkness. A farmhouse. A dog began to barkthe heavy bark of a really big fellowand Jack froze for a moment. Inside, he thought. Or chained up. I hope. He bore to the right, and after a while the dog stopped barking. Keeping the lights of the farmhouse as a guide, Jack soon came out on a narrow blacktop road. He stood looking from right to left, having no idea which way to go. Well, folks, heres Jack Sawyer, halfway between hoot and holler, wet through to the skin and sneakers packed with mud. Way to go, Jack! The loneliness and homesickness rose in him again. Jack fought them off. He put a drop of spit on his left index finger, then spanked the drop sharply. The larger of the two halves flew off to the rightor so it seemed to Jackand so he turned that way and began to walk. Forty minutes later, drooping with weariness (and hungry again, which was somehow worse), he saw a gravelpit with a shed of some sort standing beyond a chainedoff access road. Jack ducked under the chain and went to the shed. The door was padlocked shut, but he saw that the earth had eroded under one side of the small outbuilding. It was the work of a minute to remove his pack, wriggle under the sheds side, and then pull the pack in after him. The lock on the door actually made him feel safer. He looked around and saw that he was in with some very old toolsthis place hadnt been used in a long time, apparently, and that suited Jack just fine. He stripped to the skin, not liking the feel of his clammy, muddy clothes. He felt the coin Captain Farren had given him in one of his pants pockets, resting there like a giant amid his little bit of more ordinary change. Jack took it out and saw that Farrens coin, with the Queens head on one side and the winged lion on the otherhad become a 1921 silver dollar. He looked fixedly at the profile of Lady Liberty on the cartwheel for some time, and then slipped it back into the pocket of his jeans. He rooted out fresh clothes, thinking he would put the dirty ones in his pack in the morningthey would be dry thenand perhaps clean them along the way, maybe in a Laundromat, maybe just in a handy stream. While searching for socks, his hand encountered something slim and hard. Jack pulled it out and saw it was his toothbrush. At once, images of home and safety and rationalityall the things a toothbrush could representrose up and overwhelmed him. There was no way that he could beat these emotions down or turn them aside this time. A toothbrush was a thing meant to be seen in a welllighted bathroom, a thing to be used with cotton pajamas on the body and warm slippers on the feet. It was nothing to come upon in the bottom of your knapsack in a cold, dark toolshed on the edge of a gravelpit in a deserted rural town whose name you did not even know. Loneliness raged through him; his realization of his outcast status was now complete. Jack began to cry. He did not weep hysterically or shriek as people do when they mask rage with tears; he cried in the steady sobs of one who has discovered just how alone he is, and is apt to remain for a long time yet. He cried because all safety and reason seemed to have departed from the world. Loneliness was here, a reality; but in this situation, insanity was also too much of a possibility. Jack fell asleep before the sobs had entirely run their course. He slept curled around his pack, naked except for clean underpants and socks. The tears had cut clean courses down his dirty cheeks, and he held his toothbrush loosely in one hand. 8 The Oatley Tunnel 1 Six days later, Jack had climbed nearly all the way out of his despair. By the end of his first days on the road, he seemed to himself to have grown from childhood right through adolescence into adulthoodinto competence. It was true that he had not returned to the Territories since he had awakened on the western bank of the river, but he could rationalize that, and the slower travelling it involved, by telling himself that he was saving Speedys juice for when he really needed it. And anyhow, hadnt Speedy told him to travel mainly on the roads in this world? Just following orders, pal. When the sun was up and the cars whirled by him thirty, forty miles west and his stomach was full, the Territories seemed unbelievably distant and dreamlike they were like a movie he was beginning to forget, a temporary fantasy. Sometimes, when Jack leaned back into the passenger seat of some schoolteachers car and answered the usual questions about the Story, he actually did forget. The Territories left him, and he was againor nearly sothe boy he had been at the start of the summer. Especially on the big state highways, when a ride dropped him off near the exit ramp, he usually saw the next car pulling off to the side ten or fifteen minutes after he stuck his thumb into the air. Now he was somewhere near Batavia, way over in the western part of New York State, walking backward down the breakdown lane of I90, his thumb out again, working his way toward Buffaloafter Buffalo, he would start to swing south. It was a matter, Jack thought, of working out the best way to accomplish something and then just doing it. Rand McNally and the Story had gotten him this far; all he needed was enough luck to find a driver going all the way to Chicago or Denver (or Los Angeles, if were going to daydream about luck, Jackybaby), and he could be on his way home again before the middle of October. He was suntanned, he had fifteen dollars in his pocket from his last jobdishwasher at the Golden Spoon Diner in Auburnand his muscles felt stretched and toughened. Though sometimes he wanted to cry, he had not given in to his tears since that first miserable night. He was in control, that was the difference. Now that he knew how to proceed, had worked it out so painstakingly, he was on top of what was happening to him; he thought he could see the end of his journey already, though it was so far ahead of him. If he travelled mainly in this world, as Speedy had told him, he could move as quickly as he had to and get back to New Hampshire with the Talisman in plenty of time. It was going to work, and he was going to have many fewer problems than he had expected. That, at least, was what Jack Sawyer was imagining as a dusty blue Ford Fairlane swerved off to the shoulder of the road and waited for him to run up to it, squinting into the lowering sun. Thirty or forty miles, he thought to himself. He pictured the page from Rand McNally he had studied that morning, and decided Oatley. It sounded dull, small, and safehe was on his way, and nothing could hurt him now. 2 Jack bent down and looked in the window before opening the Fairlanes door. Fat sample books and printed fliers lay messily over the back seat; two oversize briefcases occupied the passenger seat. The slightly paunchy blackhaired man who now seemed almost to be mimicking Jacks posture, bending over the wheel and peering through the open window at the boy, was a salesman. The jacket to his blue suit hung from the hook behind him; his tie was at halfmast, his sleeves were rolled. A salesman in his midthirties, tooling comfortably through his territory. He would love to talk, like all salesmen. The man smiled at him and picked up first one of the outsize briefcases, hoisting it over the top of the seat and onto the litter of papers behind, then the other. Lets create a little room, he said. Jack knew that the first thing the man would ask him was why he was not at school. He opened the door, said, Hey, thanks, and climbed in. Going far? the salesman asked, checking the rearview mirror as he slid the gearlever down into drive and swung back out onto the road. Oatley, Jack said. I think its about thirty miles. You just flunked geography, the salesman said. Oatleys more like fortyfive miles. He turned his head to look at Jack, and surprised the boy by winking at him. No offense, he said, but I hate to see young kids hitching. Thats why I always pick em up when I see em. At least I know theyre safe with me. No touchiefeelie, know what I mean? Too many crazies out there, kid. You read the papers? I mean, Im talking carnivores. You could turn yourself into an endangered species. I guess youre right, Jack said. But I try to be pretty careful. You live somewhere back there, I take it? The man was still looking at him, snatching little birdlike peeks ahead down the road, and Jack frantically searched his memory for the name of a town back down the road. Palmyra. Im from Palmyra. The salesman nodded, said, Nice enough old place, and turned back to the highway. Jack relaxed back into the comfortable plush of the seat. Then the man finally said, I guess youre not actually playing hooky, are you? and it was time yet again for the Story. He had told it so often, varying the names of the towns involved as he worked westward, that it had a slick, monologuelike feel in his mouth. No, sir. Its just that I have to go over to Oatley to live with my Aunt Helen for a little while. Helen Vaughan? Thats my moms sister. Shes a schoolteacher. My dad died last winter, see, and things have been pretty toughthen two weeks ago my moms cough got a lot worse and she could hardly get up the stairs and the doctor said she had to stay in bed for as long as she could and she asked her sister if I could come stay with her for a while. Her being a teacher and all, I guess Ill be in Oatley school for sure. Aunt Helen wouldnt let any kid play hooky, you bet. You mean your mother told you to hitchhike all the way from Palmyra to Oatley? the man asked. Oh no, not at allshed never do that. No, she gave me bus money but I decided to save it. There wont be much money from home for a long time, I guess, and Aunt Helen doesnt really have any money. My mom would hate it if she knew I was thumbing it. But it seemed like a waste of money to me. I mean, five bucks is five bucks, and why give it to a bus driver? The man looked sideways at him. How long do you think youll be in Oatley? Hard to say. I sure hope my mom gets well pretty soon. Well, dont hitch back, okay? We dont have a car anymore, Jack said, adding to the Story. He was beginning to enjoy himself. Can you believe this? They came out in the middle of the night and repossessed it. Dirty cowards. They knew everybody would be asleep. They just came out in the middle of the night and stole the car right out of the garage. Mister, I would have fought for that carand not so I could get a ride to my aunts house. When my mom goes to the doctor, she has to walk all the way down the hill and then go about another five blocks just to get to the bus stop. They shouldnt be able to do that, should they? Just come in and steal your own car? As soon as we could, we were going to start making the payments again. I mean, wouldnt you call that stealing? If it happened to me, I suppose I would, the man said. Well, I hope your mother gets better in a hurry. You and me both, Jack said with perfect honesty. And that held them until the signs for the Oatley exit began to appear. The salesman pulled back into the breakdown lane just after the exit ramp, smiled again at Jack and said, Good luck, kid. Jack nodded and opened the door. I hope you dont have to spend much time in Oatley, anyhow. Jack looked at him questioningly. Well, you know the place, dont you? A little. Not really. Ah, its a real pit. Sort of place where they eat what they run over on the road. Gorillaville. You eat the beer, then you drink the glass. Like that. Thanks for the warning, Jack said and got out of the car. The salesman waved and dropped the Fairlane into drive. In moments it was only a dark shape speeding toward the low orange sun. 3 For a mile or so the road took him through flat dull countrysidefar off, Jack saw small twostory frame houses perched on the edges of fields. The fields were brown and bare, and the houses were not farmhouses. Widely separated, the houses overlooking the desolate fields existed in a gray moveless quiet broken only by the whine of traffic moving along I90. No cows lowed, no horses whinniedthere were no animals, and no farm equipment. Outside one of the little houses squatted half a dozen junked and rusting cars. These were the houses of men who disliked their own species so thoroughly that even Oatley was too crowded for them. The empty fields gave them the moats they needed around their peeling frame castles. At length he came to a crossroads. It looked like a crossroads in a cartoon, two narrow empty roads bisecting each other in an absolute nowhere, then stretching on toward another kind of nowhere. Jack had begun to feel insecure about his sense of direction, and he adjusted the pack on his back and moved up toward the tall rusted iron pipe supporting the black rectangles, themselves rusting, of the street names. Should he have turned left instead of right off the exit ramp? The sign pointing down the road running parallel to the highway read DOGTOWN ROAD. Dogtown? Jack looked down this road and saw only endless flatness, fields full of weeds and the black streak of asphalt rolling on. His own particular streak of asphalt was called MILL ROAD, according to the sign. About a mile ahead it slipped into a tunnel nearly overgrown by leaning trees and an oddly pubic mat of ivy. A white sign hung in the thickness of ivy, seemingly supported by it. The words were too small to be read. Jack put his right hand in his pocket and clutched the coin Captain Farren had given him. His stomach talked to him. He was going to need dinner soon, so he had to move off this spot and find a town where he could earn his meals. Mill Road it wasat least he could go far enough to see what was on the other side of the tunnel. Jack pushed himself toward it, and the dark opening in the bank of trees enlarged with every step. Cool and damp and smelling of brick dust and overturned earth, the tunnel seemed to take the boy in and then tighten down around him. For a moment Jack feared that he was being led undergroundno circle of light ahead showed the tunnels endbut then realized that the asphalt floor was level. TURN ON LIGHTS, the sign outside the tunnel had read. Jack bumped into a brick wall and felt grainy powder crumble onto his hands. Lights, he said to himself, wishing he had one to turn on. The tunnel must, he realized, bend somewhere along its length. He had cautiously, slowly, carefully, walked straight into the wall, like a blind man with his hands extended. Jack groped his way along the wall. When the coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons did something like this, he usually wound up splashed across the front of a truck. Something rattled busily along the floor of the tunnel, and Jack froze. A rat, he thought. Maybe a rabbit out taking a shortcut between fields. But it had sounded bigger than that. He heard it again, farther away in the dark, and took another blind step forward. Ahead of him, just once, he heard an intake of breath. And stopped, wondering Was that an animal? Jack held his fingertips against the damp brick wall, waiting for the exhalation. It had not sounded like an animalcertainly no rat or rabbit inhaled so deeply. He crept a few inches forward, almost unwilling to admit to himself that whatever was up there had frightened him. Jack froze again, hearing a quiet little sound like a raspy chuckle come out of the blackness before him. In the next second a familiar but unidentifiable smell, coarse, strong, and musky, drifted toward him out of the tunnel. Jack looked back over his shoulder. The entrance was now only halfvisible, halfobscured by the curve of the wall, a long way off and looking about the size of a rabbithole. Whats in here? he called out. Hey! Anything in here with me? Anybody? He thought he heard something whisper deeper into the tunnel. He was not in the Territories, he reminded himselfat the worst he might have startled some imbecilic dog who had come into the cool dark for a nap. In that case, hed be saving its life by waking it up before a car came along. Hey, dog! he yelled. Dog! And was rewarded instantly by the sound of paws trotting through the tunnel. But were they . . . going out or coming in? He could not tell, listening to the soft pad pad pad, whether the animal was leaving or approaching. Then it occurred to him that maybe the noise was coming toward him from behind, and he twisted his neck and looked back and saw that he had moved far enough along so that he could not see that entrance, either. Where are you, dog? he said. Something scratched the ground only a foot or two behind him, and Jack jumped forward and struck his shoulder, hard, against the curve of the wall. He sensed a shapedoglike, perhapsin the darkness. Jack stepped forwardand was stopped short by a sense of dislocation so great that he imagined himself back in the Territories. The tunnel was filled with that musky, acrid zooodor, and whatever was coming toward him was not a dog. A gust of cold air smelling of grease and alcohol pushed toward him. He sensed that shape getting nearer. Only for an instant he had a glimpse of a face hanging in the dark, glowing as if with its own sick and fading interior light, a long, bitter face that should have been almost youthful but was not. Sweat, grease, a stink of alcohol on the breath that came from it. Jack flattened himself against the wall, raising his fists, even as the face faded back into the dark. In the midst of his terror he thought he heard footfalls softly, quickly covering the ground toward the tunnels entrance, and turned his face from the square foot of darkness which had spoken to him to look back. Darkness, silence. The tunnel was empty now. Jack squeezed his hands under his armpits and gently fell back against the brick, taking the blow on his knapsack. A moment later he began to edge forward again. As soon as Jack was out of the tunnel, he turned around to face it. No sounds emerged, no weird creatures slunk toward him. He took three steps forward, peered in. And then his heart nearly stopped, because coming toward him were two huge orange eyes. They halved the distance between themselves and Jack in seconds. He could not movehis feet were past the ankles in asphalt. Finally he managed to extend his hands, palmout, in the instinctive gesture of wardingoff. The eyes continued toward him, and a horn blasted. Seconds before the car burst out of the tunnel, revealing a redfaced man waving a fist, Jack threw himself out of the way. SHIIITHEEAAA . . . came from the contorted mouth. Still dazed, Jack turned and watched the car speed downhill toward a village that had to be Oatley.

4 Situated in a long depression in the land, Oatley spread itself out meagerly from two principal streets. One, the continuation of Mill Road, dipped past an immense and shabby building set in the midst of a vast parking lota factory, Jack thoughtto become a strip of usedcar lots (sagging pennants), fastfood franchises (The Great Tits of America), a bowling alley with a huge neon sign (BOWLARAMA!), grocery stores, gas stations. Past all this, Mill Road became Oatleys five or six blocks of downtown, a strip of old twostory buildings before which cars were parked nosein. The other street was obviously the location of Oatleys most important houseslarge frame buildings with porches and long slanting lawns. Where these streets intersected stood a traffic light winking its red eye in the late afternoon. Another light perhaps eight blocks down changed to green before a high dingy manywindowed building that looked like a mental hospital, and so was probably the high school. Fanning out from the two streets was a jumble of little houses interspersed with anonymous buildings fenced in behind tall wire mesh. Many of the windows in the factory were broken, and some of the windows in the strip of downtown had been boarded over. Heaps of garbage and fluttering papers littered the fencedin concrete yards. Even the important houses seemed neglected, with their sagging porches and bleachedout paint jobs. These people would own the usedcar lots filled with unsaleable automobiles. For a moment Jack considered turning his back on Oatley and making the hike to Dogtown, wherever that was. But that would mean walking through the Mill Road tunnel again. From down in the middle of the shopping district a car horn blatted, and the sound unfurled toward Jack full of an inexpressible loneliness and nostalgia. He could not relax until he was all the way to the gates of the factory, the Mill Road tunnel far up behind him. Nearly a third of the windows along the dirtybrick facade had been broken in, and many of the others showed blank brown squares of cardboard. Even out on the road, Jack could smell machine oil, grease, smouldering fanbelts, and clashing gears. He put his hands in his pockets and walked downhill as quickly as he could. 5 Seen close up, the town was even more depressed than it had looked from the hill. The salesmen at the car lots leaned against the windows in their offices, too bored to come outside. Their pennants hung tattered and joyless, the onceoptimistic signs propped along the cracked sidewalk fronting the rows of carsONE OWNER! FANTASTIC BUY! CAR OF THE WEEK!had yellowed. The ink had feathered and run on some of the signs, as if they had been left out in the rain. Very few people moved along the streets. As Jack went toward the center of town, he saw an old man with sunken cheeks and gray skin trying to wrestle an empty shopping cart up onto a curb. When he approached, the old man screeched something hostile and frightened and bared gums as black as a badgers. He thought Jack was going to steal his cart! Sorry, Jack said, his heart pounding again. The old man was trying to hug the whole cumbersome body of the cart, protecting it, all the while showing those blackened gums to his enemy. Sorry, Jack repeated. I was just going to . . . Fusshhingfeef! FusshhingFEEEFF! the old man screeched, and tears crawled into the wrinkles on his cheeks. Jack hurried off. Twenty years before, during the sixties, Oatley must have prospered. The relative brightness of the strip of Mill Road leading out of town was the product of that era when stocks went gogo and gas was still cheap and nobody had heard the term discretionary income because they had plenty of it. People had sunk their money into franchise operations and little shops and for a time had, if not actually flourished, held their heads above the waves. This short series of blocks still had that superficial hopefulnessbut only a few bored teenagers sat in the franchise restaurants, nursing medium Cokes, and in the plateglass windows of too many of the little shops placards as faded as those in the usedcar lots announced EVERYTHING MUST GO! CLOSING SALE. Jack saw no signs advertising for help, and kept on walking. Downtown Oatley showed the reality beneath the happy clowns colors left behind by the sixties. As Jack trudged along these blocks of bakedlooking brick buildings, his pack grew heavier, his feet more tender. He would have walked to Dogtown after all, if it were not for his feet and the necessity of going through the Mill Road tunnel again. Of course there was no snarling manwolf lurking in the dark therehed worked that out by now. No one could have spoken to him in the tunnel. The Territories had shaken him. First the sight of the Queen, then that dead boy beneath the cart with half his face gone. Then Morgan; the trees. But that was there, where such things could bewere, perhaps, even normal. Here, normality did not admit such gaudiness. He was before a long, dirty window above which the flaking slogan FURNITURE DEPOSITORY was barely legible on the brickwork. He put his hands to his eyes and stared in. A couch and a chair, each covered by a white sheet, sat fifteen feet apart on a wide wooden floor. Jack moved farther down the block, wondering if he was going to have to beg for food. Four men sat in a car before a boardedup shop a little way down the block. It took Jack a moment to see that the car, an ancient black DeSoto that looked as though Broderick Crawford should come bustling out of it, had no tires. Taped to the windshield was a yellow fivebyeight card which read FAIR WEATHER CLUB. The men inside, two in front and two in back, were playing cards. Jack stepped up to the front passenger window. Excuse me, he said, and the cardplayer closest to him rolled a fishy gray eye toward him. Do you know where Get lost, the man said. His voice sounded squashed and phlegmy, unfamiliar with speech. The face halfturned to Jack was deeply pitted with acne scars and oddly flattened out, as if someone had stepped on it when the man was an infant. I just wondered if you knew somewhere I could get a couple days work. Try Texas, said the man in the drivers seat, and the pair in the back seat cracked up, spitting beer out over their hands of cards. I told you, kid, get lost, said the flatfaced grayeyed man closest to Jack. Or Ill personally pound the shit out of you. It was just the truth, Jack understoodif he stayed there a moment longer, this mans rage would boil over and he would get out of the car and beat him senseless. Then the man would get back in the car and open another beer. Cans of Rolling Rock covered the floor, the opened ones tipped every which way, the fresh ones linked by white plastic nooses. Jack stepped backward, and the fisheye rolled away from him. Guess Ill try Texas after all, he said. He listened for the sound of the DeSotos door creaking open as he walked away, but all he heard being opened was another Rolling Rock. Crack! Hiss! He kept moving. He got to the end of the block and found himself looking across the towns other main street at a dying lawn filled with yellow weeds from which peeked fiberglass statues of Disneylike fawns. A shapeless old woman gripping a flyswatter stared at him from a porch swing. Jack turned away from her suspicious gaze and saw before him the last of the lifeless brick buildings on Mill Road. Three concrete steps led up to a proppedopen screen door. A long, dark window contained a glowing BUDWEISER sign and, a foot to the right of that, the painted legend UPDIKES OATLEY TAP. And several inches beneath that, handwritten on a yellow fivebyeight card like the one on the DeSoto, were the miraculous words HELP WANTED. Jack pulled the knapsack off his back, bunched it under one arm, and went up the steps. For no more than an instant, moving from the tired sunlight into the darkness of the bar, he was reminded of stepping past the thick fringe of ivy into the Mill Road tunnel. 9 Jack in the Pitcher Plant 1 Not quite sixty hours later a Jack Sawyer who was in a very different frame of mind from that of the Jack Sawyer who had ventured into the Oatley tunnel on Wednesday was in the chilly storeroom of the Oatley Tap, hiding his pack behind the kegs of Busch which sat in the rooms far corner like aluminum bowling pins in a giants alley. In less than two hours, when the Tap finally shut down for the night, Jack meant to run away. That he should even think of it in such a fashionnot leaving, not moving on, but running awayshowed how desperate he now believed his situation to be. I was six, six, John B. Sawyer was six, Jacky was six. Six. This thought, apparently nonsensical, had fallen into his mind this evening and had begun to repeat there. He supposed it went a long way toward showing just how scared he was now, how certain he was that things were beginning to close in on him. He had no idea what the thought meant; it just circled and circled, like a wooden horse bolted to a carousel. Six. I was six. Jacky Sawyer was six. Over and over, round and round she goes. The storeroom shared a wall in common with the taproom itself, and tonight that wall was actually vibrating with noise; it throbbed like a drumhead. Until twenty minutes before, it had been Friday night, and both Oatley Textiles and Weaving and Dogtown Custom Rubber paid on Friday. Now the Oatley Tap was full to the overflow point . . . and past. A big poster to the left of the bar read OCCUPANCY BY MORE THAN 220 PERSONS IS IN VIOLATION OF GENESEE COUNTY FIRE CODE 331. Apparently fire code 331 was suspended on the weekends, because Jack guessed there were more than three hundred people out there now, boogying away to a countrywestern band which called itself The Genny Valley Boys. It was a terrible band, but they had a pedalsteel guitar. Theres guys around here thatd fuck a pedalsteel, Jack, Smokey had said. Jack! Lori yelled over the wall of sound. Lori was Smokeys woman. Jack still didnt know what her last name was. He could barely hear her over the juke, which was playing at full volume while the band was on break. All five of them were standing at the far end of the bar, Jack knew, tanking up on halfprice Black Russians. She stuck her head through the storeroom door. Tired blond hair, held back with childish white plastic barrettes, glittered in the overhead fluorescent. Jack, if you dont run that keg out real quick, I guess hell give your arm a try. Okay, Jack said. Tell him Ill be right there. He felt gooseflesh on his arms, and it didnt come entirely from the storerooms damp chill. Smokey Updike was no one to fool withSmokey who wore a succession of paper frycooks hats on his narrow head, Smokey with his large plastic mailorder dentures, grisly and somehow funereal in their perfect evenness, Smokey with his violent brown eyes, the scleras an ancient, dirty yellow. Smokey Updike who in some way still unknown to Jackand who was all the more frightening for thathad somehow managed to take him prisoner. The jukebox fell temporarily silent, but the steady roar of the crowd actually seemed to go up a notch to make up for it. Some Lake Ontario cowboy raised his voice in a big, drunken YeeeeeHAW! A woman screamed. A glass broke. Then the jukebox took off again, sounding a little like a Saturn rocket achieving escape velocity. Sort of place where they eat what they run over on the road. Raw. Jack bent over one of the aluminum kegs and dragged it out about three feet, his mouth screwed down in a painful wince, sweat standing out on his forehead in spite of the airconditioned chill, his back protesting. The keg gritted and squealed on the unadorned cement. He stopped, breathing hard, his ears ringing. He wheeled the handtruck over to the keg of Busch, stood it up, then went around to the keg again. He managed to rock it up on its rim and walk it forward, toward where the handtruck stood. As he was setting it down he lost control of itthe big barkeg weighed only a few pounds less than Jack did himself. It landed hard on the foot of the handtruck, which had been padded with a remnant of carpet so as to soften just such landings. Jack tried to both steer it and get his hands out of the way in time. He was slow. The keg mashed his fingers against the back of the handtruck. There was an agonizing thud, and he somehow managed to get his throbbing, pulsing fingers out of there. Jack stuck all the fingers of his left hand in his mouth and sucked on them, tears standing in his eyes. Worse than jamming his fingers, he could hear the slow sigh of gases escaping through the breathercap on top of the keg. If Smokey hooked up the keg and it came out foamy . . . or, worse yet, if he popped the cap and the beer went a gusher in his face . . . Best not to think of those things. Last night, Thursday night, when hed tried to run Smokey out a keg, the keg had gone right over on its side. The breathercap had shot clear across the room. Beer foamed whitegold across the storeroom floor and ran down the drain. Jack had stood there, sick and frozen, oblivious to Smokeys shouts. It wasnt Busch, it was Kingsland. Not beer but alethe Queens Own. That was when Smokey hit him for the first timea quick looping blow that drove Jack into one of the storerooms splintery walls. There goes your pay for today, Smokey had said. And you never want to do that again, Jack. What chilled Jack most about that phrase you never want to do that again was what it assumed that there would be lots of opportunities for him to do that again; as if Smokey Updike expected him to be here a long, long time. Jack, hurry it up! Coming. Jack puffed. He pulled the handtruck across the room to the door, felt behind himself for the knob, turned it, and pushed the door open. He hit something large and soft and yielding. Christ, watch it! Whoops, sorry, Jack said. Ill whoops you, asshole, the voice replied. Jack waited until he heard heavy steps moving on down the hall outside the storeroom and then tried the door again. The hall was narrow and painted a bilious green. It stank of shit and piss and TidyBowl. Holes had been punched through both plaster and lath here and there; graffiti lurched and staggered everywhere, written by bored drunks waiting to use either POINTERS or SETTERS. The largest of them all had been slashed across the green paint with a black Magic Marker, and it seemed to scream out all of Oatleys dull and objectless fury. SEND ALL AMERICAN NIGGERS AND JEWS TO IRAN, it read. The noise from the taproom was loud in the storeroom; out here it was a great wave of sound which never seemed to break. Jack took one glance back into the storeroom over the top of the keg tilted on the handtruck, trying to make sure his pack wasnt visible. He had to get out. Had to. The dead phone that had finally spoken, seeming to encase him in a capsule of dark ice . . . that had been bad. Randolph Scott was worse. The guy wasnt really Randolph Scott; he only looked the way Scott had looked in his fifties films. Smokey Updike was perhaps worse still . . . although Jack was no longer sure of that. Not since he had seen (or thought he had seen) the eyes of the man who looked like Randolph Scott change color. But that Oatley itself was worst of all . . . he was sure of that. Oatley, New York, deep in the heart of Genny County, seemed now to be a horrible trap that had been laid for him . . . a kind of municipal pitcher plant. One of natures real marvels, the pitcher plant. Easy to get in. Almost impossible to get out. 2 A tall man with a great swinging gut porched in front of him stood waiting to use the mens room. He was rolling a plastic toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other and glaring at Jack. Jack supposed that it was the big mans gut that he had hit with the door. Asshole, the fat man repeated, and then the mensroom door jerked open. A man strode out. For a heartstopping moment his eyes and Jacks eyes met. It was the man who looked like Randolph Scott. But this was no moviestar; this was just an Oatley millhand drinking up his weeks pay. Later on he would leave in a halfpaidfor doorsucker Mustang or maybe on a threequarterspaidfor motorcyclea big old Harley with a BUY AMERICAN sticker plastered on the nacelle, probably. His eyes turned yellow. No, your imagination, Jack, just your imagination. Hes just just a millhand who was giving him the eye because he was new. He had probably gone to high school here in town, played football, knocked up a Catholic cheerleader and married her, and the cheerleader had gotten fat on chocolates and Stouffers frozen dinners; just another Oatley oaf, just But his eyes turned yellow. Stop it! They did not! Yet there was something about him that made Jack think of what had happened when he was coming into town . . . what had happened in the dark. The fat man who had called Jack an asshole shrank back from the rangy man in the Levis and the clean white Tshirt. Randolph Scott started toward Jack. His big, veined hands swung at his sides. His eyes sparkled an icy blue . . . and then began to change, to moil and lighten. Kid, he said, and Jack fled with clumsy haste, butting the swinging door open with his fanny, not caring who he hit. Noise pounced on him. Kenny Rogers was bellowing an enthusiastic redneck paean to someone named Reuben James. You allus turned your other CHEEK, Kenny testified to this room of shuffling, sullenfaced drunks, and said theres a better world waitin for the MEEK! Jack saw no one here who looked particularly meek. The Genny Valley Boys were trooping back onto the bandstand and picking up their instruments. All of them but the pedal steel player looked drunk and confused . . . perhaps not really sure of where they were. The pedal steel player only looked bored. To Jacks left, a woman was talking earnestly on the Taps pay phonea phone Jack would never touch again if he had his way about it, not for a thousand dollars. As she talked, her drunken companion probed and felt inside her halfopen cowboy shirt. On the big dancefloor, perhaps seventy couples groped and shuffled, oblivious of the current songs bright uptempo, simply squeezing and grinding, hands gripping buttocks, lips spitsealed together, sweat running down cheeks and making large circles under the armpits. Well thank Gawd, Lori said, and flipped up the hinged partition at the side of the bar for him. Smokey was halfway down the bar, filling up Glorias tray with ginandtonics, vodka sours, and what seemed to be beers only competition for the Oatley Town Drink Black Russians. Jack saw Randolph Scott come out through the swinging door. He glanced toward Jack, his blue eyes catching Jacks again at once. He nodded slightly, as if to say Well talk. Yessirree. Maybe well talk about what might or might not be in the Oatley tunnel. Or about bullwhips. Or sick mothers. Maybe well talk about how youre gonna be in Genny County for a long, long time . . . maybe until youre an old man crying over a shopping cart. What do you think, Jacky? Jack shuddered. Randolph Scott smiled, as if he had seen the shudder . . . or felt it. Then he moved off into the crowd and the thick air. A moment later Smokeys thin, powerful fingers bit into Jacks shoulderhunting for the most painful place and, as always, finding it. They were educated, nerveseeking fingers. Jack, you just got to move faster, Smokey said. His voice sounded almost sympathetic, but his fingers dug and moved and probed. His breath smelled of the pink Canada Mints he sucked almost constantly. His mailorder false teeth clicked and clacked. Sometimes there was an obscene slurping as they slipped a little and he sucked them back into place. You got to move faster or Im going to have to light a fire under your ass. You understand what Im saying? Yyeah, Jack said. Trying not to moan. All right. Thats good then. For an excruciating second Smokeys fingers dug even deeper, grinding with a bitter enthusiasm at the neat little nest of nerves there. Jack did moan. That was good enough for Smokey. He let up. Help me hook this keg up, Jack. And lets make it fast. Friday night, people got to drink. Saturday morning, Jack said stupidly. Then, too. Come on. Jack somehow managed to help Smokey lift the keg into the square compartment under the bar. Smokeys thin, ropey muscles bulged and writhed under his Oatley Tap Tshirt. The paper frycooks hat on his narrow weasels head stayed in place, its leading edge almost touching his left eyebrow, in apparent defiance of gravity. Jack watched, holding his breath, as Smokey flicked off the red plastic breathercap on the keg. The keg breathed more gustily than it should have done . . . but it didnt foam. Jack let his breath out in a silent gust. Smokey spun the empty toward him. Get that back in the storeroom. And then swamp out the bathroom. Remember what I told you this afternoon. Jack remembered. At three oclock a whistle like an airraid siren had gone off, almost making him jump out of his skin. Lori had laughed, had said Check out Jack, SmokeyI think he just went weewee in his Tuffskins. Smokey had given her a narrow, unsmiling look and motioned Jack over. Told Jack that was the payday whistle at the Oatley T W. Told Jack that a whistle very much like it was going off at Dogtown Rubber, a company that made beachtoys, inflatable rubber dolls, and condoms with names like Ribs of Delight. Soon, he said, the Oatley Tap would begin filling up. And you and me and Lori and Gloria are going to move just as fast as lightning, Smokey said, because when the eagle screams on Friday, we got to make up for what this place dont make every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. When I tell you to run me out a keg, you want to have it out to me before I finish yelling. And youre in the mens room every half an hour with your mop. On Friday nights, a guy blows his groceries every fifteen minutes or so. I got the womens, Lori said, coming over. Her hair was thin, wavy gold, her complexion as white as a comicbook vampires. She either had a cold or a bad coke habit; she kept sniffing. Jack guessed it was a cold. He doubted if anyone in Oatley could afford a bad coke habit. Women aint as bad as men, though. Almost, but not quite. Shut up, Lori. Up yours, she said, and Smokeys hand flickered out like lightning. There was a crack and suddenly the imprint of Smokeys palm was printed red on one of Loris pallid cheeks like a childs Tattoodle. She began to snivel . . . but Jack was sickened and bewildered to see an expression in her eyes that was almost happy. It was the look of a woman who believed such treatment was a sign of caring. You just keep hustling and well have no problem, Smokey said. Remember to move fast when I yell for you to run me out a keg. And remember to get in the mens can with your mop every half an hour and clean up the puke. And then he had told Smokey again that he wanted to leave and Smokey had reiterated his false promise about Sunday afternoon . . . but what good did it do to think of that? There were louder screams now, and harsh caws of laughter. The crunch of a breaking chair and a wavering yell of pain. A fistfightthe third of the nighthad broken out on the dance floor. Smokey uttered a curse and shoved past Jack. Get rid of that keg, he said. Jack got the empty onto the dolly and trundled it back toward the swinging door, looking around uneasily for Randolph Scott as he went. He saw the man standing in the crowd that was watching the fight, and relaxed a little. In the storeroom he put the empty keg with the others by the loadingbayUpdikes Oatley Tap had already gone through six kegs tonight. That done, he checked his pack again. For one panicky moment he thought it was gone, and his heart began to hammer in his chestthe magic juice was in there, and so was the Territories coin that had become a silver dollar in this world. He moved to the right, sweat now standing out on his forehead, and felt between two more kegs. There it washe could trace the curve of Speedys bottle through the green nylon of the pack. His heartbeat began to slow down, but he felt shaky and rubberleggedthe way you feel after a narrow escape. The mens toilet was a horror. Earlier in the evening Jack might have vomited in sympathy, but now he actually seemed to be getting used to the stench . . . and that was somehow the worst thing of all. He drew hot water, dumped in Comet, and began to run his soapy mop back and forth through the unspeakable mess on the floor. His mind began to go back over the last couple of days, worrying at them the way an animal in a trap will worry at a limb that has been caught. 3 The Oatley Tap had been dark, and dingy, and apparently dead empty when Jack first walked into it. The plugs on the juke, the pinball machine, and the Space Invaders game were all pulled. The only light in the place came from the Busch display over the bara digital clock caught between the peaks of two mountains, looking like the weirdest UFO ever imagined. Smiling a little, Jack walked toward the bar. He was almost there when a flat voice said from behind him, This is a bar. No minors. What are you, stupid? Get out. Jack almost jumped out of his skin. He had been touching the money in his pocket, thinking it would go just as it had at the Golden Spoon he would sit on a stool, order something, and then ask for the job. It was of course illegal to hire a kid like himat least without a work permit signed by his parents or a guardianand that meant they could get him for under the minimum wage. Way under. So the negotiations would start, usually beginning with Story 2Jack and the Evil Stepfather. He whirled around and saw a man sitting alone in one of the booths, looking at him with chilly, contemptuous alertness. The man was thin, but ropes of muscles moved under his white undershirt and along the sides of his neck. He wore baggy white cooks pants. A paper cap was cocked forward over his left eyebrow. His head was narrow, weasellike. His hair was cut short, graying at the edges. Between his big hands were a stack of invoices and a Texas Instruments calculator. I saw your Help Wanted sign, Jack said, but now without much hope. This man was not going to hire him, and Jack was not sure he would want to work for him anyway. This guy looked mean. You did, huh? the man in the booth said. You must have learned to read on one of the days you werent playing hooky. There was a package of Phillies Cheroots on the table. He shook one out. Well, I didnt know it was a bar, Jack said, taking a step back toward the door. The sunlight seemed to come through the dirty glass and then just fall dead on the floor, as if the Oatley Tap were located in a slightly different dimension. I guess I thought it was . . . you know, a bar and grill. Something like that. Ill just be going. Come here. The mans brown eyes were looking at him steadily now. No, hey, thats all right, Jack said nervously. Ill just Come here. Sit down. The man popped a wooden match alight with his thumbnail and lit the cigar. A fly which had been preening on his paper hat buzzed away into the darkness. His eyes remained on Jack. I aint gonna bite you. Jack came slowly over to the booth, and after a moment he slipped in on the other side and folded his hands in front of him neatly. Some sixty hours later, swamping out the mens toilet at twelvethirty in the morning with his sweaty hair hanging in his eyes, Jack thoughtno, he knewthat it was his own stupid confidence that had allowed the trap to spring shut (and it had shut the moment he sat down opposite Smokey Updike, although he had not known it then). The Venus flytrap is able to close on its hapless, insectile victims; the pitcher plant, with its delicious smell and its deadly, glassysmooth sides, only waits for some flying asshole of a bug to buzz on down and inside . . . where it finally drowns in the rainwater the pitcher collects. In Oatley the pitcher was full of beer instead of rainwaterthat was the only difference. If he had run But he hadnt run. And maybe, Jack thought, doing his best to meet that cold brown stare, there would be a job here after all. Minette Banberry, the woman who owned and operated the Golden Spoon in Auburn, had been pleasant enough to Jack, had even given him a little hug and a peck of a kiss as well as three thick sandwiches when he left, but he had not been fooled. Pleasantness and even a remote sort of kindness did not preclude a cold interest in profits, or even something very close to outright greed. The minimum wage in New York was three dollars and forty cents an hourthat information had been posted in the Golden Spoons kitchen by law, on a bright pink piece of paper almost the size of a movie poster. But the shortorder cook was a Haitian who spoke little English and was almost surely in the country illegally, Jack thought. The guy cooked like a whiz, though, never allowing the spuds or the fried clams to spend a moment too long in the Fryolaters. The girl who helped Mrs. Banberry with the waitressing was pretty but vacant and on a workrelease program for the retarded in Rome. In such cases, the minimum wage did not apply, and the lisping, retarded girl told Jack with unfeigned awe that she was getting a dollar and twentyfive cents each hour, and all for her. Jack himself was getting a dollarfifty. He had bargained for that, and he knew that if Mrs. Banberry hadnt been strappedher old dishwasher had quit just that morning, had gone on his coffeebreak and just never come backshe would not have bargained at all; would have simply told him take the buck and a quarter, kid, or see whats down the road. Its a free country. Now, he thought, with the unknowing cynicism that was also a part of his new selfconfidence, here was another Mrs. Banberry. Male instead of female, ropeskinny instead of fat and grandmotherly, sour instead of smiling, but almost surely a Mrs. Banberry for a that and a that. Looking for a job, huh? The man in the white pants and the paper hat put his cigar down in an old tin ashtray with the word CAMELS embossed on the bottom. The fly stopped washing its legs and took off. Yes, sir, but like you say, this is a bar and all The unease stirred in him again. Those brown eyes and yellowed scleras troubled himthey were the eyes of some old hunting cat that had seen plenty of errant mice like him before. Yeah, its my place, the man said. Smokey Updike. He held his hand out. Surprised, Jack shook it. It squeezed Jacks hand once, hard, almost to the point of pain. Then it relaxed . . . but Smokey didnt let go. Well? he said. Huh? Jack said, aware he sounded stupid and a little afraidhe felt stupid and a little afraid. And he wanted Updike to let go of his hand. Didnt your folks ever teach you to innerduce yourself? This was so unexpected that Jack came close to gabbling out his real name instead of the one he had used at the Golden Spoon, the name he also used if the people who picked him up asked for his handle. That namewhat he was coming to think of as his roadnamewas Lewis Farren. Jack SawahSawtelle, he said. Updike held his hand yet a moment longer, those brown eyes never moving. Then he let it go. Jack SawahSawtelle, he said. Must be the longest fucking name in the phonebook, huh, kid? Jack flushed but said nothing. You aint very big, Updike said. You think you could manage to rock a ninetypound keg of beer up on its side and walk it onto a handdolly? I think so, Jack said, not knowing if he could or not. It didnt look as if it would be much of a problem, anywayin a place as dead as this, the guy probably only had to change kegs when the one hooked up to the taps went flat. As if reading his mind, Updike said, Yeah, nobody here now. But we get pretty busy by four, five oclock. And on weekends the place really fills up. Thats when youd earn your keep, Jack. Well, I dont know, Jack said.

How much would the job pay? Dollar an hour, Updike said. Wish I could pay you more, but He shrugged and tapped the stack of bills. He even smiled a little, as if to say You see how it is, kid, everything in Oatley is running down like a cheap pocketwatch someone forgot to windever since about 1971 its been running down. But his eyes did not smile. His eyes were watching Jacks face with still, catlike concentration. Gee, thats not very much, Jack said. He spoke slowly but he was thinking as fast as he could. The Oatley Tap was a tombthere wasnt even a single bombedout old alky at the bar nursing a beer and watching General Hospital on the tube. In Oatley you apparently drank in your car and called it a club. A dollarfifty an hour was a hard wage when you were busting your buns; in a place like this, a buck an hour might be an easy one. Nope, Updike agreed, going back to his calculator, it aint. His voice said Jack could take it or leave it; there would be no negotiations. Might be all right, Jack said. Well, thats good, Updike said. We ought to get one other thing straight, though. Who you running from and whos looking for you? The brown eyes were on him again, and they drilled hard. If you got someone on your backtrail, I dont want him fucking up my life. This did not shake Jacks confidence much. He wasnt the worlds brightest kid, maybe, but bright enough to know he wouldnt last long on the road without a second cover story for prospective employers. This was a Story 2The Wicked Stepfather. Im from a little town in Vermont, he said. Fenderville. My mom and dad got divorced two years ago. My dad tried to get custody of me, but the judge gave me to my mom. Thats what they do most of the time. FuckingA they do. He had gone back to his bills and was bent so far over the pocket calculator that his nose was almost touching the keys. But Jack thought he was listening all the same. Well, my dad went out to Chicago and he got a job in a plant out there, Jack said. He writes to me just about every week, I guess, but he quit coming back last year, when Aubrey beat him up. Aubreys Your stepfather, Updike said, and for just a moment Jacks eyes narrowed and his original distrust came back. There was no sympathy in Updikes voice. Instead, Updike seemed almost to be laughing at him, as if he knew the whole tale was nothing but a great big swatch of whole cloth. Yeah, he said. My mom married him a year and a half ago. He beats on me a lot. Sad, Jack. Very sad. Now Updike did look up, his eyes sardonic and unbelieving. So now youre off to Shytown, where you and Dads will live happily ever after. Well, I hope so, Jack said, and he had a sudden inspiration. All I know is that my real dad never hung me up by the neck in my closet. He pulled down the neck of his Tshirt, baring the mark there. It was fading now; during his stint at the Golden Spoon it had still been a vivid, ugly redpurplelike a brand. But at the Golden Spoon hed never had occasion to uncover it. It was, of course, the mark left by the root that had nearly choked the life from him in that other world. He was gratified to see Smokey Updikes eyes widen in surprise and what might almost have been shock. He leaned forward, scattering some of his pink and yellow pages. Holy Jesus, kid, he said. Your stepfather did that? Thats when I decided I had to split. Is he going to show up here, looking for his car or his motorcycle or his wallet or his fucking dopestash? Jack shook his head. Smokey looked at Jack for a moment longer, and then pushed the OFF button on the calculator. Come on back to the storeroom with me, kid, he said. Why? I want to see if you can really rock one of those kegs up on its side. If you can run me out a keg when I need one, you can have the job. 4 Jack demonstrated to Smokey Updikes satisfaction that he could get one of the big aluminum kegs up on its rim and walk it forward just enough to get it on the foot of the dolly. He even made it look fairly easydropping a keg and getting punched in the nose was still a day away. Well, that aint too bad, Updike said. You aint big enough for the job and youll probably give yourself a fucking rupture, but thats your nevermind. He told Jack he could start at noon and work through until one in the morning (For as long as you can hack it, anyway). Jack would be paid, Updike said, at closing time each night. Cash on the nail. They went back out front and there was Lori, dressed in dark blue basketball shorts so brief that the edges of her rayon panties showed, and a sleeveless blouse that had almost surely come from Mammoth Mart in Batavia. Her thin blond hair was held back with plastic barrettes and she was smoking a Pall Mall, its end wet and heavily marked with lipstick. A large silver crucifix dangled between her breasts. This is Jack, Smokey said. You can take the Help Wanted sign out of the window. Run, kid, Lori said. Theres still time. Shut the fuck up. Make me. Updike slapped her butt, not in a loving way but hard enough to send her against the padded edge of the bar. Jack blinked and thought of the sound Osmonds whip had made. Big man, Lori said. Her eyes brimmed with tears . . . and yet they also looked contented, as if this was just the way things were supposed to be. Jacks earlier unease was now clearer, sharper . . . now it was almost fright. Dont let us get on your case, kid, Lori said, headed past him to the sign in the window. Youll be okay. Names Jack, not kid, Smokey said. He had gone back to the booth where he had interviewed Jack and began gathering up his bills. A kids a fucking baby goat. Didnt they teach you that in school? Make the kid a couple of burgers. Hes got to go to work at noon. She got the HELP WANTED sign out of the window and put it behind the jukebox with the air of one who has done this a good many times before. Passing Jack, she winked at him. The telephone rang. All three of them looked toward it, startled by its abrupt shrilling. To Jack it looked for a moment like a black slug stuck to the wall. It was an odd moment, almost timeless. He had time to notice how pale Lori wasthe only color in her cheeks came from the reddish pocks of her fading adolescent acne. He had time to study the cruel, rather secretive planes of Smokey Updikes face and to see the way the veins stood out on the mans long hands. Time to see the yellowed sign over the phone reading PLEASE LIMIT YOUR CALLS TO THREE MINUTES. The phone rang and rang in the silence. Jack thought, suddenly terrified Its for me. Long distance . . . long, LONG distance. Answer that, Lori, Updike said, what are you, simple? Lori went to the phone. Oatley Tap, she said in a trembling, faint voice. She listened. Hello? Hello? . . . Oh, fuck off. She hung up with a bang. No one there. Kids. Sometimes they want to know if we got Prince Albert in a can. How do you like your burgers, kid? Jack! Updike roared. Jack, okay, okay, Jack. How do you like your burgers, Jack? Jack told her and they came medium, just right, hot with brown mustard and Bermuda onions. He gobbled them and drank a glass of milk. His unease abated with his hunger. Kids, as she had said. Still, his eyes drifted back to the phone every once in a while, and he wondered. 5 Four oclock came, and as if the Taps total emptiness had been only a clever piece of stage setting to lure him inlike the pitcher plant with its innocent look and its tasty smellthe door opened and nearly a dozen men in workclothes came sauntering in. Lori plugged in the juke, the pinball machine, and Space Invaders game. Several of the men bellowed greetings at Smokey, who grinned his narrow grin, exposing the big set of mailorder dentures. Most ordered beer. Two or three ordered Black Russians. One of thema member of the Fair Weather Club, Jack was almost suredropped quarters into the jukebox, summoning up the voices of Mickey Gilley, Eddie Rabbit, Waylon Jennings, others. Smokey told him to get the mopbucket and squeegee out of the storeroom and swab down the dancefloor in front of the bandstand, which waited, deserted, for Friday night and The Genny Valley Boys. He told Jack when it was dry he wanted him to put the Pledge right to it. Youll know its done when you can see your own face grinnin up at you, Smokey said. 6 So his time of service at Updikes Oatley Tap began. We get pretty busy by four, five oclock. Well, he couldnt very well say that Smokey had lied to him. Up until the very moment Jack pushed away his plate and began making his wage, the Tap had been deserted. But by six oclock there were maybe fifty people in the Tap, and the brawny waitressGloriacame on duty to yells and hooraws from some of the patrons. Gloria joined Lori, serving a few carafes of wine, a lot of Black Russians, and oceans of beer. Besides the kegs of Busch, Jack lugged out case after case of bottled beerBudweiser, of course, but also such local favorites as Genesee, Utica Club, and Rolling Rock. His hands began to blister, his back to ache. Between trips to the storeroom for cases of bottled beer and trips to the storeroom to run me out a keg, Jack (a phrase for which he was already coming to feel an elemental dread), he went back to the dancefloor, the mopbucket, and the big bottle of Pledge. Once an empty beerbottle flew past his head, missing him by inches. He ducked, heart racing, as it shattered against the wall. Smokey ran the drunken perpetrator out, his dentures bared in a great false alligator grin. Looking out the window, Jack saw the drunk hit a parkingmeter hard enough to pop the red VIOLATION flag up. Come on, Jack, Smokey called impatiently from the bar, it missed you, didnt it? Clean that mess up! Smokey sent him into the mens can half an hour later. A middleaged man with a Joe Pyne haircut was standing woozily at one of the two icechoked urinals, one hand braced against the wall, the other brandishing a huge uncircumcised penis. A puddle of puke steamed between his spraddled workboots. Clean her up, kid, the man said, weaving his way back toward the door and clapping Jack on the back almost hard enough to knock him over. Mans gotta make room any way he can, right? Jack was able to wait until the door closed, and then he could control his gorge no longer. He managed to make it into the Taps only stall, where he was faced with the unflushed and sickeningly fragrant spoor of the last customer. Jack vomited up whatever remained of his dinner, took a couple of hitching breaths, and then vomited again. He groped for the flush with a shaking hand and pushed it. Waylon and Willie thudded dully through the walls, singing about Luckenbach, Texas. Suddenly his mothers face was before him, more beautiful than it had ever been on any movie screen, her eyes large and dark and sorrowing. He saw her alone in their rooms at the Alhambra, a cigarette smouldering forgotten in the ashtray beside her. She was crying. Crying for him. His heart seemed to hurt so badly that he thought he would die from love for her and want of herfor a life where there were no things in tunnels, no women who somehow wanted to be slapped and made to cry, no men who vomited between their own feet while taking a piss. He wanted to be with her and hated Speedy Parker with a black completeness for ever having set his feet on this awful road west. In that moment whatever might have remained of his selfconfidence was demolishedit was demolished utterly and forever. Conscious thought was overmastered by a deep, elemental, wailing, childish cry I want my mother please God I want my MOTHER He trembled his way out of the stall on watery legs, thinking Okay thats it everybody out of the pool fuck you Speedy this kids going home. Or whatever you want to call it. In that moment he didnt care if his mother might be dying. In that moment of inarticulate pain he became totally Jacks Jack, as unconsciously selfserving as an animal on which any carnivore may prey deer, rabbit, squirrel, chipmunk. In that moment he would have been perfectly willing to let her die of the cancer metastasizing wildly outward from her lungs if only she would hold him and then kiss him goodnight and tell him not to play his goddam transistor in bed or read with a flashlight under the covers for half the night. He put his hand against the wall and little by little managed to get hold of himself. This takinghold was no conscious thing but a simple tightening of the mind, something that was very much Phil Sawyer and Lily Cavanaugh. Hed made a mistake, yeah, but he wasnt going back. The Territories were real and so the Talisman might also be real; he was not going to murder his mother with faintheartedness. Jack filled his mopbucket with hot water from the spigot in the storeroom and cleaned up the mess. When he came out again, it was half past ten and the crowd in the Tap began to thin outOatley was a working town, and its working drinkers went home early on weeknights. Lori said, You look as pale as pastry, Jack. You okay? Do you think I could have a gingerale? he asked. She brought him one and Jack drank it while he finished waxing the dancefloor. At quarter to twelve Smokey ordered him back to the storeroom to run out a keg. Jack managed the kegbarely. At quarter to one Smokey started bawling for people to finish up. Lori unplugged the jukeDick Curless died with a long, unwinding groanto a few halfhearted cries of protest. Gloria unplugged the games, donned her sweater (it was as pink as the Canada Mints Smokey ate regularly, as pink as the false gums of his dentures), and left. Smokey began to turn out the lights and to urge the last four or five drinkers out the door. Okay, Jack, he said when they were gone. You did good. Theres room for improvement, but you got a start, anyway. You can doss down in the storeroom. Instead of asking for his pay (which Smokey did not offer anyway), Jack stumbled off toward the storeroom, so tired that he looked like a slightly smaller version of the drunks so lately ushered out. In the storeroom he saw Lori squatting down in one cornerthe squat caused her basketball shorts to ride up to a point that was nearly alarmingand for a moment Jack thought with dull alarm that she was going through his knapsack. Then he saw that she had spread a couple of blankets on a layer of burlap applesacks. Lori had also put down a small satin pillow which said NEW YORK WORLDS FAIR on one side. Thought Id make you a little nest, kid, she said. Thanks, he said. It was a simple, almost offhand act of kindness, but Jack found himself having to struggle from bursting into tears. He managed a smile instead. Thanks a lot, Lori. No problem. Youll be all right here, Jack. Smokey aint so bad. Once you get to know him, he aint half bad. She said this with an unconscious wistfulness, as if wishing it were so. Probably not, Jack said, and then he added impulsively, but Im moving on tomorrow. Oatleys just not for me, I guess. She said Maybe youll go, Jack . . . and maybe youll decide to stay awhile. Why dont you sleep on it? There was something forced and unnatural about this little speechit had none of the genuineness of her grin when shed said Thought Id make you a little nest. Jack noticed it, but was too tired to do more than that. Well, well see, he said. Sure we will, Lori agreed, going to the door. She blew a kiss toward him from the palm of one dirty hand. Good night, Jack. Good night. He started to pull off his shirt . . . and then left it on, deciding he would just take off his sneakers. The storeroom was cold and chilly. He sat down on the applesacks, pulled the knots, pushed off first one and then the other. He was about to lie back on Loris New York Worlds Fair souvenirand he might well have been sound asleep before his head ever touched itwhen the telephone began to ring out in the bar, shrilling into the silence, drilling into it, making him think of wavering, pastygray roots and bullwhips and twoheaded ponies. Ring, ring, ring, into the silence, into the dead silence. Ring, ring, ring, long after the kids who call up to ask about Prince Albert in a can have gone to bed. Ring, ring, ring, Hello, Jacky its Morgan and I felt you in my woods, you smart little shit I SMELLED you in my woods, and how did you ever get the idea that you were safe in your world? My woods are there, too. Last chance, Jacky. Get home or we send out the troops. You wont have a chance. You wont Jack got up and ran across the storeroom floor in his stocking feet. A light sweat that felt freezing cold, seemed to cover his entire body. He opened the door a crack. Ring, ring, ring, ring. Then finally Hello, Oatley Tap. And this better be good. Smokeys voice. A pause. Hello? Another pause. Fuck off! Smokey hung up with a bang, and Jack heard him recross the floor and then start up the stairs to the small overhead apartment he and Lori shared. 7 Jack looked unbelievingly from the green slip of paper in his left hand to the small pile of billsall onesand change by his right. It was eleven oclock the next morning. Thursday morning, and he had asked for his pay. What is this? he asked, still unable to believe it. You can read, Smokey said, and you can count. You dont move as fast as Id like, Jackat least not yetbut youre bright enough. Now he sat with the green slip in one hand and the money by the other. Dull anger began to pulse in the middle of his forehead like a vein. GUEST CHECK, the green slip was headed. It was the exact same form Mrs. Banberry had used in the Golden Spoon. It read 1 hmbrg 1.35 1 hmbrg 1.35 1 lrg mk .55 1 ginale .55 Tx .30 At the bottom the figure 4.10 was written in large numbers and circled. Jack had made nine dollars for his fourtoone stint. Smokey had charged off nearly half of it; what he had left by his right hand was four dollars and ninety cents. He looked up, furiousfirst at Lori, who looked away as if vaguely embarrassed, and then at Smokey, who simply looked back. This is a cheat, he said thinly. Jack, thats not true. Look at the menu prices Thats not what I mean and you know it! Lori flinched a little, as if expecting Smokey to clout him one . . . but Smokey only looked at Jack with a kind of terrible patience. I didnt charge you for your bed, did I? Bed! Jack shouted, feeling the hot blood boil up into his cheeks. Some bed! Cutopen burlap bags on a concrete floor! Some bed! Id like to see you try to charge me for it, you dirty cheat! Lori made a scared sound and shot a look at Smokey . . . but Smokey only sat across from Jack in the booth, the thick blue smoke of a Cheroot curling up between them. A fresh paper frycooks hat was cocked forward on Smokeys narrow head. We talked about you dossing down back there, Smokey said. You asked if it came with the job. I said it did. No mention was made of your meals. If it had been brought up, maybe something could have been done. Maybe not. Point is, you never brought it up, so now you got to deal with that. Jack sat shaking, tears of anger standing in his eyes. He tried to talk and nothing came out but a small strangled groan. He was literally too furious to speak. Of course, if you wanted to discuss an employees discount on your meals now Go to hell! Jack managed finally, snatching up the four singles and the little strew of change. Teach the next kid who comes in here how to look out for number one! Im going! He crossed the floor toward the door, and in spite of his anger he knewdid not just think but flatout knewthat he wasnt going to make the sidewalk. Jack. He touched the doorknob, thought of grasping it and turning itbut that voice was undeniable and full of a certain threat. He dropped his hand and turned around, his anger leaving him. He suddenly felt shrunken and old. Lori had gone behind the bar, where she was sweeping and humming. She had apparently decided that Smokey wasnt going to work Jack over with his fists, and since nothing else really mattered, everything was all right. You dont want to leave me in the lurch with my weekend crowd coming up. I want to get out of here. You cheated me. No sir, Smokey said, I explained that. If anyone blotted your copybook, Jack, it was you. Now we could discuss your mealsfifty percent off the food, maybe, and even free sodas. I never went that far before with the younger help I hire from time to time, but this weekeneds going to be especially hairy, what with all the migrant labor in the county for the applepicking. And I like you, Jack. Thats why I didnt clout you one when you raised your voice to me, although maybe I should have. But I need you over the weekend. Jack felt his rage return briefly, and then die away again. What if I go anyhow? he asked. Im five dollars to the good, anyway, and being out of this shitty little town might be just as good as a bonus. Looking at Jack, still smiling his narrow smile, Smokey said, You remember going into the mens last night to clean after some guy who whoopsed his cookies? Jack nodded. You remember what he looked like? Crewcut. Khakis. So what? Thats Digger Atwell. His real names Carlton, but he spent ten years taking care of the town cemeteries, so everyone got calling him Digger. That wasoh, twenty or thirty years ago. He went on the town cops back around the time Nixon got elected President. Now hes Chief of Police. Smokey picked up his Cheroot, puffed at it, and looked at Jack. Digger and me go back, Smokey said. And if you was to just walk out of here now, Jack, I couldnt guarantee that you wouldnt have some trouble with Digger. Might end up getting sent home. Might end up picking the apples on the towns landOatley Townships got . . . oh, I guess forty acres of good trees. Might end up getting beat up. Or . . . Ive heard that ole Diggers got a taste for kids on the road. Boys, mostly. Jack thought of that clublike penis. He felt both sick and cold. In here, youre under my wing, so to speak, Smokey said. Once you hit the street, who can say? Diggers apt to be cruising anyplace. You might get over the town line with no sweat. On the other hand, you might just see him pulling up beside you in that big Plymouth he drives. Digger aint totally bright, but he does have a nose, sometimes, Or . . . someone might give him a call. Behind the bar, Lori was doing dishes. She dried her hands, turned on the radio, and began to sing along with an old Steppenwolf song. Tell you what, Smokey said. Hang in there, Jack. Work the weekend. Then Ill pack you into my pickup and drive you over the town line myself. How would that be? Youll go out of here Sunday noon with damn near thirty bucks in your poke that you didnt have coming in. Youll go out thinking that Oatleys not such a bad place after all. So what do you say? Jack looked into those brown eyes, noted the yellow scleras and the small flecks of red; he noted Smokeys big, sincere smile lined with false teeth; he even saw with a weird and terrifying sense of dj vu that the fly was back on the paper frycooks hat, preening and washing its hairthin forelegs. He suspected Smokey knew that he knew that everything Updike had said was a lie, and didnt even care. After working into the early hours of Saturday morning and then Sunday morning, Jack would sleep until maybe two Sunday afternoon. Smokey would tell him he couldnt give him that ride because Jack had woken up too late; now he, Smokey, was too busy watching the Colts and the Patriots. And Jack would not only be too tired to walk, he would be too afraid that Smokey might lose interest in the Colts and Patriots just long enough to call his good friend Digger Atwell and say, Hes walking down Mill Road right now, Digger old boy, why dont you pick him up? Then get over here for the second half. Free beer, but dont you go puking in my urinal until I get the kid back here. That was one scenario. There were others that he could think of, each a little different, each really the same at bottom. Smokey Updikes smile widened a little. 10 Elroy 1 When I was six . . . The Tap, which had begun to wind down by this time on his previous two nights, was roaring along as if the patrons expected to greet the dawn. He saw two tables had vanishedvictims of the fistfight that had broken out just before his last expedition into the john. Now people were dancing where the tables had been. About time, Smokey said as Jack staggered the length of the bar on the inside and put the case down by the refrigerator compartments. You get those in there and go back for the fucking Bud. You should have brought that first, anyway. Lori didnt say Hot, incredible pain exploded in his foot as Smokey drove one heavy shoe down on Jacks sneaker. Jack uttered a muffled scream and felt tears sting his eyes. Shut up, Smokey said. Lori dont know shit from Shinola, and you are smart enough to know it. Get back in there and run me out a case of Bud. He went back to the storeroom, limping on the foot Smokey had stomped, wondering if the bones in some of his toes might be broken. It seemed all too possible. His head roared with smoke and noise and the jagged ripsaw rhythm of The Genny Valley Boys, two of them now noticeably weaving on the bandstand. One thought stood out clearly it might not be possible to wait until closing. He really might not be able to last that long. If Oatley was a prison and the Oatley Tap was his cell, then surely exhaustion was as much his warder as Smokey Updikemaybe even more so. In spite of his worries about what the Territories might be like at this place, the magic juice seemed more and more to promise him his only sure way out. He could drink some and flip over . . . and if he could manage to walk a mile west over there, two at the most, he could drink a bit more and flip back into the U.S.A. well over the town line of this horrible little place, perhaps as far west as Bushville or even Pembroke. When I was six, when JackO was six, when He got the Bud and stumblestaggered out through the door again . . . and the tall, rangy cowboy with the big hands, the one who looked like Randolph Scott, was standing there, looking at him. Hello, Jack, he said, and Jack saw with rising terror that the irises of the mans eyes were as yellow as chickenclaws. Didnt somebody tell you to get gone? You dont listen very good, do you? Jack stood with the case of Bud dragging at the ends of his arms, staring into those yellow eyes, and suddenly a horrid idea hammered into his mind that this had been the lurker in the tunnelthis manthing with its dead yellow eyes. Leave me alone, he saidthe words came out in a wintery little whisper. He crowded closer. You were supposed to get gone. Jack tried to back up . . . but now he was against the wall, and as the cowboy who looked like Randolph Scott leaned toward him, Jack could smell dead meat on its breath. 2 Between the time Jack started work on Thursday at noon and four oclock, when the Taps usual afterwork crowd started to come in, the pay phone with the PLEASE LIMIT YOUR CALLS TO THREE MINUTES sign over it rang twice. The first time it rang, Jack felt no fear at alland it turned out to be only a solicitor for the United Fund. Two hours later, as Jack was bagging up the last of the previous nights bottles, the telephone began to shrill again. This time his head snapped up like an animal which scents fire in a dry forest . . . except it wasnt fire he sensed, but ice. He turned toward the telephone, which was only four feet from where he was working, hearing the tendons in his neck creak. He thought he must see the pay phone caked with ice, ice that was sweating through the phones black plastic case, extruding from the holes in the earpiece and the mouthpiece in lines of blue ice as thin as pencilleads, hanging from the rotary dial and the coin return in icicle beards. But it was just the phone, and all the coldness and death was on the inside. He stared at it, hypnotized. Jack! Smokey yelled. Answer the goddam phone! What the fuck am I paying you for? Jack looked toward Smokey, as desperate as a cornered animal . . . but Smokey was staring back with the thinlipped, outofpatience expression that he got on his face just before he popped Lori one. He started toward the phone, barely aware that his feet were moving; he stepped deeper and deeper into that capsule of coldness, feeling the gooseflesh run up his arms, feeling the moisture crackle in his nose. He reached out and grasped the phone. His hand went numb. He put it to his ear. His ear went numb. Oatley Tap, he said into that deadly blackness, and his mouth went numb. The voice that came out of the phone was the cracked, rasping croak of something long dead, some creature which could never be seen by the living the sight of it would drive a living person insane, or strike him dead with frostetchings on his lips and staring eyes blinded by cataracts of ice. Jack, this scabrous, rattling voice whispered up out of the earpiece, and his face went numb, the way it did when you needed to spend a heavy day in the dentists chair and the guy needled you up with a little too much Novocain. You get your ass back home, Jack. From far away, a distance of lightyears, it seemed, he could hear his voice repeating Oatley Tap, is anyone there? Hello? . . . Hello? . . . Cold, so cold. His throat was numb. He drew breath and his lungs seemed to freeze. Soon the chambers of his heart would ice up and he would simply drop dead. That chilly voice whispered, Bad things can happen to a boy alone on the road, Jack. Ask anybody. He hung the phone up with a quick, clumsy reaching gesture. He pulled his hand back and then stood looking at the phone. Was it the asshole, Jack? Lori asked, and her voice was distant . . . but a little closer than his own voice had seemed a few moments ago. The world was coming back. On the handset of the pay phone he could see the shape of his hand, outlined in a glittering rime of frost. As he looked, the frost began to melt and run down the black plastic. 3 That was the nightThursday nightthat Jack first saw Genny Countys answer to Randolph Scott. The crowd was a little smaller than it had been Wednesday nightvery much a daybeforepayday crowdbut there were still enough men present to fill the bar and spill over into the tables and booths. They were town men from a rural area where the plows were now probably rusting forgotten in back sheds, men who perhaps wanted to be farmers but had forgotten how. There were a lot of John Deere caps in evidence, but to Jack, very few of these men looked as if they would be at home riding a tractor. These were men in gray chinos and brown chinos and green chinos; men with their names stitched on blue shirts in gold thread; men in squaretoed Dingo Boots and men in great big clumping Survivors. These men carried their keys on their belts. These men had wrinkles but no laughlines; their mouths were dour. These men wore cowboy hats and when Jack looked at the bar from in back of the stools, there were as many as eight who looked like Charlie Daniels in the chewingtobacco ads. But these men didnt chew; these men smoked cigarettes, and a lot of them. Jack was cleaning the bubble front of the jukebox when Digger Atwell came in. The juke was turned off; the Yankees were on the cable, and the men at the bar were watching intently. The night before, Atwell had been in the Oatley males version of sports clothes (chinos, khaki shirt with a lot of pens in one of the two big pockets, steeltoed workboots). Tonight he was wearing a blue cops uniform. A large gun with wood grips hung in a holster on his creaking leather belt. He glanced at Jack, who thought of Smokey saying Ive heard that ole Diggers got a taste for kids on the road. Boys, mostly, and flinched back as if guilty of something. Digger Atwell grinned a wide, slow grin. Decided to stick around for a while, boy? Yes, sir, Jack muttered, and squirted more Windex onto the jukes bubble front, although it was already as clean as it was going to get.

He was only waiting for Atwell to go away. After a while, Atwell did. Jack turned to watch the beefy cop cross to the bar . . . and that was when the man at the far left end of the bar turned around and looked at him. Randolph Scott, Jack thought at once, thats just who he looks like. But in spite of the rangy and uncompromising lines of his face, the real Randolph Scott had had an undeniable look of heroism; if his good looks had been harsh, they had also been part of a face that could smile. This man looked both bored and somehow crazy. And with real fright, Jack realized the man was looking at him, at Jack. Nor had he simply turned around during the commercial to see who might be in the bar; he had turned around to look at Jack. Jack knew this was so. The phone. The ringing phone. With a tremendous effort, Jack pulled his gaze away. He looked back into the bubble front of the juke and saw his own frightened face hovering, ghostlike, over the records inside. The telephone began to shriek on the wall. The man at the left end of the bar looked at it . . . and then looked back at Jack, who stood frozen by the jukebox with his bottle of Windex in one hand and a rag in the other, his hair stiffening, his skin freezing. If its that asshole again, Im gonna get me a whistle to start blowing down the phone when he calls, Smokey, Lori was saying as she walked toward it. I swear to God I am. She might have been an actress in a play, and all the customers extras paid the standard SAG rate of thirtyfive dollars a day. The only two real people in the world were him and this dreadful cowboy with the big hands and the eyes Jack could not . . . quite . . . see. Suddenly, shockingly, the cowboy mouthed these words Get your ass home. And winked. The phone stopped ringing even as Lori stretched out her hand to it. Randolph Scott turned around, drained his glass, and yelled, Bring me another tapper, okay? Ill be damned, Lori said. That phones got the ghosts. 4 Later on, in the storeroom, Jack asked Lori who the guy was who looked like Randolph Scott. Who looks like who? she asked. An old cowboy actor. He was sitting down at the end of the bar. She shrugged. They all look the same to me, Jack. Just a bunch of swinging dicks out for a good time. On Thursday nights they usually pay for it with the little womans Beano money. He calls beers tappers. Her eyes lit. Oh yeah! Him. He looks mean. She said this last with actual appreciation . . . as if admiring the straightness of his nose or the whiteness of his smile. Who is he? I dont know his name, Lori said. Hes only been around the last week or two. I guess the mill must be hiring again. It For Christs sake, Jack, did I tell you to run me out a keg or not? Jack had been in the process of walking one of the big kegs of Busch onto the foot of the handdolly. Because his weight and the kegs weight were so close, it was an act requiring a good deal of careful balancing. When Smokey shouted from the doorway, Lori screamed and Jack jumped. He lost control of the keg and it went over on its side, the cap shooting out like a champagne cork, beer following in a whitegold jet. Smokey was still shouting at him but Jack could only stare at the beer, frozen . . . until Smokey popped him one. When he got back out to the taproom perhaps twenty minutes later, holding a Kleenex against his swelling nose, Randolph Scott had been gone. 5 Im six. John Benjamin Sawyer is six. Six Jack shook his head, trying to clear this steady, repeating thought out as the rangy millhand who was not a millhand leaned closer and closer. His eyes . . . yellow and somehow scaly. Heitblinked, a rapid, milky, swimming blink, and Jack realized it had nictitating membranes over its eyeballs. You were supposed to get gone, it whispered again, and reached toward Jack with hands that were beginning to twist and plate and harden. The door banged open, letting in a raucous flood of the Oak Ridge Boys. Jack, if you dont quit lollygagging, Im going to have to make you sorry, Smokey said from behind Randolph Scott. Scott stepped backward. No melting, hardening hooves here; his hands were just hands againbig and powerful, their backs crisscrossed with prominent ridged veins. There was another milky, swirling sort of blink that didnt involve the eyelids at all . . . and then the mans eyes were not yellow but a simple faded blue. He gave Jack a final glance and then headed toward the mens room. Smokey came toward Jack now, his paper cap tipped forward, his narrow weasels head slightly inclined, his lips parted to show his alligator teeth. Dont make me speak to you again, Smokey said. This is your last warning, and dont you think I dont mean it. As it had against Osmond, Jacks fury suddenly rose upthat sort of fury, closely linked as it is to a sense of hopeless injustice, is perhaps never as strong as it is at twelvecollege students sometimes think they feel it, but it is usually little more than an intellectual echo. This time it boiled over. Im not your dog, so dont you treat me like I am, Jack said, and took a step toward Smokey Updike on legs that were still rubbery with fear. Surprisedpossibly even flabbergastedby Jacks totally unexpected anger, Smokey backed up a step. Jack, Im warning you No, man, Im warning you, Jack heard himself say. Im not Lori. I dont want to be hit. And if you hit me, Im going to hit you back, or something. Smokey Updikes discomposure was only momentary. He had most assuredly not seen everythingnot living in Oatley, he hadntbut he thought he had, and even for a minor leaguer, sometimes assurance can be enough. He reached out to grab Jacks collar. Dont you smart off to me, Jack, he said, drawing Jack close. As long as youre in Oatley, my dog is just what you are. As long as youre in Oatley Ill pet you when I want and Ill beat you when I want. He adminstered a single necksnapping shake. Jack bit his tongue and cried out. Hectic spots of anger now glowed in Smokeys pale cheeks like cheap rouge. You may not think that is so right now, but Jack, it is. As long as youre in Oatley youre my dog, and youll be in Oatley until I decide to let you go. And we might as well start getting that learned right now. He pulled his fist back. For a moment the three naked sixtywatt bulbs which hung in this narrow hallway sparkled crazily on the diamond chips of the horseshoeshaped pinky ring he wore. Then the fist pistoned forward and slammed into the side of Jacks face. He was driven backward into the graffiticovered wall, the side of his face first flaring and then going numb. The taste of his own blood washed into his mouth. Smokey looked at himthe close, judgmental stare of a man who might be thinking about buying a heifer or a lottery number. He must not have seen the expression he wanted to see in Jacks eye, because he grabbed the dazed boy again, presumably the better to center him for a second shot. At that moment a woman shrieked, from the Tap, No, Glen! No! There was a tangle of bellowing male voices, most of them alarmed. Another woman screameda high, drilling sound. Then a gunshot. Shit on toast! Smokey cried, enunciating each word as carefully as an actor on a Broadway stage. He threw Jack back against the wall, whirled, and slammed out through the swinging door. The gun went off again and there was a scream of pain. Jack was sure of only one thingthe time had come to get out. Not at the end of tonights shift, or tomorrows, or on Sunday morning. Right now. The uproar seemed to be quieting down. There were no sirens, so maybe nobody had gotten shot . . . but, Jack remembered, cold, the millhand who looked like Randolph Scott was still down in the mens can. Jack went into the chilly, beersmelling storeroom, knelt by the kegs, and felt around for his pack. Again there was that suffocating certainty, as his fingers encountered nothing but thin air and the dirty concrete floor, that one of themSmokey or Lorihad seen him hide the pack and had taken it. All the better to keep you in Oatley, my dear. Then relief, almost as suffocating as the fear, when his fingers touched the nylon. Jack donned the pack and looked longingly toward the loading door at the back of the storeroom. He would much rather use that doorhe didnt want to go down to the firedoor at the end of the hall. That was too close to the mens bathroom. But if he opened the loading door, a red light would go on at the bar. Even if Smokey was still sorting out the ruckus on the floor, Lori would see that light and tell him. So . . . He went to the door which gave on the back corridor. He eased it open a crack and applied one eye. The corridor was empty. All right, that was cool. Randolph Scott had tapped a kidney and gone back to where the action was while Jack was getting his backpack. Great. Yeah, except maybe hes still in there. You want to meet him in the hall, Jacky? Want to watch his eyes turn yellow again? Wait until youre sure. But he couldnt do that. Because Smokey would see he wasnt out in the Tap, helping Lori and Gloria swab tables, or behind the bar, unloading the dishwasher. He would come back here to finish teaching Jack what his place was in the great scheme of things. So So what? Get going! Maybe hes in there waiting for you, Jacky . . . maybe hes going to jump out just like a big bad JackintheBox . . . The lady or the tiger? Smokey or the millhand? Jack hesitated a moment longer in an agony of indecision. That the man with the yellow eyes was still in the bathroom was a possibility; that Smokey would be back was a certainty. Jack opened the door and stepped out into the narrow hallway. The pack on his back seemed to gain weightan eloquent accusation of his planned escape to anyone who might see it. He started down the hallway, moving grotesquely on tiptoe in spite of the thundering music and the roar of the crowd, his heart hammering in his chest. I was six, Jacky was six. So what? Why did that keep coming back? Six. The corridor seemed longer. It was like walking on a treadmill. The firedoor at the far end seemed to draw closer only by agonizing degrees. Sweat now coated his brow and his upper lip. His gaze flicked steadily toward the door to the right, with the black outline of a dog on it. Beneath this outline was the word POINTERS. And at the end of the corridor, a door of fading, peeling red. The sign on the door said EMERGENCY USE ONLY! ALARM WILL SOUND! In fact, the alarm bell had been broken for two years. Lori had told him so when Jack had hesitated about using the door to take out the trash. Finally almost there. Directly opposite POINTERS. Hes in there, I know he is . . . and if he jumps out Ill scream . . . I . . . Ill . . . Jack put out a trembling right hand and touched the crashbar of the emergency door. It felt blessedly cool to his touch. For one moment he really believed he would simply fly out of the pitcher plant and into the night . . . free. Then the door behind him suddenly banged open, the door to SETTERS, and a hand grabbed his backpack. Jack uttered a highpitched, despairing shriek of a trapped animal and lunged at the emergency door, heedless of the pack and the magic juice inside it. If the straps had broken he would have simply gone fleeing through the trashy, weedy vacant lot behind the Tap, and never mind anything else. But the straps were tough nylon and didnt break. The door opened a little way, revealing a brief dark wedge of the night, and then thumped shut again. Jack was pulled into the womens room. He was whirled around and then thrown backward. If he had hit the wall dead on, the bottle of magic juice would undoubtedly have shattered in the pack, drenching his few clothes and good old Rand McNally with the odor of rotting grapes. Instead, he hit the rooms one washbasin with the small of his back. The pain was giant, excruciating. The millhand was walking toward him slowly, hitching up his jeans with hands that had begun to twist and thicken. You were supposed to be gone, kid, he said, his voice roughening, becoming at every moment more like the snarl of an animal. Jack began to edge to his left, his eyes never leaving the mans face. His eyes now seemed almost transparent, not just yellow but lighted from within . . . the eyes of a hideous Halloween jackolantern. But you can trust old Elroy, the cowboything said, and now it grinned to reveal a mouthful of curving teeth, some of them jaggedly broken off, some black with rot. Jack screamed. Oh, you can trust Elroy, it said, its words now hardly discernible from a doglike growl. He aint gonna hurt you too bad. Youll be all right, it growled, moving toward Jack, youll be all right, oh yeah, youll . . . It continued to talk, but Jack could no longer tell what it was saying. Now it was only snarling. Jacks foot hit the tall wastecan by the door. As the cowboy thing reached for him with its hooflike hands, Jack grabbed the can and threw it. The can bounced off the Elroythings chest. Jack tore open the bathroom door and lunged to the left, toward the emergency door. He slammed into the crashbar, aware that Elroy was right behind him. He lurched into the dark behind the Oatley Tap. There was a colony of overloaded garbage cans to the right of the door. Jack blindly swept three of them behind him, heard them clash and rattleand then a howl of fury as Elroy stumbled into them. He whirled in time to see the thing go down. There was even a moment to realizeOh dear Jesus a tail its got something like a tailthat the thing was now almost entirely an animal. Golden light fell from its eyes in weird rays, like bright light falling through twin keyholes. Jack backed away from it, pulling the pack from his back, trying to undo the catches with fingers which felt like blocks of wood, his mind a roaring confusion Jacky was six God help me Speedy Jacky was SIX God please of thoughts and incoherent pleas. The thing snarled and flailed at the garbage cans. Jack saw one hoofhand go up and then come whistling down, splitting the side of one corrugated metal can in a jagged slash a yard long. It got up again, stumbled, almost fell, and then began to lurch toward Jack, its snarling, rippling face now almost at chest level. And somehow, through its barking growls, he was able to make out what it was saying. Now Im not just gonna ream you, little chicken. Now Im gonna kill you . . . after. Hearing it with his ears? Or in his head? It didnt matter. The space between this world and that had shrunk from a universe to a mere membrane. The Elroything snarled and came toward him, now unsteady and awkward on its rear feet, its clothes bulging in all the wrong places, its tongue swinging from its fanged mouth. Here was the vacant lot behind Smokey Updikes Oatley Tap, yes, here it was at last, choked with weeds and blown trasha rusty bedspring here, the grille of a 1957 Ford over there, and a ghastly sickle moon like a bent bone in the sky overhead, turning every shard of broken glass into a dead and staring eye, and this hadnt begun in New Hampshire, had it? No. It hadnt begun when his mother got sick, or with the appearance of Lester Parker. It had begun when Jacky was six. When we all lived in California and no one lived anywhere else and Jacky was He fumbled at the straps of his pack. It came again, seeming almost to dance, for a moment reminding him of some animated Disney cartoonfigure in the chancy moonlight. Crazily, Jack began to laugh. The thing snarled and leaped at him. The swipe of those heavy hoofclaws again missed him by barest inches as he danced back through the weeds and litter. The Elroything came down on the bedspring and somehow became entangled in it. Howling, snapping white gobbets of foam into the air, it pulled and twisted and lunged, one foot buried deep in the rusty coils. Jack groped inside his pack for the bottle. He dug past socks and dirty undershorts and a wadded, fragrant pair of jeans. He seized the neck of the bottle and yanked it out. The Elroything split the air with a howl of rage, finally pulling free of the bedspring. Jack hit the cindery, weedy, scruffy ground and rolled over, the last two fingers of his left hand hooked around one packstrap, his right hand holding the bottle. He worked at the cap with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, the pack dangling and swinging. The cap spun off. Can it follow me? he wondered incoherently, tipping the bottle to his lips. When I go, do I punch some kind of hole through the middle of things? Can it follow me through and finish me on the other side? Jacks mouth filled with that rotten deadgrape taste. He gagged, his throat closing, seeming to actually reverse direction. Now that awful taste filled his sinuses and nasal passages as well and he uttered a deep, shaking groan. He could hear the Elroything screaming now, but the scream seemed far away, as if it were on one end of the Oatley tunnel and he, Jack, were falling rapidly toward the other end. And this time there was a sense of falling and he thought Oh my God what if I just flipped my stupid self over a cliff or off a mountain over there? He held on to the pack and the bottle, his eyes screwed desperately shut, waiting for whatever might happen nextElroything or no Elroything. Territories or oblivionand the thought which had haunted him all night came swinging back like a dancing carousel horseSilver Lady, maybe Ella Speed. He caught it and rode it down in a cloud of the magic juices awful smell, holding it, waiting for whatever would happen next; feeling his clothes change on his body. Six oh yes when we were all six and nobody was anything else and it was California who blows that sax daddy is it Dexter Gordon or is it is it what does Mom mean when she says were living on a faultline and where where oh where do you go Daddy you and Uncle Morgan oh Daddy sometimes he looks at you like like oh like there is a faultline in his head and an earthquake going on behind his eyes and youre dying in it oh Daddy! Falling, twisting, turning in the middle of limbo, in the middle of a smell like a purple cloud, Jack Sawyer, John Benjamin Sawyer, Jacky, Jacky was six when it started to happen, and who blew that sax Daddy? Who blew it when I was six, when Jacky was six, when Jacky 11 The Death of Jerry Bledsoe 1 was six . . . when it really started, Daddy, when the engines that eventually pulled him to Oatley and beyond began to chug away. There had been loud saxophone music. Six. Jacky was six. At first his attention had been entirely on the toy his father had given him, a scale model of a London taxithe toy car was heavy as a brick, and on the smooth wooden floors of the new office a good push sent it rumbling straight across the room. Late afternoon, first grade all the way on the other side of August, a neat new car that rolled like a tank on the strip of bare wood behind the couch, a contented, relaxed feeling in the airconditioned office . . . no more work to do, no more phone calls that couldnt wait until the next day. Jack pushed the heavy toy taxi down the strip of bare wood, barely able to hear the rumbling of the solid rubber tires under the soloing of a saxophone. The black car struck one of the legs of the couch, spun sideways, and stopped. Jack crawled down and Uncle Morgan had parked himself in one of the chairs on the other side of the couch. Each man nursed a drink; soon they would put down their glasses, switch off the turntable and the amplifier, and go downstairs to their cars. when we were all six and nobody was anything else and it was California Whos playing that sax? he heard Uncle Morgan ask, and, half in a reverie, heard that familiar voice in a new way something whispery and hidden in Morgan Sloats voice coiled into Jackys ear. He touched the top of the toy taxi and his fingers were as cold as if it were of ice, not English steel. Thats Dexter Gordon, is who that is, his father answered. His voice was as lazy and friendly as it always was, and Jack slipped his hand around the heavy taxi. Good record. Daddy Plays the Horn. It is a nice old record, isnt it? Ill have to look for it. And then Jack thought he knew what that strangeness in Uncle Morgans voice was all aboutUncle Morgan didnt really like jazz at all, he just pretended to in front of Jacks father. Jack had known this fact about Morgan Sloat for most of his childhood, and he thought it was silly that his father couldnt see it too. Uncle Morgan was never going to look for a record called Daddy Plays the Horn, he was just flattering Phil Sawyerand maybe the reason Phil Sawyer didnt see it was that like everyone else he never paid quite enough attention to Morgan Sloat. Uncle Morgan, smart and ambitious (smart as a wolverine, sneaky as a courthouse lawyer, Lily said), good old Uncle Morgan deflected observationyour eye just sort of naturally slid off him. When he was a kid, Jacky would have bet, his teachers would have had trouble even remembering his name. Imagine what this guy would be like over there, Uncle Morgan said, for once fully claiming Jacks attention. That falsity still played through his voice, but it was not Sloats hypocrisy that jerked up Jackys head and tightened his fingers on his heavy toythe words over there had sailed straight into his brain and now were gonging like chimes. Because over there was the country of Jacks Daydreams. He had known that immediately. His father and Uncle Morgan had forgotten that he was behind the couch, and they were going to talk about the Daydreams. His father knew about the Daydreamcountry. Jack could never have mentioned the Daydreams to either his father or his mother, but his father knew about the Daydreams because he had tosimple as that. And the next step, felt along Jacks emotions more than consciously expressed, was that his dad helped keep the Daydreams safe. But for some reason, equally difficult to translate from emotion into language, the conjunction of Morgan Sloat and the Daydreams made the boy uneasy. Hey? Uncle Morgan said. This guy would really turn em around, wouldnt he? Theyd probably make him Duke of the Blasted Lands, or something. Well, probably not that, Phil Sawyer said. Not if they liked him as much as we do. But Uncle Morgan doesnt like him, Dad, Jacky thought, suddenly clear that this was important. He doesnt like him at all, not really, he thinks that music is too loud, he thinks it takes something from him. . . . Oh, you know a lot more about it than I do, Uncle Morgan said in a voice that sounded easy and relaxed. Well, Ive been there more often. But youre doing a good job of catching up. Jacky heard that his father was smiling. Oh, Ive learned a few things, Phil. But really, you knowIll never get over being grateful to you for showing all that to me. The two syllables of grateful filled with smoke and the sound of breaking glass. But all of these little warnings could not do more than dent Jacks intense, almost blissful satisfaction. They were talking about the Daydreams. It was magical, that such a thing was possible. What they said was beyond him, their terms and vocabulary were too adult, but sixyearold Jack experienced again the wonder and joy of the Daydreams, and was at least old enough to understand the direction of their conversation. The Daydreams were real, and Jacky somehow shared them with his father. That was half his joy. 2 Let me just get some things straight, Uncle Morgan said, and Jacky saw the word straight as a pair of lines knotting around each other like snakes. They have magic like we have physics, right? Were talking about an agrarian monarchy, using magic instead of science. Sure, Phil Sawyer said. And presumably theyve gone on like that for centuries. Their lives have never changed very much. Except for political upheavals, thats right. Then Uncle Morgans voice tightened, and the excitement he tried to conceal cracked little whips within his consonants. Well, forget about the political stuff. Suppose we think about us for a change. Youll sayand Id agree with you, Philthat weve done pretty well out of the Territories already, and that wed have to be careful about how we introduce changes there. I have no problems at all with that position. I feel the same way myself. Jacky could feel his fathers silence. Okay, Sloat continued. Lets go with the concept that, within a situation basically advantageous to ourselves, we can spread the benefits around to anybody on our side. We dont sacrifice the advantage, but were not greedy about the bounty it brings. We owe these people, Phil. Look what theyve done for us. I think we could put ourselves into a really synergistic situation over there. Our energy can feed their energy and come up with stuff weve never even thought of, Phil. And we end up looking generous, which we arebut which also doesnt hurt us. He would be frowning forward, the palms of his hands pressed together. Of course I dont have a total window on this situation, you know that, but I think the synergy alone is worth the price of admission, to tell you the truth. But Philcan you imagine how much fucking clout wed swing if we gave them electricity? If we got modern weapons to the right guys over there? Do you have any idea? I think itd be awesome. Awesome. The damp, squashy sound of his clapping hands. I dont want to catch you unprepared or anything, but I thought it might be time for us to think along those linesto think, Territorieswise, about increasing our involvement. Phil Sawyer still said nothing. Uncle Morgan slapped his hands together again. Finally Phil Sawyer said, in a noncommittal voice, You want to think about increasing our involvement. I think its the way to go. And I can give you chapter and verse, Phil, but I shouldnt have to. You can probably remember as well I can what it was like before we started going there together. Hey, maybe we could have made it all on our own, and maybe we would have, but as for me, Im grateful not to be representing a couple of brokendown strippers and Little Timmy Tiptoe anymore. Hold on, Jacks father said. Airplanes, Uncle Morgan said. Think airplanes. Hold on, hold on there, Morgan, I have a lot of ideas that apparently have yet to occur to you. Im always ready for new ideas, Morgan said, and his voice was smoky again. Okay. I think we have to be careful about what we do over there, partner. I think anything majorany real changes we bring aboutjust might turn around and bite our asses back here. Everything has consequences, and some of those consequences might be on the uncomfortable side. Like what? Uncle Morgan asked. Like war. Thats nuts, Phil. Weve never seen anything . . . unless you mean Bledsoe. . . . I do mean Bledsoe. Was that a coincidence? Bledsoe? Jack wondered. He had heard the name before; but it was vague. Well, thats a long way from war, to put it mildly, and I dont concede the connection anyhow. All right. Do you remember hearing about how a Stranger assassinated the old King over therea long time ago? You ever hear about that? Yeah, I suppose, Uncle Morgan said, and Jack heard again the falseness in his voice. His fathers chair squeakedhe was taking his feet off his desk, leaning forward. The assassination touched off a minor war over there. The followers of the old King had to put down a rebellion led by a couple of disgruntled nobles. These guys saw their chance to take over and run thingsseize lands, impound property, throw their enemies in jail, make themselves rich. Hey, be fair, Morgan broke in. I heard about this stuff, too. They also wanted to bring some kind of political order to a crazy inefficient systemsometimes you have to be tough, starting out. I can see that. And its not for us to make judgments about their politics, I agree. But heres my point. That little war over there lasted about three weeks. When it was over, maybe a hundred people had been killed. Fewer, probably. Did anyone ever tell you when that war began? What year it was? What day? No, Uncle Morgan muttered in a sulky voice. It was the first of September, 1939. Over here, it was the day Germany invaded Poland. His father stopped talking, and Jacky, clutching his black toy taxi behind the couch, yawned silently but hugely. Thats screwball, Uncle Morgan finally said. Their war started ours? Do you really believe that? I do believe that, Jacks father said. I believe a threeweek squabble over there in some way sparked off a war here that lasted six years and killed millions of people. Yes. Well . . . Uncle Morgan said, and Jack could see him beginning to huff and blow. Theres more. Ive talked to lots of people over there about this, and the feeling I get is that the stranger who assassinated the King was a real Stranger, if you see what I mean. Those who saw him got the feeling that he was uncomfortable with Territories clothes. He acted like he was unsure of local customshe didnt understand the money right away. Ah. Yes. If they hadnt torn him to pieces right after he stuck a knife into the King, we could be sure about this, but Im sure anyhow that he was Like us. Like us. Thats right. A visitor. Morgan, I dont think we can mess around too much over there. Because we simply dont know what the effects will be. To tell you the truth, I think were affected all the time by things that go on in the Territories. And should I tell you another crazy thing? Why not? Sloat answered. Thats not the only other world out there. 3 Bullshit, Sloat said. I mean it. Ive had the feeling, once or twice when I was there, that I was near to somewhere elsethe Territories Territories. Yes, Jack thought, thats right, it has to be, the Daydreams Daydreams, someplace even more beautiful, and on the other side of that is the Daydreams Daydreams Daydreams, and on the other side of that is another place, another world nicer still. . . . He realized for the first time that he had become very sleepy. The Daydreams Daydreams And then he was almost immediately asleep, the heavy little taxi in his lap, his whole body simultaneously weighty with sleep, anchored to the strip of wooden floor, and so blissfully light. The conversation must have continuedthere must have been much that Jacky missed. He rose and fell, heavy and light, through the second whole side of Daddy Plays the Horn, and during that time Morgan Sloat must at first have arguedgently, but with what squeezings of his fists, what contortions of his forehead!for his plan; then he must have allowed himself to seem persuadable, then finally persuaded by his partners doubts. At the end of this conversation, which returned to the twelveyearold Jacky Sawyer in the dangerous borderland between Oatley, New York, and a nameless Territories village, Morgan Sloat had allowed himself to seem not only persuaded but positively grateful for the lessons. When Jack woke up, the first thing he heard was his father asking, Hey, did Jack disappear or something? and the second thing was Uncle Morgan saying, Hell, I guess youre right, Phil. You have a way of seeing right to the heart of things, youre great the way you do that. Where the hell is Jack? his father said, and Jack stirred behind the couch, really waking up now. The black taxi thudded to the floor. Aha, Uncle Morgan said. Little pitchers and big ears, peuttre? You behind there, kiddo? his father said. Noises of chairs pushing back across the wooden floor, of men standing up. He said, Oooh, and slowly lifted the taxi back into his lap. His legs felt stiff and uncomfortablewhen he stood, they would tingle. His father laughed. Footsteps came toward him. Morgan Sloats red, puffy face appeared over the top of the couch. Jack yawned and pushed his knees into the back of the couch. His fathers face appeared beside Sloats. His father was smiling. For a moment, both of those grownup adult male heads seemed to be floating over the top of the couch. Lets move on home, sleepyhead, his father said.

When the boy looked into Uncle Morgans face, he saw calculation sink into his skin, slide underneath his jollyfatmans cheeks like a snake beneath a rock. He looked like Richard Sloats daddy again, like good old Uncle Morgan who always gave spectacular Christmas and birthday presents, like good old sweaty Uncle Morgan, so easy not to notice. But what had he looked like before? Like a human earthquake, like a man crumbling apart over the faultline behind his eyes, like something all wound up and waiting to explode. . . . How about a little ice cream on the way home, Jack? Uncle Morgan said to him. That sound good to you? Uh, Jack said. Yeah, we can stop off at that place in the lobby, his father said. Yummyyummyyum, Uncle Morgan said. Now were really talking about synergy, and smiled at Jack once more. This happened when he was six, and in the midst of his weightless tumble through limbo, it happened againthe horrible purple taste of Speedys juice backed up into his mouth, into the passages behind his nose, and all of that languid afternoon of six years before replayed itself out in his mind. He saw it just as if the magic juice brought total recall, and so speedily that he lived through that afternoon in the same few seconds which told him that this time the magic juice really was going to make him vomit. Uncle Morgans eyes smoking, and inside Jack, a question smoking too, demanding to finally come out . . . Who played What changes what changes Who plays those changes, daddy? Who killed Jerry Bledsoe? The magic juice forced itself into the boys mouth, stinging threads of it nauseatingly trickled into his nose, and just as Jack felt loose earth beneath his hands he gave up and vomited rather than drown. What killed Jerry Bledsoe? Foul purple stuff shot from Jacks mouth, choking him, and he blindly pushed himself backwardhis feet and legs snagged in tall stiff weeds. Jack pushed himself up on his hands and knees and waited, patient as a mule, his mouth drooping open, for the second attack. His stomach clenched, and he did not have time to groan before more of the stinking juice burned up through his chest and throat and spattered out of his mouth. Ropey pink strings of saliva hung from his lips, and Jack feebly brushed them away. He wiped his hand on his pants. Jerry Bledsoe, yes. Jerrywhod always had his name spelled out on his shirt, like a gasstation attendant. Jerry, who had died when The boy shook his head and wiped his hands across his mouth again. He spat into a nest of sawtoothed wild grass sprouting like a giants corsage out of the graybrown earth. Some dim animal instinct he did not understand made him push loose earth over the pinkish pool of vomit. Another reflex made him brush the palms of his hands against his trousers. Finally he looked up. He was kneeling, in the last of the evening light, on the edge of a dirt lane. No horrible Elroything pursued himhe had known that immediately. Dogs penned in a wooden, cagelike enclosure barked and snarled at him, thrusting their snouts through the cracks of their jail. On the other side of the fencedin dogs was a rambling wooden structure and from here too doggy noises rose up into the immense sky. These were unmistakably similar to the noises Jack had just been hearing from the other side of a wall in the Oatley Tap the sounds of drunken men bellowing at each other. A barhere it would be an inn or a public house, Jack imagined. Now that he was no longer sickened by Speedys juice, he could smell the pervasive, yeasty odors of malt and hops. He could not let the men from the inn discover him. For a moment he imagined himself running from all those dogs yipping and growling through the cracks in their enclosure, and then he stood up. The sky seemed to tilt over his head, to darken. And back home, in his world, what was happening? A nice little disaster in the middle of Oatley? Maybe a nice little flood, a sweet little fire? Jack slipped quietly backward away from the inn, then began to move sideways through the tall grass. Perhaps sixty yards away, thick candles burned in the windows of the only other building he could see. From somewhere not far off to his right drifted the odor of pigs. When Jack had gone half the distance between the inn and the house, the dogs ceased growling and snapping, and he slowly began walking forward toward the Western Road. The night was dark and moonless. Jerry Bledsoe. 4 There were other houses, though Jack did not see them until he was nearly before them. Except for the noisy drinkers behind him at the inn, here in the country Territories people went to bed when the sun did. No candles burned in these small square windows. Themselves squarish and dark, the houses on either side of the Western Road sat in a puzzling isolationsomething was wrong, as in a visual game from a childs magazine, but Jack could not identify it. Nothing hung upsidedown, nothing burned, nothing seemed extravagantly out of place. Most of the houses had thick fuzzy roofs which resembled haystacks with crewcuts, but Jack assumed that these were thatchhe had heard of it, but never seen it before. Morgan, he thought with a sudden thrill of panic, Morgan of Orris, and saw the two of them, the man with long hair and a builtup boot and his fathers sweaty workaholic partner, for a moment jumbled up togetherMorgan Sloat with pirates hair and a hitch in his walk. But Morganthis worlds Morganwas not what was Wrong with This Picture. Jack was just now passing a short squat onestory building like an inflated rabbit hutch, crazily halftimbered with wide black wooden Xs. A fuzzy crewcut thatch capped this building too. If he were walking out of Oatleyor even running out of Oatley, to be closer to the truthwhat would he expect to see in the single dark window of this hutch for giant rabbits? He knew the dancing glimmer of a television screen. But of course Territories houses did not have television sets inside them, and the absence of that colorful glimmer was not what had puzzled him. It was something else, something so much an aspect of any grouping of houses along a road that its absence left a hole in the landscape. You noticed the hole even if you could not quite identify what was absent. Television, television sets . . . Jack continued past the halftimbered little building and saw ahead of him, its front door set only inches back from the verge of the road, another gnomishly small dwelling. This one seemed to have a sod, not a thatched, roof, and Jack smiled to himselfthis tiny village had reminded him of Hobbiton. Would a Hobbit cablestringer pull up here and say to the lady of the . . . shack? doghouse? . . . anyhow, would he say, Maam, were installing cable in your area, and for a small monthly feehitch you up right nowyou get fifteen new channels, you get Midnight Blue, you get the allsports and allweather channels, you get . . .? And that, he suddenly realized, was it. In front of these houses were no poles. No wiring! No TV antennas complicated the sky, no tall wooden poles marched the length of the Western Road, because in the Territories there was no electricity. Which was why he had not permitted himself to identify the absent element. Jerry Bledsoe had been, at least part of the time, Sawyer Sloats electrician and handyman. 5 When his father and Morgan Sloat used that name, Bledsoe, he thought he had never heard it beforethough, having remembered it, he must have heard the handymans last name once or twice. But Jerry Bledsoe was almost always just Jerry, as it said above the pocket on his workshirt. Cant Jerry do something about the airconditioning? Get Jerry to oil the hinges on that door, will you? The squeaks are driving me batshit. And Jerry would appear, his workclothes clean and pressed, his thinning rustred hair combed flat, his glasses round and earnest, and quietly fix whatever was wrong. There was a Mrs. Jerry, who kept the creases sharp and clean in the tan workpants, and several small Jerrys, whom Sawyer Sloat invariably remembered at Christmas. Jack had been small enough to associate the name Jerry with Tom Cats eternal adversary, and so imagined that the handyman and Mrs. Jerry and the little Jerrys lived in a giant mousehole, accessible by a curved arch cut into a baseboard. But who had killed Jerry Bledsoe? His father and Morgan Sloat, always so sweet to the Bledsoe children at Christmastime? Jack stepped forward into the darkness of the Western Road, wishing that he had forgotten completely about Sawyer Sloats handyman, that he had fallen asleep as soon as he had crawled behind the couch. Sleep was what he wanted nowwanted it far more than the uncomfortable thoughts which that sixyearsdead conversation had aroused in him. Jack promised himself that as soon as he was sure he was at least a couple of miles past the last house, he would find someplace to sleep. A field would do, even a ditch. His legs did not want to move anymore; all his muscles, even his bones, seemed twice their weight. It had been just after one of those times when Jack had wandered into some enclosed place after his father and found that Phil Sawyer had somehow contrived a disappearance. Later, his father would manage to vanish from his bedroom, from the dining room, from the conference room at Sawyer Sloat. On this occasion he executed his mystifying trick in the garage beside the house on Rodeo Drive. Jack, sitting unobserved on the little knob of raised land which was the closest thing to a hill offered by this section of Beverly Hills, saw his father leave their house by the front door, cross the lawn while digging in his pockets for money or keys, and let himself into the garage by the side door. The white door on the right side should have swung up seconds later; but it remained stubbornly closed. Then Jack realized that his fathers car was where it had been all this Saturday morning, parked at the curb directly in front of the house. Lilys car was goneshed plugged a cigarette into her mouth and announced that she was taking herself off to a screening of Dirt Track, the latest film by the director of Deaths Darling, and nobody by God had better try to stop herand so the garage was empty. For minutes, Jack waited for something to happen. Neither the side door nor the big front doors opened. Eventually Jack slid down off the grassy elevation, went to the garage, and let himself in. The wide familiar space was entirely empty. Dark oil stains patterned the gray cement floor. Tools hung from silver hooks set into the walls. Jack grunted in astonishment, called out, Dad? and looked at everything again, just to make sure. This time he saw a cricket hop toward the shadowy protection of a wall, and for a second almost could have believed that magic was real and some malign wizard had happened along and . . . the cricket reached the wall and slipped into an invisible crack. No, his father had not been turned into a cricket. Of course he had not. Hey, the boy saidto himself it seemed. He walked backward to the side door and left the garage. Sunlight fell on the lush, springy lawns of Rodeo Drive. He would have called someone, but whom? The police? My daddy walked into the garage and I couldnt find him in there and now Im scared. . . . Two hours later Phil Sawyer came walking up from the Beverly Wilshire end of the street. He carried his jacket over his shoulder, had pulled down the knot of his tieto Jack, he looked like a man returning from a journey around the world. Jack jumped down from his anxious elevation and tore toward his father. You sure cover the ground, his father said, smiling, and Jack flattened himself against his legs. I thought you were taking a nap, Travelling Jack. They heard the telephone ringing as they came up the walk, and some instinctperhaps the instinct to keep his father closemade Jacky pray that it had already rung a dozen times, that whoever was calling would hang up before they reached the front door. His father ruffled the hair on his crown, put his big warm hand on the back of his neck, then pulled open the door and made it to the phone in five long strides. Yes, Morgan, Jacky heard his father say. Oh? Bad news? Youd better tell me, yes. After a long moment of silence in which the boy could hear the tinny, rasping sound of Morgan Sloats voice stealing through the telephone wires Oh, Jerry. My God. Poor Jerry. Ill be right over. Then his father looked straight at him, not smiling, not winking, not doing anything but taking him in. Ill come over, Morgan. Ill have to bring Jack, but he can wait in the car. Jack felt his muscles relax, and was so relieved that he did not ask why he had to wait in the car, as he would have at any other time. Phil drove up Rodeo Drive to the Beverly Hills Hotel, turned left onto Sunset, and pointed the car toward the office building. He said nothing. His father zipped through the oncoming traffic and swung the car into the parking lot beside the office building. Already in the lot were two police cars, a fire truck, Uncle Morgans pocketsize white Mercedes convertible, the rusted old Plymouth twodoor that had been the handymans car. Just inside the entrance Uncle Morgan was talking to a policeman, who shook his head slowly, slowly, in evident sympathy. Morgan Sloats right arm squeezed the shoulders of a slim young woman in a dress too large for her who had twisted her face into his chest. Mrs. Jerry, Jack knew, seeing that most of her face was obscured by a white handkerchief she had pressed to her eyes. A behatted, raincoated fireman pushed a mess of twisted metal and plastic, ashes and broken glass into a disorderly heap far past them down the hall. Phil said, Just sit here for a minute or two, okay, Jacky? and sprinted toward the entrance. A young Chinese woman sat talking to a policeman on a concrete abutment at the end of the parking lot. Before her lay a crumpled object it took Jack a moment to recognize as a bike. When Jack inhaled, he smelled bitter smoke. Twenty minutes later, both his father and Uncle Morgan left the building. Still gripping Mrs. Jerry, Uncle Morgan waved goodbye to the Sawyers. He led the woman around to the passenger door of his tiny car. Jacks father twirled his own car out of the lot and back into the traffic on Sunset. Is Jerry hurt? Jack asked. Some kind of freak accident, his father said. Electricitythe whole building couldve gone up in smoke. Is Jerry hurt? Jack repeated. Poor son of a bitch got hurt so bad hes dead, said his father. Jack and Richard Sloat needed two months to really put the story together out of the conversations they overheard. Jacks mother and Richards housekeeper supplied other detailsthe housekeeper, the goriest. Jerry Bledsoe had come in on a Saturday to try to iron out some of the kinks in the buildings security system. If he tampered with the delicate system on a weekday, he was sure to confuse or irritate the tenants with the Klaxon alarm whenever he accidentally set it off. The security system was wired into the buildings main electrical board, set behind two large removable walnut panels on the ground floor. Jerry had set down his tools and lifted off the panels, having already seen that the lot was empty and nobody would jump out of his skin when the alarm went off. Then he went downstairs to the telephone in his basement cubicle and told the local precinct house to ignore any signals from the Sawyer Sloat address until his next telephone call. When he went back upstairs to tackle the mares nest of wires coming into the board from all the contact points, a twentythreeyearold woman named Lorette Chang was just riding her bicycle into the buildings lotshe was distributing a leaflet advertising a restaurant which was due to open down the street in fifteen days. Miss Chang later told the police that she looked through the glass front door and saw a workman enter the hall from the basement. Just before the workman picked up his screwdriver and touched the wiring panel, she felt the parking lot wobble beneath her feet. It was, she assumed, a miniearthquake a lifelong resident of Los Angeles, Lorette Chang was untroubled by any seismic event that did not actually knock anything down. She saw Jerry Bledsoe set his feet (so he felt it, too, though no one else did), shake his head, then gently insert the tip of the screwdriver into a hive of wires. And then the entry and downstairs corridor of the Sawyer Sloat building turned into a holocaust. The entire wiring panel turned instantly to a solid rectangular body of flame; bluishyellow arcs of what looked like lightning shot out and encased the workman. Electronic horns bawled and bawled KAWHAAAAM! KAWHAAAM! A ball of fire six feet high fell right out of the wall, slammed the already dead Jerry Bledsoe aside, and rolled down the corridor toward the lobby. The transparent front door blew into flying glass and smoking, twisted pieces of frame. Lorette Chang dropped her bike and sprinted toward the pay telephone across the street. As she told the fire department the buildings address and noticed that her bicycle had been twisted neatly in half by whatever force had burst through the door, Jerry Bledsoes roasted corpse still swayed upright back and forth before the devastated panel. Thousands of volts poured through his body, twitching it with regular surges, snapping it back and forth in a steady pulse. All the handymans body hair and most of his clothes had fried off, and his skin had become a cooked blotchy gray. His eyeglasses, a solidifying lump of brown plastic, covered his nose like a poultice. Jerry Bledsoe. Who plays those changes, daddy? Jack made his feet move until he had gone half an hour without seeing another of the little thatched cottages. Unfamiliar stars in unfamiliar patterns lay all over the sky above himmessages in a language he could not read. 12 Jack Goes to the Market 1 He slept that night in a sweetly fragrant Territories haystack, first burrowing his way in and then turning around so the fresh air could reach him along the tunnel he had made. He listened apprehensively for small scuttering soundshe had heard or read somewhere that fieldmice were great haystack fans. If they were in this one, then a great big mouse named Jack Sawyer had scared them into silence. He relaxed little by little, his left hand tracing the shape of Speedys bottlehe had plugged the top with a piece of springy moss from a small stream where he had stopped to drink. He supposed it was entirely possible that some of the moss would fall into the bottle, or already had. What a pity, it would spoil the piquant flavor and the delicate bouquet. As he lay in here, warm at last, heavily sleepy, the feeling he was most aware of was relief . . . as if there had been a dozen tenpound weights strapped to his back and some kind soul had undone the buckles and allowed them to fall to the ground. He was in the Territories again, the place which such charming folks as Morgan of Orris, Osmond the Bullwhipper, and Elroy the Amazing GoatMan all called home, the Territories, where anything could happen. But the Territories could be good, too. He remembered that from his earliest childhood, when everyone had lived in California and no one had lived anyplace else. The Territories could be good, and it seemed he felt that goodness around him now, as calmly, inarguably sweet as the smell of the haystack, as clear as the smell of the Territories air. Does a fly or a ladybug feel relief if an unexpected gust of wind comes along and tilts the pitcher plant just enough to allow the drowning insect to fly out? Jack didnt know . . . but he knew that he was out of Oatley, away from Fair Weather Clubs and old men who wept over their stolen shopping carts, away from the smell of beer and the smell of puke . . . most important of all, he was away from Smokey Updike and the Oatley Tap. He thought he might travel in the Territories for a while, after all. And so thinking, fell asleep. 2 He had walked two, perhaps three miles along the Western Road the following morning, enjoying the sunshine and the good, earthy smell of fields almost ready for the harvests of summers end, when a cart pulled over and a whiskery farmer in what looked like a toga with rough breeches under it pulled up and shouted Are you for markettown, boy? Jack gaped at him, half in a panic, realizing that the man was not speaking Englishnever mind prithee or Dost thou go crossgartered, varlet, it wasnt English at all. There was a woman in a voluminous dress sitting beside the whiskery farmer; she held a boy of perhaps three on her lap. She smiled pleasantly enough at Jack and rolled her eyes at her husband. Hes a simpleton, Henry. Theyre not speaking English . . . but whatever it is theyre speaking, I understand it. Im actually thinking in that language . . . and thats not allIm seeing in it, or with it, or whatever it is I mean. Jack realized he had been doing it the last time he had been in the Territories, tooonly then he had been too confused to realize it; things had moved too fast, and everything had seemed strange. The farmer leaned forward. He smiled, showing teeth which were absolutely horrid. Are you a simpleton, laddie? he asked, not unkindly. No, he said, smiling back as best he could, aware that he had not said no but some Territories word which meant nowhen he had flipped, he had changed his speech and his way of thinking (his way of imaging, anywayhe did not have that word in his vocabulary, but understood what he meant just the same), just as he had changed his clothes. Im not simple. Its just that my mother told me to be careful of people I might meet along the road. Now the farmers wife smiled. Your mother was right, she said. Are you for the market? Yes, Jack said. That is, Im headed up the roadwest. Climb up in the back, then, Henry the farmer said. Daylights wasting. I want to sell what I have if I can and be home again before sunset. Corns poor but its the last of the season. Lucky to have corn in ninemonth at all. Someone may buy it. Thank you, Jack said, climbing into the back of the low wagon. Here, dozens of corn ears were bound with rough hanks of rope and stacked like cordwood. If the corn was poor, then Jack could not imagine what would constitute good corn over herethey were the biggest ears he had ever seen in his life. There were also small stacks of squashes and gourds and things that looked like pumpkinsbut they were reddish instead of orange. Jack didnt know what they were, but he suspected they would taste wonderful. His stomach rumbled busily. Since going on the road, he had discovered what hunger wasnot as a passing acquaintance, something you felt dimly after school and which could be assuaged with a few cookies and a glass of milk souped up with Nestls Quik, but as an intimate friend, one that sometimes moved away to a distance but who rarely left entirely. He was sitting with his back to the front of the wagon, his sandalclad feet dangling down, almost touching the hardpacked dirt of the Western Road. There was a lot of traffic this morning, most of it bound for the market, Jack assumed. Every now and then Henry bawled a greeting to someone he knew. Jack was still wondering how those applecolored pumpkins might tasteand just where his next meal was going to come from, anywaywhen small hands twined in his hair and gave a brisk tugbrisk enough to make his eyes water. He turned and saw the threeyearold standing there in his bare feet, a big grin on his face and a few strands of Jacks hair in each of his hands. Jason! his mother criedbut it was, in its way, an indulgent cry (Did you see the way he pulled that hair? My, isnt he strong!)Jason, thats not nice! Jason grinned, unabashed. It was a big, dopey, sunshiney grin, as sweet in its way as the smell of the haystack in which Jack had spent the night. He couldnt help returning it . . . and while there had been no politics of calculation in his returning grin, he saw he had made a friend of Henrys wife. Sit, Jason said, swaying back and forth with the unconscious movement of a veteran sailor. He was still grinning at Jack. Huh? Yap. Im not getting you, Jason. Sityap. Im not And then Jason, who was husky for a threeyearold, plopped into Jacks lap, still grinning. Sityap, oh yeah, I get it, Jack thought, feeling the dull ache from his testicles spreading up into the pit of his stomach. Jason bad! his mother called back in that same indulgent, butisnthecute voice . . . and Jason, who knew who ruled the roost, grinned his dopey, sweetly charming grin. Jack realized that Jason was wet. Very, extremely, indubitably wet. Welcome back to the Territories, JackO. And sitting there with the child in his arms and warm wetness slowly soaking through his clothes, Jack began to laugh, his face turned up to the blue, blue sky. 3 A few minutes later Henrys wife worked her way to where Jack was sitting with the child on his lap and took Jason back. Oooh, wet, bad baby, she said in her indulgent voice. Doesnt my Jason wet big! Jack thought, and laughed again. That made Jason laugh, and Mrs. Henry laughed with them. As she changed Jason, she asked Jack a number of questionsones he had heard often enough in his own world. But here he would have to be careful. He was a stranger, and there might be hidden trapdoors. He heard his father telling Morgan, . . . a real Stranger, if you see what I mean. Jack sensed that the womans husband was listening closely. He answered her questions with a careful variation of the Storynot the one he told when he was applying for a job but the one he told when someone who had picked him up thumbing got curious. He said he had come from the village of AllHandsJasons mother had a vague recollection of hearing of the place, but that was all. Had he really come so far? she wanted to know. Jack told her that he had. And where was he going? He told her (and the silently listening Henry) that he was bound for the village of California. That one she had not heard of, even vaguely, in such stories as the occasional peddler told. Jack was not exactly very surprised . . . but he was grateful that neither of them exclaimed California? Whoever heard of a village named California? Who are you trying to shuck and jive, boy? In the Territories there had to be lots of placeswhole areas as well as villagesof which people who lived in their own little areas had never heard. No power poles. No electricity. No movies. No cable TV to tell them how wonderful things were in Malibu or Sarasota. No Territories version of Ma Bell, advertising that a threeminute call to the Outposts after five p.m. cost only 5.83, plus tax, rates may be higher on GodPounders Eve and some other holidays. They live in a mystery, he thought. When you live in a mystery, you dont question a village simply because you never heard of it. California doesnt sound any wilder than a place named AllHands. Nor did they question. He told them that his father had died the year before, and that his mother was quite ill (he thought of adding that the Queens repossession men had come in the middle of the night and taken away their donkey, grinned, and decided that maybe he ought to leave that part out). His mother had given him what money she could (except the word that came out in the strange language wasnt really moneyit was something like sticks) and had sent him off to the village of California, to stay with his Aunt Helen. These are hard times, Mrs. Henry said, holding Jason, now changed, more closely to her. AllHands is near the summer palace, isnt it, boy? It was the first time Henry had spoken since inviting Jack aboard. Yes, Jack said. That is, fairly near. I mean You never said what your father died of. Now he had turned his head. His gaze was narrow and assessing, the former kindness gone; it had been blown out of his eyes like candleflames in a wind. Yes, there were trapdoors here. Was he ill? Mrs. Henry asked. So much illness these dayspox, plaguehard times . . . For a wild moment Jack thought of saying, No, he wasnt ill, Mrs. Henry. He took a lot of volts, my dad. You see he went off one Saturday to do some work, and he left Mrs. Jerry and all the little Jerrysincluding meback at home. This was when we all lived in a hole in the baseboard and nobody lived anywhere else, you see. And do you know what? He stuck his screwdriver into a bunch of wires and Mrs. Feeny, she works over at Richard Sloats house, she heard Uncle Morgan talking on the phone and he said the electricity came out, all of the electricity, and it cooked him, it cooked him so bad that his glasses melted all over his nose, only you dont know about glasses because you dont have them here. No glasses . . . no electricity . . . no Midnight Blue . . . no airplanes. Dont end up like Mrs. Jerry, Mrs. Henry. Dont Never mind was he ill, the whiskered farmer said. Was he political? Jack looked at him. His mouth was working but no sounds came out. He didnt know what to say. There were too many trapdoors. Henry nodded, as if he had answered. Jump down, laddie. Markets just over the next rise. I reckon you can ankle it from here, cant you? Yes, Jack said. I reckon I can. Mrs. Henry looked confused . . . but she was now holding Jason away from Jack, as if he might have some contagious disease. The farmer, still looking back over his shoulder, smiled a bit ruefully. Im sorry. You seem a nice enough lad, but were simple people herewhatevers going on back yonder by the sea is something for great lords to settle. Either the Queen will die or she wont . . . and of course, someday she must. God pounds all His nails sooner or later. And what happens to little people when they meddle into the affairs of the great is that they get hurt. My father I dont want to know about your father! Henry said sharply. His wife scrambled away from Jack, still holding Jason to her bosom. Good man or bad, I dont know and I dont want to knowall I know is that hes a dead man, I dont think you lied about that, and that his son has been sleeping rough and has all the smell of being on the dodge. The son doesnt talk as if he comes from any of these parts. So climb down. Ive a son of my own, as you see. Jack got down, sorry for the fear in the young womans facefear he had put there. The farmer was rightlittle people had no business meddling in the affairs of the great. Not if they were smart. 13 The Men in the Sky 1 It was a shock to discover that the money he had worked so hard to get literally had turned into sticksthey looked like toy snakes made by an inept craftsman. The shock lasted only for a moment, however, and he laughed ruefully at himself. The sticks were money, of course. When he came over here, everything changed. Silver dollar to gryphoncoin, shirt to jerkin, English to Territories speech, and good old American money towell, to jointed sticks. He had flipped over with about twentytwo dollars in all, and he guessed that he had exactly the same amount in Territories money, although he had counted fourteen joints on one of the moneysticks and better than twenty on the other. The problem wasnt so much money as costhe had very little idea of what was cheap and what was dear, and as he walked through the market, Jack felt like a contestant on The New Price Is Rightonly, if he flubbed it here, there wouldnt be any consolation prize and a clap on the back from Bob Barker; if he flubbed it here, they might . . . well, he didnt know for sure what they might do. Run him out for sure. Hurt him, rough him up? Maybe. Kill him? Probably not, but it was impossible to be absolutely certain. They were little people. They were not political. And he was a stranger. Jack walked slowly from one end of the loud and busy marketday throng to the other, wrestling with the problem. It now centered mostly in his stomachhe was dreadfully hungry.

Once he saw Henry, dickering with a man who had goats to sell. Mrs. Henry stood near him, but a bit behind, giving the men room to trade. Her back was to Jack, but she had the baby hoisted in her armsJason, one of the little Henrys, Jack thoughtbut Jason saw him. The baby waved one chubby hand at Jack and Jack turned away quickly, putting as much crowd as he could between himself and the Henrys. Everywhere was the smell of roasting meat, it seemed. He saw vendors slowly turning joints of beef over charcoal fires both small and ambitious; he saw prentices laying thick slices of what looked like pork on slabs of homemade bread and taking them to the buyers. They looked like runners at an auction. Most of the buyers were farmers like Henry, and it appeared that they also called for food the way people entered a bid at an auctionthey simply raised one of their hands imperiously, the fingers splayed out. Jack watched several of these transactions closely, and in every case the medium of exchange was the jointed sticks . . . but how many knuckles would be enough? he wondered. Not that it mattered. He had to eat, whether the transaction marked him as a stranger or not. He passed a mimeshow, barely giving it a glance although the large audience that had gatheredwomen and children, most of themroared with appreciative laughter and applauded. He moved toward a stall with canvas sides where a big man with tattoos on his slabbed biceps stood on one side of a trench of smouldering charcoal in the earth. An iron spit about seven feet long ran over the charcoal. A sweating, dirty boy stood at each end. Five large roasts were impaled along the length of the spit, and the boys were turning them in unison. Fine meats! the big man was droning. Fine meats! Fiiine meats! Buy my fine meats! Fine meats here! Fine meats right here! In an aside to the boy closest to him Put your back into it, God pound you. Then back to his droning, huckstering cry. A farmer passing with his adolescent daughter raised his hand, and then pointed at the joint of meat second from the left. The boys stopped turning the spit long enough for their boss to hack a slab from the roast and put in on a chunk of bread. One of them ran with it to the farmer, who produced one of the jointed sticks. Watching closely, Jack saw him break off two knuckles of wood and hand them to the boy. As the boy ran back to the stall the customer pocketed his moneystick with the absent but careful gesture of any man repocketing his change, took a gigantic bite of his openfaced sandwich, and handed the rest to his daughter, whose first chomp was almost as enthusiastic as her fathers. Jacks stomach boinged and goinged. He had seen what he had to see . . . he hoped. Fine meats! Fine meats! Fine The big man broke off and looked down at Jack, his beetling brows drawing together over eyes that were small but not entirely stupid. I hear the song your stomach is singing, friend. If you have money, Ill take your trade and bless you to God in my prayers tonight. If you havent, then get your stupid sheeps face out of here and go to the devil. Both boys laughed, although they were obviously tiredthey laughed as if they had no control over the sounds they were making. But the maddening smell of the slowly cooking meat would not let him leave. He held out the shorter of his jointed sticks and pointed to the roast which was second from the left. He didnt speak. It seemed safer not to. The vendor grunted, produced his crude knife from his wide belt again, and cut a sliceit was a smaller slice than the one he had cut the farmer, Jack observed, but his stomach had no business with such matters; it was rumbling crazily in anticipation. The vendor slapped the meat on bread and brought it over himself instead of handing it to either of the boys. He took Jacks moneystick. Instead of two knuckles, he broke off three. His mothers voice, sourly amused, spoke up in his mind Congratulations, JackO . . . youve just been screwed. The vendor was looking at him, grinning around a mouthful of wretched blackish teeth, daring him to say anything, to protest in any way. You just ought to be grateful I only took three knuckles instead of all fourteen of them. I could have, you know. You might as well have a sign hung around your neck, boy I AM A STRANGER HERE, AND ON MY OWN. So tell me, Sheep sFace do you want to make an issue of it? What he wanted didnt matterhe obviously couldnt make an issue of it. But he felt that thin, impotent anger again. Go on, the vendor said, tiring of him. He flapped a big hand in Jacks face. His fingers were scarred, and there was blood under his nails. You got your food. Now get out of here. Jack thought, I could show you a flashlight and youd run like all the devils of hell were after you. Show you an airplane and youd probably go crazy. Youre maybe not as tough as you think, chum. He smiled, perhaps there was something in his smile that the meatvendor didnt like, because he drew away from Jack, his face momentarily uneasy. Then his brows beetled together again. Get out, I said! he roared. Get out, God pound you! And this time Jack went. 2 The meat was delicious. Jack gobbled it and the bread it sat on, and then unselfconsciously licked the juice from his palms as he strolled along. The meat did taste like pork . . . and yet it didnt. It was somehow richer, tangier than pork. Whatever it was, it filled the hole in the middle of him with authority. Jack thought he could take it to school in bag lunches for a thousand years. Now that he had managed to shut his belly upfor a little while, anywayhe was able to look about himself with more interest . . . and although he didnt know it, he had finally begun to blend into the crowd. Now he was only one more rube from the country come to the markettown, walking slowly between the stalls, trying to gawk in every direction at once. Hucksters recognized him, but only as one more potential mark among many. They yelled and beckoned at him, and as he passed by they yelled and beckoned at whoever happened to be behind himman, woman, or child. Jack gaped frankly at the wares scattered all around him, wares both wonderful and strange, and amidst all the others staring at them he ceased to be a stranger himselfperhaps because he had given up his effort to seem blas in a place where no one acted blas. They laughed, they argued, they haggled . . . but no one seemed bored. The markettown reminded him of the Queens pavillion without the air of strained tension and toohectic gaietythere was the same absurdly rich mingle of smells (dominated by roasting meat and animal ordure), the same brightly dressed crowds (although even the most brightly dressed people Jack saw couldnt hold a candle to some of the dandies he had seen inside the pavillion), the same unsettling but somehow exhilarating juxtaposition of the perfectly normal, cheek by jowl with the extravagantly strange. He stopped at a stall where a man was selling carpets with the Queens portrait woven into them. Jack suddenly thought of Hank Scofflers mom and smiled. Hank was one of the kids Jack and Richard Sloat had hung around with in L.A. Mrs. Scoffler had a thing for the most garish decorations Jack had ever seen. And God, wouldnt she have loved these rugs, with the image of Laura DeLoessian, her hair done up in a high, regal coronet of braids, woven into them! Better than her velvet paintings of Alaskan stags or the ceramic diorama of the Last Supper behind the bar in the Scoffler living room. . . . Then the face woven into the rugs seemed to change even as he looked at it. The face of the Queen was gone and it was his mothers face he saw, repeated over and over and over, her eyes too dark, her skin much too white. Homesickness surprised Jack again. It rushed through his mind in a wave and he called out for her in his heartMom! Hey Mom! Jesus, what am I doing here? Mom!!wondering with a lovers longing intensity what she was doing now, right this minute. Sitting at the window, smoking, looking out at the ocean, a book open beside her? Watching TV? At a movie? Sleeping? Dying? Dead? an evil voice added before he could stop it. Dead, Jack? Already dead? Stop it. He felt the burning sting of tears. Why so sad, my little lad? He looked up, startled, and saw the rug salesman looking at him. He was as big as the meatvendor, and his arms were also tattooed, but his smile was open and sunny. There was no meanness in it. That was a big difference. Its nothing, Jack said. If its nothing makes you look like that, you ought to be thinking of something, my son, my son. I looked that bad, did I? Jack asked, smiling a little. He had also grown unselfconscious about his speechat least for the momentand perhaps that was why the rug salesman heard nothing odd or offrhythm in it. Laddie, you looked as if you only had one friend left on this side o the moon and you just saw the Wild White Wolf come out o the north an gobble him down with a silver spoon. Jack smiled a little. The rug salesman turned away and took something from a smaller display to the right of the largest rugit was oval and had a short handle. As he turned it over the sun flashed across itit was a mirror. To Jack it looked small and cheap, the sort of thing you might get for knocking over all three wooden milkbottles in a carnival game. Here, laddie, the rug salesman said. Take a look and see if Im not right. Jack looked into the mirror and gaped, for a moment so stunned he thought his heart must have forgotten to beat. It was him, but he looked like something from Pleasure Island in the Disney version of Pinocchio, where too much poolshooting and cigarsmoking had turned boys into donkeys. His eyes, normally as blue and round as an AngloSaxon heritage could make them, had gone brown and almondshaped. His hair, coarsely matted and falling across the middle of his forehead, had a definite manelike look. He raised one hand to brush it away, and touched only bare skinin the mirror, his fingers seemed to fade right through the hair. He heard the vendor laugh, pleased. Most amazing of all, long jackassears dangled down to below his jawline. As he stared, one of them twitched. He thought suddenly I HAD one of these! And on the heels of that In the Daydreams I had one of these. Back in the regular world it was . . . was . . . He could have been no more than four. In the regular world (he had stopped thinking of it as the real world without even noticing) it had been a great big glass marble with a rosy center. One day while he was playing with it, it had rolled down the cement path in front of their house and before he could catch it, it had fallen down a sewer grate. It had been goneforever, he had thought then, sitting on the curb with his face propped on his dirty hands and weeping. But it wasnt; here was that old toy rediscovered, just as wonderful now as it had been when he was three or four. He grinned, delighted. The image changed and Jack the Jackass became Jack the Cat, his face wise and secret with amusement. His eyes went from donkeybrown to tomcatgreen. Now pert little grayfurred ears cocked alertly where the droopy donkeyears had dangled. Better, the vendor said. Better, my son. I like to see a happy boy. A happy boy is a healthy boy, and a healthy boy finds his way in the world. Book of Good Farming says that, and if it doesnt, it should. I may just scratch it in my copy, if I ever scratch up enough scratch from my pumpkinpatch to buy a copy someday. Want the glass? Yes! Jack cried. Yeah, great! He groped for his sticks. Frugality was forgotten. How much? The vendor frowned and looked around swiftly to see if they were being watched. Put it away, my son. Tuck it down deep, thats the way. You show your scratch, youre apt to lose the batch. Dips abound on marketground. What? Never mind. No charge. Take it. Half of em get broken in the back of my wagon when I drag em back to my store come tenmonth. Mothers bring their little uns over and they try it but they dont buy it. Well, at least you dont deny it, Jack said. The vendor looked at him with some surprise and then they both burst out laughing. A happy boy with a snappy mouth, the vendor said. Come see me when youre older and bolder, my son. Well take your mouth and head south and treble what we peddle. Jack giggled. This guy was better than a rap record by the Sugarhill Gang. Thanks, he said (a large, improbable grin had appeared on the chops of the cat in the mirror). Thanks very much! Thank me to God, the vendor said . . . then, as an afterthought And watch your wad! Jack moved on, tucking the mirrortoy carefully into his jerkin, next to Speedys bottle. And every few minutes he checked to make sure his sticks were still there. He guessed he knew what dips were, after all. 3 Two stalls down from the booth of the rhyming rugvendor, a depravedlooking man with a patch askew over one eye and the smell of strong drink about him was trying to sell a farmer a large rooster. He was telling the farmer that if he bought this rooster and put it in with his hens, the farmer would have nothing but doubleyolkers for the next twelvemonth. Jack, however, had neither eyes for the rooster nor ears for the salesmans pitch. He joined a crowd of children who were staring at the oneeyed mans star attraction. This was a parrot in a large wicker cage. It was almost as tall as the youngest children in the group, and it was as smoothly, darkly green as a Heineken beerbottle. Its eyes were a brilliant gold . . . its four eyes. Like the pony he had seen in the pavillion stables, the parrot had two heads. It gripped its perch with its big yellow feet and looked placidly in two directions at once, its two tufted crowns almost touching. The parrot was talking to itself, to the amusement of the childrenbut even in his amazement Jack noted that, while they were paying close attention to the parrot, they seemed neither stunned nor even very wondering. They werent like kids seeing their first movie, sitting stupefied in their seats and all eyes; they were more like kids getting their regular Saturdaymorning cartoonfix. This was a wonder, yes, but not a wholly new one. And to whom do wonders pall more rapidly than the very young? Bawwwrk! How high is up? EastHead enquired. As low as low, WestHead responded, and the children giggled. Graaak! Whats the great truth of noblemen? EastHead now asked. That a king will be a king all his life, but once a knights enough for any man! WestHead replied pertly. Jack smiled and several of the older children laughed, but the younger ones only looked puzzled. And whats in Mrs. Spratts cupboard? EastHead now posed. A sight no man shall see! WestHead rejoined, and although Jack was mystified, the children went into gales of laughter. The parrot solemnly shifted its talons on its perch and made droppings into the straw below it. And what frightened Alan Destry to death in the night? He saw his wifegrowwwwk!getting out of the bath! The farmer was now walking away and the oneeyed salesman still had charge of the rooster. He rounded furiously on the children. Get out of here! Get out of here before I kick your asses square! The children scattered. Jack went with them, sparing a last bemused look over his shoulder at the wonderful parrot. 4 At another stall he gave up two knuckles of wood for an apple and a dipper of milkthe sweetest, richest milk he had ever tasted. Jack thought that if they had milk like that back at home, Nestls and Hersheys would go bankrupt in a week. He was just finishing the milk when he saw the Henry family moving slowly in his direction. He handed the dipper back to the woman in the stall, who poured the lees thriftily back into the large wooden cask beside her. Jack hurried on, wiping a milk moustache from his upper lip and hoping uneasily that no one who had drunk from the dipper before him had had leprosy or herpes or anything like that. But he somehow didnt think such awful things even existed over here. He walked up the markettowns main thoroughfare, past the mimers, past two fat women selling pots and pans (Territories Tupperware, Jack thought, and grinned), past that wonderful twoheaded parrot (its oneeyed owner was now drinking quite openly from a clay bottle, reeling wildly from one end of his booth to the other, holding the dazedlooking rooster by the neck and yelling truculently at passersbyJack saw the mans scrawny right arm was caked with yellowishwhite guano, and grimaced), past an open area where farmers were gathered. He paused there for a moment, curious. Many of the farmers were smoking clay pipes, and Jack saw several clay bottles, much the same as the one the birdsalesman had been brandishing, go from hand to hand. In a long, grassy field, men were hitching stones behind large shaggy horses with lowered heads and mild, stupid eyes. Jack passed the rugstall. The vendor saw him and raised a hand. Jack raised one in turn and thought of calling Use it, my man, but dont abuse it! He decided he better not. He was suddenly aware that he felt blue. That feeling of strangeness, of being an outsider, had fallen over him again. He reached the crossroads. The way going north and south was little more than a country lane. The Western Road was much wider. Old Travelling Jack, he thought, and tried to smile. He straightened his shoulders and heard Speedys bottle clink lightly against the mirror. Here goes old Travelling Jack along the Territories version of Interstate 90. Feets dont fail me now! He set off again, and soon that great dreaming land swallowed him. 5 About four hours later, in the middle of the afternoon, Jack sat down in the tall grass by the side of the road and watched as a number of menfrom this distance they looked little bigger than bugsclimbed a tall, ricketylooking tower. He had chosen this place to rest and eat his apple because it was here that the Western Road seemed to make its closest approach to that tower. It was still at least three miles away (and perhaps much more than thatthe almost supernatural clarity of the air made distances extremely hard to judge), but it had been in Jacks view for an hour or more. Jack ate his apple, rested his tired feet, and wondered what that tower could be, standing out there all by itself in a field of rolling grass. And, of course, he wondered why those men should be climbing it. The wind had blown quite steadily ever since he had left the markettown, and the tower was downwind of Jack, but whenever it died away for a minute, Jack could hear them calling to each other . . . and laughing. There was a lot of laughing going on. Some five miles west of the market, Jack had walked through a villageif your definition of a village stretched to cover five tiny houses and one store that had obviously been closed for a long time. Those had been the last human habitations he had seen between then and now. Just before glimpsing the tower, he had been wondering if he had already come to the Outposts without even knowing it. He remembered well enough what Captain Farren had said Beyond the Outposts the Western Road goes into nowhere . . . or into hell. Ive heard it said that God Himself never ventures beyond the Outposts. . . . Jack shivered a little. But he didnt really believe he had come so far. Certainly there was none of the steadily deepening unease he had been feeling before he floundered into the living trees in his effort to get away from Morgans diligence . . . the living trees which now seemed like a hideous prologue to all the time he had spent in Oatley. Indeed, the good emotions he had felt from the time he woke up warm and rested inside the haystack until the time Henry the farmer had invited him to jump down from his wagon had now resurfaced that feeling that the Territories, in spite of whatever evil they might harbor, were fundamentally good, and that he could be a part of this place anytime he wanted . . . that he was really no Stranger at all. He had come to realize that he was part of the Territories for long periods of time. A strange thought had come to him as he swung easily along the Western Road, a thought which came half in English and half in whatever the Territories language was When Im having a dream, the only time I really KNOW its a dream is when Im starting to wake up. If Im dreaming and just wake up all at onceif the alarm clock goes off, or somethingthen Im the most surprised guy alive. At first its the waking that seems like a dream. And Im no stranger over here when the dream gets deepis that what I mean? No, but its getting close. I bet my dad dreamed deep a lot. And Ill bet Uncle Morgan almost never does. He had decided he would take a swig out of Speedys bottle and flip back the first time he saw anything that might be dangerous . . . even if he saw anything scary. Otherwise he would walk all day over here before returning to New York. In fact, he might have been tempted to spend the night in the Territories, if hed had anything to eat beyond the one apple. But he didnt, and along the wide, deserted dirt track of the Western Road there was not a 7Eleven or a StopnGo in sight. The old trees which had surrounded the crossroads and the markettown had given way to open grassland on either side once Jack got past the final small settlement. He began to feel that he was walking along an endless causeway which crossed the middle of a limitless ocean. He travelled the Western Road alone that day under a sky that was bright and sunny but cool (late September now, of course its cool, he thought, except the word which came to mind was not September but a Territories word which really did translate better as ninemonth). No pedestrians passed him, no wagons either loaded or empty. The wind blew pretty steadily, sighing through the ocean of grasses with a low sound that was both autumnal and lonely. Great ripples ran across the grasses before that wind. If asked How do you feel, Jack?, the boy would have responded Pretty good, thanks. Cheerful. Cheerful is the word which would have come into his mind as he hiked through those empty grasslands; rapture was a word he associated most easily with the pop hit of the same name by the rock group Blondie. And he would have been astounded if told he had wept several times as he stood watching those great ripples chase each other toward the horizon, drinking in a sight that only a very few American children of his time had ever seenhuge empty tracts of land under a blue sky of dizzying width and breadth and, yes, even depth. It was a sky unmarked by either jet contrails across its dome or smutty bands of smog at any of its lower edges. Jack was having an experience of remarkable sensory impact, seeing and hearing and smelling things which were brandnew to him, while other sensory input to which he had grown utterly accustomed was missing for the first time. In many ways he was a remarkably sophisticated childbrought up in a Los Angeles family where his father had been an agent and his mother a movie actress, it would have been odder if he had been naivebut he was still just a child, sophisticated or not, and that was undeniably his gain . . . at least in a situation such as this. That lonely days journey across the grasslands would surely have produced sensory overload, perhaps even a pervasive sense of madness and hallucination, in an adult. An adult would have been scrabbling for Speedys bottleprobably with fingers too shaky to grasp it very successfullyan hour west of the markettown, maybe less. In Jacks case, the wallop passed almost completely through his conscious mind and into his subconscious. So when he blissed out entirely and began to weep, he was really unaware of the tears (except as a momentary doubling of vision which he attributed to sweat) and thought only Jeez, I feel good . . . it should feel spooky out here with no one around, but it doesnt. That was how Jack came to think of his rapture as no more than a good, cheerful feeling as he walked alone up the Western Road with his shadow gradually growing longer behind him. It did not occur to him that part of his emotional radiance might stem from the fact that hardly less than twelve hours before he had been a prisoner of Updikes Oatley Tap (the bloodblisters from the last keg to land on his fingers were still fresh); that hardly less than twelve hours ago he had escapedbarely!some sort of murdering beast that he had begun to think of as a weregoat; that for the first time in his life he was on a wide, open road that was utterly deserted except for him; there was not a CocaCola sign anywhere in view, or a Budweiser billboard showing the WorldFamous Clydesdales; no ubiquitous wires ran beside the road on either side or crisscrossed above it, as had been the case on every road Jack Sawyer had ever travelled in his entire life; there was not so much as even the distant rolling sound of an airplane, let alone the rolling thunder of the 747s on their final approaches to LAX, or the F111s that were always blasting off from the Portsmouth Naval Air Station and then cracking the air over the Alhambra like Osmonds whip as they headed out over the Atlantic; there was only the sound of his feet on the road and the clean ebb and flow of his own respiration. Jeez, I feel good, Jack thought, wiping absently at his eyes, and defined it all as cheerful. 6 Now there was this tower to look at and wonder about. Boy, youd never get me up on that thing, Jack thought. He had gnawed the apple right down to the core, and without thinking about what he was doing or even taking his eyes off the tower, he dug a hole in the tough, springy earth with his fingers and buried the applecore in it. The tower seemed made of barnboards, and Jack guessed it had to be at least five hundred feet high. It appeared to be a big hollow square, the boards rising on all sides in X after X. There was a platform on top, and Jack, squinting, could see a number of men strolling around up there. Wind pushed by him in a gentle gust as he sat at the side of the road, his knees against his chest and his arms wrapped around them. Another of those grassy ripples ran away in the direction of the tower. Jack imagined the way that rickety thing must be swaying and felt his stomach turn over. NEVER get me up there, he thought, not for a million bucks. And then the thing he had been afraid might happen since the moment he had observed that there were men on the tower now did happen one of them fell. Jack came to his feet. His face wore the dismayed, slackjawed expression of anyone who has ever been present at a circus performance where some dangerous trick has gone wrongthe tumbler who falls badly and lies in a huddled heap, the aerialist who misses her grip and bounces off the net with a thud, the human pyramid that unexpectedly collapses, spilling bodies into a heap. Oh shit, oh cripes, oh Jacks eyes suddenly widened. For a moment his jaw sagged even fartheruntil it was almost lying on his breastbone, in factand then it came up and his mouth spread in a dazed, unbelieving grin. The man hadnt fallen from the tower, nor had he been blown off it. There were tonguelike protrusions on two sides of the platformthey looked like diving boardsand the man had simply walked out to the end of one of these and jumped off. Halfway down something began to unfurla parachute, Jack thought, but it would never have time to open. Only it hadnt been a parachute. It was wings. The mans fall slowed and then stopped completely while he was still some fifty feet above the high fieldgrass. Then it reversed itself. The man was now flying upward and outward, the wings going up so high they almost touchedlike the crowns on the heads of that Henny Youngman parrotand then driving downward again with immense power, like the arms of a swimmer in a finishing sprint. Oh wow, Jack thought, driven back to the dumbest clich he knew by his total, utter amazement. This topped everything; this was an utter pisser. Oh wow, look at that, oh wow. Now a second man leaped from the diving board at the top of the tower; now a third; now a fourth. In less than five minutes there must have been fifty men in the air, flying complicated but discernible patterns out from the tower, describe a figureeight, back over the tower and out to the other side, another figureeight, back to the tower, alight on the platform, do it all again. They spun and danced and crisscrossed in the air. Jack began to laugh with delight. It was a little like watching the water ballets in those corny old Esther Williams movies. Those swimmersEsther Williams herself most of all, of coursealways made it look easy, as if you yourself could dip and swirl like that, or as if you and a few of your friends could easily come off the opposite sides of the diving board in timed choreography, making a kind of human fountain. But there was a difference. The men flying out there did not give that sense of effortlessness; they seemed to be expending prodigious amounts of energy to stay in the air, and Jack felt with sudden certainty that it hurt, the way some of the calisthenics in phys edleglifts, or halfway situps, for instancehurt. No pain, no gain! Coach would roar if someone had the nerve to complain. And now something else occurred to himthe time his mother had taken him with her to see her friend Myrna, who was a real ballet dancer, practicing in the loft of a dance studio on lower Wilshire Boulevard. Myrna was part of a ballet troupe and Jack had seen her and the other dancers performhis mother often made him go with her and it was mostly boring stuff, like church or Sunrise Semester on TV. But he had never seen Myrna in practice . . . never that close up. He had been impressed and a little frightened by the contrast between seeing ballet on stage, where everyone seemed to either glide or mince effortlessly on the tips of their pointes, and seeing it from less than five feet away, with harsh daylight pouring in the floortoceiling windows and no musiconly the choreographer rhythmically clapping his hands and yelling harsh criticisms. No praise; only criticisms. Their faces ran with sweat. Their leotards were wet with sweat. The room, as large and airy as it was, stank of sweat. Sleek muscles trembled and fluttered on the nervous edge of exhaustion. Corded tendons stood out like insulated cables. Throbbing veins popped out on foreheads and necks. Except for the choreographers clapping and angry, hectoring shouts, the only sounds were the thrupthud of ballet dancers on pointe moving across the floor and harsh, agonized panting for breath. Jack had suddenly realized that these dancers were not just earning a living; they were killing themselves. Most of all he remembered their expressionsall that exhausted concentration, all that pain . . . but transcending the pain, or at least creeping around its edges, he had seen joy. Joy was unmistakably what that look was, and it had scared Jack because it had seemed inexplicable. What kind of person could get off by subjecting himself or herself to such steady, throbbing, excruciating pain? And pain that he was seeing here, he thought. Were they actual winged men, like the birdpeople in the old Flash Gordon serials, or were the wings more in the Icarus and Daedalus line, something that you strapped on? Jack found that it didnt really matter . . . at least, not to him. Joy. They live in a mystery, these people live in a mystery. Its joy that holds them up. That was what mattered. It was joy that held them up, no matter if the wings grew out of their backs or were somehow held on with buckles and clamps. Because what he saw, even from this distance, was the same sort of effort he had seen in the loft on lower Wilshire that day. All that profligate investment of energy to effect a splendid, momentary reversal of natural law.

That such a reversal should demand so much and last such a short time was terrible; that people would go for it anyway was both terrible and wonderful. And its all just a game, he thought and suddenly felt sure of it. A game, or maybe not even thatmaybe it was only practice for a game, the way that all the sweat and trembling exhaustion in the Wilshire loft that day had just been practice. Practice for a show that only a few people would probably care to attend and which would probably close quickly. Joy, he thought again, standing now, his face turned up to look at the flying men in the distance, the wind spilling his hair across his forehead. His time of innocence was fast approaching its end (and, if pressed, even Jack would have reluctantly agreed that he felt such an end approachinga boy couldnt go on the road for long, couldnt go through many experiences such as the one he had gone through in Oatley, and expect to remain an innocent), but in those moments as he stood looking into the sky, innocence seemed to surrounded him, like the young fisherman during his brief moment of epiphany in the Elizabeth Bishop poem, everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow. Joydamn, but thats a cheerful little word. Feeling better than he had since all of this beganand only God knew just how long ago that had beenJack set off along the Western Road again, his step light, his face wreathed in that same silly, splendid grin. Every now and then he looked back over his shoulder, and he was able to see the fliers for a very long time. The Territories air was so clear it almost seemed to magnify. And even after he could no longer see them, that feeling of joy remained, like a rainbow inside his head. 7 When the sun began to go down, Jack realized he was putting off his return to the other worldto the American Territoriesand not just because of how terrible the magic juice tasted, either. He was putting it off because he didnt want to leave here. A streamlet had flowed out of the grasslands (where small groves of trees had again begun to appearbillowy trees with oddly flat tops, like eucalyptus trees) and had hooked a right so that it flowed along beside the road. Farther off, to the right and ahead, was a huge body of water. It was so huge, in fact, that until the last hour or so Jack had thought it was a patch of sky that somehow had a slightly bluer color than the rest. But it wasnt sky; it was a lake. A great lake, he thought, smiling at the pun. He guessed that in the other world that would be Lake Ontario. He felt good. He was headed in the right directionmaybe a little too far north, but he had no doubt that the Western Road would bend away from that direction soon enough. That feeling of almost manic joywhat he had defined as cheerfulnesshad mellowed to a lovely sort of calm serenity, a feeling that seemed as clear as the Territories air. Only one thing marred his good feeling, and that was the memory (six, is six, Jack was six) of Jerry Bledsoe. Why had his mind given him such a hard time about coughing that memory up? Nonot the memory . . . the two memories. First me and Richard hearing Mrs. Feeny telling her sister that the electricity came out and cooked him, that it melted his glasses all over his nose, that she heard Mr. Sloat talking on the phone and he said so . . . and then being behind the couch, not really meaning to snoop or eavesdrop, and hearing my dad say Everything has consequences, and some of those consequences might be on the uncomfortable side. And something surely made Jerry Bledsoe uncomfortable, didnt it? When your glasses end up melted all over your nose, Id say youd been through something mildly uncomfortable, yes. . . . Jack stopped. Stopped dead. What are you trying to say? You know what Im trying to say, Jack. Your father was gone that dayhe and Morgan both. They were over here. Where, over here? I think they were at the same spot over here where their building is in California, over in the American Territories. And they did something, or one of them did. Maybe something big, maybe no more than tossing a rock . . . or burying an apple core in the dirt. And it somehow . . . it echoed over there. It echoed over there and it killed Jerry Bledsoe. Jack shivered. Oh yes, he supposed he knew why it had taken his mind so long to cough up the memorythe toy taxi, the murmur of the mens voices, Dexter Gordon blowing his horn. It hadnt wanted to cough it up. Because (who plays those changes daddy) it suggested that just by being over here he could be doing something terrible in the other world. Starting World War III? No, probably not. He hadnt assassinated any kings lately, young or old. But how much had it taken to set up the echo which had fried Jerry Bledsoe? Had Uncle Morgan shot Jerrys Twinner (if Jerry had had one)? Tried to sell some Territories bigwig on the concept of electricity? Or had it been just some little thing . . . something no more earthshattering than buying a chunk of meat in a rural markettown? Who played those changes? What played those changes? A nice flood, a sweet fire. Suddenly Jacks mouth was as dry as salt. He crossed to the little stream by the side of the road, dropped to his knees, and put a hand down to scoop up water. His hand froze suddenly. The smoothrunning stream had taken on the colors of the coming sunset . . . but these colors suddenly suffused with red, so that it seemed to be a stream of blood rather than water running beside the road. Then it went black. A moment later it had become transparent and Jack saw A little mewling sound escaped him as he saw Morgans diligence roaring along the Western Road, pulled by its foaming bakers dozen of blackplumed horses. Jack saw with almost swooning terror that the driver sitting up high in the peakseat, his booted feet on the splashboard and a ceaselessly cracking whip in one hand, was Elroy. But it was not a hand at all that held that whip. It was some sort of hoof. Elroy was driving that nightmare coach, Elroy grinning with a mouth that was filled with dead fangs, Elroy who just couldnt wait to find Jack Sawyer again and split open Jack Sawyers belly and pull out Jack Sawyers intestines. Jack knelt before the stream, eyes bulging, mouth quivering with dismay and horror. He had seen one final thing in this vision, not a large thing, no, but by implication it was the most frightful thing of all the eyes of the horses seemed to glow. They seemed to glow because they were full of lightfull of the sunset. The diligence was travelling west along this same road . . . and it was after him. Crawling, not sure he could stand even if he had to, Jack retreated from the stream and lurched clumsily out into the road. He fell flat in the dust, Speedys bottle and the mirror the rug salesman had given him digging into his guts. He turned his head sideways so that his right cheek and ear were pressed tightly against the surface of the Western Road. He could feel the steady rumble in the hard, dry earth. It was distant . . . but coming closer. Elroy up on top . . . Morgan inside. Morgan Sloat? Morgan of Orris? Didnt matter. Both were one. He broke the hypnotic effect of that rumbling in the earth with an effort and got up again. He took Speedys bottlethe same over here in the Territories as in the U.S.A.out of his jerkin and pulled as much of the mossplug out of the neck as he could, never minding the shower of particles into the little bit of liquid remainingno more than a couple of inches now. He looked nervously to his left, as if expecting to see the black diligence appear at the horizon, the sunsetfilled eyes of the horses glowing like weird lanterns. Of course he saw nothing. Horizons were closer over here in the Territories, as he had already noticed, and sounds travelled farther. Morgans diligence had to be ten miles to the east, maybe as much as twenty. Still right on top of me, Jack thought, and raised the bottle to his lips. A bare second before he drank from it, his mind shouted, Hey, wait a minute! Wait a minute, dummy, you want to get killed? He would look cute, wouldnt he, standing in the middle of the Western Road and then flipping back into the other world in the middle of some road over there, maybe getting run down by a highballing semi or a UPS truck. Jack shambled over to the side of the road . . . and then walked ten or twenty paces into the thighhigh grass for good measure. He took one final deep breath, inhaling the sweet smell of this place, groping for that feeling of serenity . . . that feeling of rainbow. Got to try and remember how that felt, he thought. I may need it . . . and I may not get back here for a long time. He looked out at the grasslands, darkening now as night stole over them from the east. The wind gusted, chilly now but still fragrant, tossing his hairit was getting shaggy nowas it tossed the grass. You ready, JackO? Jack closed his eyes and steeled himself against the awful taste and the vomiting that was apt to follow. Banzai, he whispered, and drank. 14 Buddy Parkins 1 He vomited up a thin purple drool, his face only inches from the grass covering the long slope down to a fourlane highway; shook his head and rocked backward onto his knees, so that only his back was exposed to the heavy gray sky. The world, this world, stank. Jack pushed himself backward, away from the threads of puke settling over the blades of grass, and the stench altered but did not diminish. Gasoline, other nameless poisons floated in the air; and the air itself stank of exhaustion, fatigueeven the noises roaring up from the highway punished this dying air. The back end of a roadsign reared like a gigantic television screen over his head. Jack wobbled to his feet. Far down the other side of the highway glinted an endless body of water only slightly less gray than the sky. A sort of malignant luminescence darted across the surface. From here, too, rose an odor of metal filings and tired breath. Lake Ontario and the snug little city down there might be Olcott or Kendall. Hed gone miles out of his waylost a hundred miles or more and just about four and a half days. Jack stepped under the sign, hoping it was no worse than that. He looked up at the black letters. Wiped his mouth. ANGOLA. Angola? Where was that? He peered down at the smoky little city through the already nearly tolerable air. And Rand McNally, that invaluable companion, told him that the acres of water way down there were Lake Erieinstead of losing days of travel time, he had gained them. But before the boy could decide that hed be smarter after all if he jumped back into the Territories as soon as he thought it might be safewhich is to say, as soon as Morgans diligence had roared long past the place he had beenbefore he could do that, before he could even begin to think about doing that, he had to go down into the smokey little city of Angola and see if this time Jack Sawyer, JackO, had played any of those changes, Daddy. He began to make his way down the slope, a twelveyearold boy in jeans and a plaid shirt, tall for his age, already beginning to look uncaredfor, with suddenly too much worry in his face. Halfway down the long slope, he realized that he was thinking in English again. 2 Many days later, and a long way west the man, Buddy Parkins by name, who, just out of Cambridge, Ohio, on U.S. 40, had picked up a tall boy calling himself Lewis Farren, would have recognized that look of worrythis kid Lewis looked like worry was about to sink into his face for good. Lighten up, son, for your own sake if no one elses; Buddy wanted to tell the boy. But the boy had troubles enough for ten, according to his story. Mother sick, father dead, sent off to some schoolteacher aunt in Buckeye Lake . . . Lewis Farren had plenty to trouble him. He looked as though he had not seen as much as five dollars all together since the previous Christmas. Still . . . Buddy thought that somewhere along the line this Farren kid was jiving him. For one thing, he smelled like farm, not town. Buddy Parkins and his brothers ran three hundred acres not far from Amanda, about thirty miles southeast of Columbus, and Buddy knew that he could not be wrong about this. This boy smelled like Cambridge, and Cambridge was country. Buddy had grown up with the smell of farmland and barnyard, of manure and growing corn and pea vineries, and the unwashed clothes of this boy beside him had absorbed all these familiar odors. And there were the clothes themselves. Mrs. Farren must have been awful sick, Buddy thought, if she sent her boy off down the road in ripped jeans so stiff with dirt the wrinkles seemed bronzed. And the shoes! Lewis Farrens sneakers were about to fall off his feet, the laces all spliced together and the fabric split or worn through in a couple of places on each shoe. So they got yore daddys car, did they, Lewis? Buddy asked. Just like I said, thats rightthe lousy cowards came out after midnight and just stole it right out of the garage. I dont think they should be allowed to do that. Not from people who work hard and really are going to start making their payments as soon as they can. I mean, do you? You dont, do you? The boys honest, sunburned face was turned toward him as if this were the most serious question since the Nixon Pardon or maybe the Bay of Pigs, and all Buddys instincts were to agreehe would be inclined to agree with any generally goodhearted opinion uttered by a boy so redolent of farm work. I guess theres two sides to everything when you come down to it, Buddy Parkins said, not very happily. The boy blinked, and then turned away to face forward again. Again Buddy felt his anxiety, the cloud of worry that seemed to hang over the boy, and was almost sorry he had not given Lewis Farren the agreement he seemed to need. I suppose yore aunts in the grade school there in Buckeye Lake, Buddy said, at least in part hoping to lighten the boys misery. Point to the future, not the past. Yes, sir, thats right. She teaches in the grade school. Helen Vaughan. His expression did not change. But Buddy had heard it againhe didnt consider himself any Henry Higgins, the professor guy in that musical, but he knew for certain sure that young Lewis Farren didnt talk like anyone who had been raised in Ohio. The kids voice was all wrong, too pushedtogether and full of the wrong ups and downs. It wasnt an Ohio voice at all. It especially was not a rural Ohioans voice. It was an accent. Or was it possible that some boy from Cambridge, Ohio, could learn to talk like that? Whatever his crazy reason might be? Buddy supposed it was. On the other hand, the newspaper this Lewis Farren had never once unclamped from beneath his left elbow seemed to validate Buddy Parkinss deepest and worst suspicion, that his fragrant young companion was a runaway and his every word a lie. The name of the paper, visible to Buddy with only the slightest tilt of his head, was The Angola Herald. There was that Angola in Africa that a lot of Englishmen had rushed off to as mercenaries, and there was Angola, New Yorkright up there on Lake Erie. Hed seen pictures of it on the news not long ago, but could not quite remember why. Id like to ask you a question, Lewis, he said, and cleared his throat. Yes? the boy said. How come a boy from a nice little burg on U.S. Forty is carrying around a paper from Angola, New York? Which is one hell of a long way away. Im just curious, son. The boy looked down at the paper flattened under his arm and hugged it even closer to him, as if he were afraid it might squirm away. Oh, he said. I found it. Oh, hell, Buddy said. Yes, sir. It was on a bench at the bus station back home. You went to the bus station this morning? Right before I decided to save the money and hitch. Mr. Parkins, if you can get me to the turnoff at Zanesville, Ill only have a short ride left. Could probably get to my aunts house before dinner. Could be, Buddy said, and drove in an uncomfortable silence for several miles. Finally he could bear it no longer, and he said, very quietly and while looking straight ahead, Son, are you running away from home? Lewis Farren astonished him by smilingnot grinning and not faking it, but actually smiling. He thought the whole notion of running away from home was funny. It tickled him. The boy glanced at him a fraction of a second after Buddy had looked sideways, and their eyes met. For a second, for two seconds, three . . . for however long that moment lasted, Buddy Parkins saw that this unwashed boy sitting beside him was beautiful. He would have thought himself incapable of using that word to describe any male human being above the age of nine months, but underneath the roadgrime this Lewis Farren was beautiful. His sense of humor had momentarily murdered his worries, and what shone out of him at Buddywho was fiftytwo years old and had three teenage sonswas a kind of straightforward goodness that had only been dented by a host of unusual experiences. This Lewis Farren, twelve years old by his own account, had somehow gone farther and seen more than Buddy Parkins, and what he had seen and done had made him beautiful. No, Im not a runaway, Mr. Parkins, the boy said. Then he blinked, and his eyes went inward again and lost their brightness, their light, and the boy slumped back again against his seat. He pulled up a knee, rested it on the dashboard, and snugged the newspaper up under his bicep. No, I guess not, Buddy Parkins said, snapping his eyes back to the highway. He felt relieved, though he was not quite sure why. I guess yore not a runaway, Lewis. Yore something, though. The boy did not respond. Been workin on a farm, havent you? Lewis looked up at him, surprised. I did, yeah. The past three days. Two dollars an hour. And yore mommy didnt even take the time out from bein sick to wash yore clothes before she sent you to her sister, is that right? Buddy thought. But what he said was Lewis, Id like you to think about coming home with me. Im not saying yore on the run or anything, but if yore from anywhere around Cambridge Ill eat this beatup old car, tires and all, and I got three boys myself and the youngest one, Billy, hes only about three years oldern you, and we know how to feed boys around my house. You can stay about as long as you like, depending on how many questions you want to answer. Cuz Ill be asking em, at least after the first time we break bread together. He rubbed one palm over his gray crewcut and glanced across the seat. Lewis Farren was looking more like a boy and less like a revelation. Youll be welcome, son. Smiling, the boy said, Thats really nice of you, Mr. Parkins, but I cant. I have to go see my, ah, aunt in . . . Buckeye Lake, Buddy supplied. The boy swallowed and looked forward again. Ill give you help, if you want help, Buddy repeated. Lewis patted his forearm, sunburned and thick. This ride is a big help, honest. Ten nearly silent minutes later he was watching the boys forlorn figure trudge down the exit ramp outside Zanesville. Emmie would probably have brained him if hed come home with a strange dirty boy to feed, but once shed seen him and talked to him, Emmie would have brought out the good glasses and the plates her mother had given her. Buddy Parkins didnt believe that there was any woman named Helen Vaughan in Buckeye Lake, and he wasnt so sure this mysterious Lewis Farren even had a motherthe boy seemed such an orphan, off on a vast errand. Buddy watched until the boy was taken by the curve of the offramp, and he was staring out at space and the enormous yellowandpurple sign of a shopping mall. For a second he thought of jumping out of the car and running after the kid, trying to get him back . . . and then he had a moment of recall of a crowded, smokey scene on the sixoclock news. Angola, New York. Some disaster too small to be reported more than once, that was what had happened in Angola; one of those little tragedies the world shovels under a mountain of newsprint. All Buddy could catch, in this short, probably flawed moment of memory, was a picture of girders strewn like giant straws over battered cars, jutting up out of a fuming hole in the grounda hole that might lead down into hell. Buddy Parkins looked once more at the empty place on the road where the boy had been, and then stamped on his clutch and dropped the old car into low. 3 Buddy Parkinss memory was more accurate than he imagined. If he could have seen the first page of the monthold Angola Herald Lewis Farren, that enigmatic boy, had been holding so protectively yet fearfully beneath his arm, these are the words he would have read FREAK EARTHQUAKE KILLS 5 by Herald staff reporter Joseph Gargan Work on the Rainbird Towers, intended to be Angolas tallest and most luxurious condominium development and still six months from completion, was tragically halted yesterday as an unprecedented earth tremor collapsed the structure of the building, burying many construction workers beneath the rubble. Five bodies have been retrieved from the ruins of the proposed condominium, and two other workers have not yet been found but are presumed dead. All seven workers were welders and fitters in the employ of Speiser Construction, and all were on the girders of the buildings top two floors at the time of the incident. Yesterdays tremor was the first earthquake in Angolas recorded history. Armin Van Pelt of New York Universitys Geology Department, contacted today by telephone, described the fatal quake as a seismic bubble. Representatives of the State Safety Commission are continuing their examinations of the site, as is a team of . . . The dead men were Robert Heidel, twentythree; Thomas Thielke, thirtyfour; Jerome Wild, fortyeight; Michael Hagen, twentynine; and Bruce Davey, thirtynine. The two men still missing were Arnold Schulkamp, fiftyfour, and Theodore Rasmussen, fortythree. Jack no longer had to look at the newspapers front page to remember their names. The first earthquake in the history of Angola, New York, had occurred on the day he had flipped away from the Western Road and landed on the towns border. Part of Jack Sawyer wished that he could have gone home with big kindly Buddy Parkins, eaten dinner around the table in the kitchen with the Parkins familyboiled beef and deepdish apple pieand then snuggled into the Parkinses guest bed and pulled the homemade quilt up over his head. And not moved, except toward the table, for four or five days. But part of the trouble was that he saw that knottypine kitchen table heaped with crumbly cheese, and on the other side of the table a mousehole was cut into a giant baseboard; and from holes in the jeans of the three Parkins boys protruded thin long tails. Who plays these Jerry Bledsoe changes, Daddy? Heidel, Thielke, Wild, Hagen, Davey; Schulkamp and Rasmussen. Those Jerry changes? He knew who played them. 4 The huge yellowandpurple sign reading BUCKEYE MALL floated ahead of Jack as he came around the final curve of the offramp, drifted past his shoulder and reappeared on his other side, at which point he could finally see that it was erected on a tripod of tall yellow poles in the shoppingcenter parking lot. The mall itself was a futuristic assemblage of ochrecolored buildings that seemed to be windowlessa second later, Jack realized that the mall was covered, and what he was seeing was only the illusion of separate buildings. He put his hand in his pocket and fingered the tight roll of twentythree single dollar bills which was his earthly fortune. In the cool sunlight of an early autumn afternoon, Jack sprinted across the street toward the malls parking lot. If it had not been for his conversation with Buddy Parkins, Jack would very likely have stayed on U.S. 40 and tried to cover another fifty mileshe wanted to get to Illinois, where Richard Sloat was, in the next two or three days. The thought of seeing his friend Richard again had kept him going during the weary days of nonstop work on Elbert Palamountains farm the image of spectacled, seriousfaced Richard Sloat in his room at Thayer School, in Springfield, Illinois, had fueled him as much as Mrs. Palamountains generous meals. Jack still wanted to see Richard, and as soon as he could but Buddy Parkinss inviting him home had somehow unstrung him. He could not just climb into another car and begin all over again on the Story. (In any case, Jack reminded himself, the Story seemed to be losing its potency.) The shopping mall gave him a perfect chance to drop out for an hour or two, especially if there was a movie theater somewhere in thereright now, Jack could have watched the dullest, soppiest Love Story of a movie. And before the movie, were he lucky enough to find a theater, he would be able to take care of two things he had been putting off for at least a week. Jack had seen Buddy Parkins looking at his disintegrating Nikes. Not only were the running shoes falling apart, the soles, once spongy and elastic, had mysteriously become hard as asphalt. On days when he had to walk great distancesor when he had to work standing up all dayhis feet stung as if theyd been burned. The second task, calling his mother, was so loaded with guilt and other fearful emotions that Jack could not quite allow it to become conscious. He did not know if he could keep from weeping, once hed heard his mothers voice. What if she sounded weakwhat if she sounded really sick? Could he really keep going west if Lily hoarsely begged him to come back to New Hampshire? So he could not admit to himself that he was probably going to call his mother. His mind gave him the suddenly very clear image of a bank of pay telephones beneath their hairdryer plastic bubbles, and almost immediately bucked away from itas if Elroy or some other Territories creature could reach right out of the receiver and clamp a hand around his throat. Just then three girls a year or two older than Jack bounced out of the back of a Subaru Brat which had swung recklessly into a parking spot near the malls main entrance. For a second they had the look of models contorted into awkwardly elegant poses of delight and astonishment. When they had adjusted into more conventional postures the girls glanced incuriously at Jack and began to flip their hair expertly back into place. They were leggy in their tight jeans, these confident little princesses of the tenth grade, and when they laughed they put their hands over their mouths in a fashion which suggested that laughter itself was laughable. Jack slowed his walk into a kind of sleepwalkers stroll. One of the princesses glanced at him and muttered something to the brownhaired girl beside her. Im different now, Jack thought Im not like them anymore. The recognition pierced him with loneliness. A thickset blond boy in a blue sleeveless down vest climbed out of the drivers seat and gathered the girls around him by the simple expedient of pretending to ignore them. The boy, who must have been a senior and at the very least in the varsity backfield, glanced once at Jack and then looked appraisingly at the facade of the mall. Timmy? said the tall brownhaired girl. Yeah, yeah, the boy said. I was just wondering what smells like shit out here. He rewarded the girls with a superior little smile. The brownhaired girl looked smirkingly toward Jack, then swung herself across the asphalt with her friends. The three girls followed Timmys arrogant body through the glass doors into the mall. Jack waited until the figures of Timmy and his court, visible through the glass, had shrunk to the size of puppies far down the long mall before he stepped on the plate which opened the doors. Cold predigested air embraced him. Water trickled down over a fountain two stories high set in a wide pool surrounded by benches. Openfronted shops on both levels faced the fountain. Bland Muzak drifted down from the ochre ceiling, as did the peculiar bronzy light; the smell of popcorn, which had struck Jack the moment the glass doors had whooshed shut behind him, emanated from an antique popcorn wagon, painted fireengine red and stationed outside a Waldenbooks to the left of the fountain on the ground level. Jack had seen immediately that there was no movie theater in the Buckeye Mall. Timmy and his leggy princesses were floating up the escalator at the malls other end, making, Jack thought, for a fastfood restaurant called The Captains Table right at the top of the escalator. Jack put his hand in his pants pocket again and touched his roll of bills. Speedys guitarpick and Captain Farrens coin nested at the bottom of the pocket, along with a handful of dimes and quarters. On Jacks level, sandwiched between a Mr. Chips cookie shop and a liquor store advertising NEW LOW PRICES for Hiram Walker bourbon and Inglenook Chablis, a Fayva shoe store drew him toward its long table of running shoes. The clerk at the cash register leaned forward and watched Jack pick over the shoes, clearly suspicious that he might try to steal something. Jack recognized none of the brands on the table. There were no Nikes or Pumas herethey were called Speedster or Bullseye or Zooms, and the laces of each pair were tied together. These were sneakers, not true running shoes. They were good enough, Jack supposed. He bought the cheapest pair the store had in his size, blue canvas with red zigzag stripes down the sides. No brand name was visible anywhere on the shoes. They seemed indistinguishable from most of the other shoes on the table. At the register he counted out six limp onedollar bills and told the clerk that he did not need a bag. Jack sat on one of the benches before the tall fountain and toed off the battered Nikes without bothering to unlace them. When he slipped on the new sneakers, his feet fairly sighed with gratitude. Jack left the bench and dropped his old shoes in a tall black wastebasket with DONT BE A LITTERBUG stencilled on it in white. Beneath that, in smaller letters, the wastebasket read The earth is our only home. Jack began to move aimlessly through the long lower arcade of the mall, searching for the telephones. At the popcorn wagon he parted with fifty cents and was handed a quartsize tub of fresh popcorn glistening with grease. The middleaged man in a bowler hat, a walrus moustache, and sleeve garters who sold him the popcorn told him that the pay phones were around a corner next to 31 Flavors, upstairs. The man gestured vaguely toward the nearest escalator. Scooping the popcorn into his mouth, Jack rode up behind a woman in her twenties and an older woman with hips so wide they nearly covered the entire width of the escalator, both of them in pants suits. If Jack were to flip inside the Buckeye Mallor even a mile or two from itwould the walls shake and the ceiling crumble down, dropping bricks and beams and Muzak speakers and light fixtures down on everybody unlucky enough to be inside? And would the tenthgrade princesses, and even arrogant Timmy, and most of the others, too, wind up with skull fractures and severed limbs and mangled chests and . . . for a second just before he reached the top of the escalator Jack saw giant chunks of plaster and metal girders showering down, heard the terrible cracking of the mezzanine floor, the screams, tooinaudible, they were still printed in the air. Angola. The Rainbird Towers. Jack felt his palms begin to itch and sweat, and he wiped them on his jeans. THIRTYONE FLAVORS, gleamed out a chilly incandescent white light to his left, and when he turned that way he saw a curving hallway on its other side. Shiny brown tiles on the walls and floor; as soon as the curve of the hallway took him out of sight of anyone on the mezzanine level, Jack saw three telephones, which were indeed under transparent plastic bubbles. Across the hall from the telephones were doors to MEN and LADIES.

Beneath the middle bubble, Jack dialed 0, followed by the area code and the number for the Alhambra Inn and Gardens. Billing? asked the operator, and Jack said, This is a collect call for Mrs. Sawyer in fourohseven and fouroheight. From Jack. The hotel operator answered, and Jacks chest tightened. She transferred the call to the suite. The telephone rang once, twice, three times. Then his mother said Jesus, kid, Im glad to hear from you! This absenteemother business is hard on an old girl like me. I kind of miss you when youre not moping around and telling me how to act with waiters. Youre just too classy for most waiters, thats all, Jack said, and thought that he might begin to cry with relief. Are you all right, Jack? Tell me the truth. Im fine, sure, he said. Yeah, Im fine. I just had to make sure that you . . . you know. The phone whispered electronically, a skirl of static that sounded like sand blowing across a beach. Im okay, Lily said. Im great. Im not any worse, anyhow, if thats what youre worried about. I suppose Id like to know where you are. Jack paused, and the static whispered and hissed for a moment. Im in Ohio now. Pretty soon Im going to be able to see Richard. When are you coming home, JackO? I cant say. I wish I could. You cant say. I swear, kid, if your father hadnt called you that silly nameand if youd asked me about this ten minutes earlier or ten minutes later . . . A rising tide of static took her voice, and Jack remembered how shed looked in the tea shop, haggard and feeble, an old woman. When the static receded he asked, Are you having any trouble with Uncle Morgan? Is he bothering you? I sent your Uncle Morgan away from here with a flea in his ear, she said. He was there? He did come? Is he still bothering you? I got rid of the Stoat about two days after you left, baby. Dont waste time worrying about him. Did he say where he was going? Jack asked her, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth the telephone uttered a tortured electronic squeal that seemed to bore right into his head. Jack grimaced and jerked the receiver away from his ear. The awful whining noise of static was so loud that anyone stepping into the corridor would have heard it. MOM! Jack shouted, putting the phone as close to his head as he dared. The squeal of static increased, as if a radio between stations had been turned up to full volume. The line abruptly fell silent. Jack clamped the receiver to his ear and heard only the flat black silence of dead air. Hey, he said, and jiggled the hook. The flat silence in the phone seemed to press up against his ear. Just as abruptly, and as if his jiggling the hook had caused it, the dial tonean oasis of sanity, of regularity, nowresumed. Jack jammed his right hand in his pocket, looking for another coin. He was holding the receiver, awkwardly, in his left hand as he dug in his pocket; he froze when he heard the dial tone suddenly slot off into outer space. Morgan Sloats voice spoke to him as clearly as if good old Uncle Morgan were standing at the next telephone. Get your ass back home, Jack. Sloats voice carved the air like a scalpel. You just get your ass back home before we have to take you back ourselves. Wait, Jack said, as if he were begging for time in fact, he was too terrified to know quite what he was saying. Cant wait any longer, little pal. Youre a murderer now. Thats right, isnt it? Youre a murderer. So were not able to give you any more chances. You just get your can back to that resort in New Hampshire. Now. Or maybe youll go home in a bag. Jack heard the click of the receiver. He dropped it. The telephone Jack had used shuddered forward, then sagged off the wall. For a second it drooped on a network of wires; then crashed heavily to the floor. The door to the mens room banged open behind Jack, and a voice yelled, Holy SHIT! Jack turned to see a thin crewcut boy of about twenty staring at the telephones. He was wearing a white apron and a bow tie a clerk at one of the shops. I didnt do it, Jack said. It just happened. Holy shit. The crewcut clerk goggled at Jack for a splitsecond, jerked as if to run, and then ran his hands over the crown of his head. Jack backed away down the hall. When he was halfway down the escalator he finally heard the clerk yelling, Mr. Olafson! The phone, Mr. Olafson! Jack fled. Outside, the air was bright, surprisingly humid. Dazed, Jack wandered across the sidewalk. A halfmile away across the parking lot, a blackandwhite police car swung in toward the mall. Jack turned sideways and began to walk down the pavement. Some way ahead, a family of six struggled to get a lawn chair in through the next entrance to the mall. Jack slowed down and watched the husband and wife tilt the long chair diagonally, hindered by the attempts of the smaller children to either sit on the chair or to assist them. At last, nearly in the posture of the flagraisers in the famous photograph of Iwo Jima, the family staggered through the door. The police car lazily circled through the big parking lot. Just past the door where the disorderly family had succeeded in planting their chair, an old black man sat on a wooden crate, cradling a guitar in his lap. As Jack slowly drew nearer, he saw the metal cup beside the mans feet. The mans face was hidden behind big dirty sunglasses and beneath the brim of a stained felt hat. The sleeves of his denim jacket were as wrinkled as an elephants hide. Jack swerved out to the edge of the pavement to give the man all the room he seemed to warrant, and noticed that around the mans neck hung a sign handwritten in big shaky capital letters on discolored white cardboard. A few steps later he could read the letters. BLIND SINCE BIRTH WILL PLAY ANY SONG GOD BLESS YOU He had nearly walked past the man holding the beatup old guitar when he heard him utter, his voice a cracked and juicy whisper, Yeahbob. 15 Snowball Sings 1 Jack swung back toward the black man, his heart hammering in his chest. Speedy? The black man groped for his cup, held it up, shook it. A few coins rattled in the bottom. It is Speedy. Behind those dark glasses, it is Speedy. Jack was sure of it. But a moment later he was just as sure that it wasnt Speedy. Speedy wasnt built square in the shoulders and broad across the chest; Speedys shoulders were rounded, a little slumped over, and his chest consequently had a slightly cavedin look. Mississippi John Hurt, not Ray Charles. But I could tell one way or the other for sure if hed take off those shades. He opened his mouth to speak Speedys name aloud, and suddenly the old man began to play, his wrinkled fingers, as dully dark as old walnut that has been faithfully oiled but never polished, moving with limber speed and grace on both strings and frets. He played well, fingerpicking the melody. And after a moment, Jack recognized the tune. It had been on one of his fathers older records. A Vanguard album called Mississippi John Hurt Today. And although the blind man didnt sing, Jack knew the words O kindly friends, tell me, aint it hard? To see ole Lewis in a new graveyard, The angels laid him away. . . . The blond football player and his three princesses came out of the malls main doors. Each of the princesses had an ice cream cone. Mr. AllAmerica had a chilidog in each hand. They sauntered toward where Jack stood. Jack, whose whole attention was taken up by the old black man, had not even noticed them. He had been transfixed by the idea that it was Speedy, and Speedy had somehow read his mind. How else could it be that this man had begun to play a Mississippi John Hurt composition just as Jack happened to think Speedy looked like that very man? And a song containing his own roadname, as well? The blond football player transferred both chilidogs to his left hand and slapped Jack on the back with his right as hard as he could. Jacks teeth snapped on his own tongue like a beartrap. The pain was sudden and excruciating. You just shake her easy, urinebreath, he said. The princesses giggled and shrieked. Jack stumbled forward and kicked over the blind mans cup. Coins spilled and rolled. The gentle lilt of the blues tune came to a jangling halt. Mr. AllAmerica and the Three Little Princesses were already moving on. Jack stared after them and felt the nowfamiliar impotent hate. This was how it felt to be on your own, just young enough to be at everyones mercy and to be anyones meatanyone from a psychotic like Osmond to a humorless old Lutheran like Elbert Palamountain, whose idea of a pretty fair workday was to slog and squelch through gluey fields for twelve hours during a steady cold downpour of October rain, and to sit boltupright in the cab of his International Harvester truck during lunch hour, eating onion sandwiches and reading from the Book of Job. Jack had no urge to get them, although he had a strange idea that if he wanted to, he couldthat he was gaining some sort of power, almost like an electrical charge. It sometimes seemed to him that other people knew that, toothat it was in their faces when they looked at him. But he didnt want to get them; he only wanted to be left alone. He The blind man was feeling around himself for the spilled money, his pudgy hands moving gently over the pavement, almost seeming to read it. He happened on a dime, set his cup back up again, and dropped the dime in. Plink! Faintly, Jack heard one of the princesses Why do they let him stay there, hes so gross, you know? Even more faintly still Yeah, rilly! Jack got down on his knees and began to help, picking up coins and putting them into the blind mans cup. Down here, close to the old man, he could smell sour sweat, mildew, and some sweet bland smell like corn. Smartly dressed mall shoppers gave them a wide berth. Thankya, thankya, the blind man croaked monotonously. Jack could smell dead chili on his breath. Thankya, blessya, God blessya, thankya. He is Speedy. Hes not Speedy. What finally forced him to speakand this was not really so oddwas remembering just how little of the magic juice he had left. Barely two swallows now. He did not know if, after what had happened in Angola, he could ever bring himself to travel in the Territories again, but he was still determined to save his mothers life, and that meant he might have to. And, whatever the Talisman was, he might have to flip into the other world to get it. Speedy? Blessya, thankya, God blessya, didnt I hear one go over there? He pointed. Speedy! Its Jack! Aint nothin speedy round here, boy, No sir. His hands began to whisperwalk along the concrete in the direction he had just pointed. One of them found a nickel and he dropped it into the cup. His other happened to touch the shoe of a smartly dressed young woman who was passing by. Her pretty, empty face wrinkled in almost painful disgust as she drew away from him. Jack picked the last coin out of the gutter. It was a silver dollara big old cartwheel with Lady Liberty on one side. Tears began to spill out of his eyes. They ran down his dirty face and he wiped them away with an arm that shook. He was crying for Thielke, Wild, Hagen, Davey, and Heidel. For his mother. For Laura DeLoessian. For the carters son lying dead in the road with his pockets turned out. But most of all for himself. He was tired of being on the road. Maybe when you rode it in a Cadillac it was a road of dreams, but when you had to hitch it, riding on your thumb and a story that was just about worn out, when you were at everybodys mercy and anyones meat, it was nothing but a road of trials. Jack felt that he had been tried enough . . . but there was no way to cry it off. If he cried it off, the cancer would take his mother, and Uncle Morgan might well take him. I dont think I can do it, Speedy, he wept. I dont think so, man. Now the blind man groped for Jack instead of the spilled coins. Those gentle, reading fingers found his arm and closed around it. Jack could feel the hard pad of callus in the tip of each finger. He drew Jack to him, into those odors of sweat and heat and old chili. Jack pressed his face against Speedys chest. Hoo, boy. I dont know no Speedy, but it sounds like you puttin an awful lot on him. You I miss my mom, Speedy, Jack wept, and Sloats after me. It was him on the phone inside the mall, him. And thats not the worst thing. The worst thing was in Angola . . . the Rainbird Towers . . . earthquake . . . five men . . . me, I did it, Speedy, I killed those men when I flipped into this world, I killed them just like my dad and Morgan Sloat killed Jerry Bledsoe that time! Now it was out, the worst of it. He had sicked up the stone of guilt that had been in his throat, threatening to choke him, and a storm of weeping seized himbut this time it was relief rather than fear. It was said. It had been confessed. He was a murderer. Hoooeeee! the black man cried. He sounded perversely delighted. He held Jack with one thin, strong arm, rocked him. You tryin to carry you one heavy load, boy. You sure am. Maybe you ought to put some of it down. I killed em, Jack whispered. Thielke, Wild, Hagen, Davey . . . Well, if yo friend Speedy was here, the black man said, whoever he might be, or wherever he might be in this wide old world, he might tell you that you caint carry the world on yo shoulders, son. You caint do that. No one can. Try to carry the world on yo shoulders, why, first its gonna break yo back, and then its gonna break you sperrit. I killed Put a gun to their heads and shot somebodies, didya? No . . . the earthquake . . . I flipped. . . . Dont know nothin bout dat, the black man said. Jack had pulled away from him a bit and was staring up into the black mans seamed face with wondering curiosity, but the black man had turned his head toward the parking lot. If he was blind, then he had picked out the smoother, slightly more powerful beat of the police cars engine from the others as it approached, because he was looking right at it. All I know is you seem to have this idear of moider a little broad. Prolly if some fella dropped dead of a heartattack goin around us as we sit here, youd think you killed him. Oh look, I done moidered that fella on account of where I was sittin, oh woe, oh dooom, oh gloooooom, oh this . . . oh that! As he spoke this and that, the blind man punctuated it with a quick change from G to C and back to G again. He laughed, pleased with himself. Speedy Nothin speedy round here, the black man reiterated, and then showed yellow teeth in a crooked grin. Cept maybe how speedy some folks are to put the blame on themselves for things others might have got started. Maybe you runnin, boy, and maybe you bein chased. Gchord. Maybe you be just a little offbase. Cchord, with a nifty little run in the middle that made Jack grin in spite of himself. Might be somebody else gettin on yo case. Back down to G again, and the blind man laid his guitar aside (while, in the police car, the two cops were flipping to see which of them would actually have to touch Old Snowball if he wouldnt get into the back of the cruiser peaceably). Maybe dooom and maybe gloooooom and maybe this and maybe that . . . He laughed again, as if Jacks fears were the funniest thing hed ever heard. But I dont know what could happen if I No one ever knows what could happen if they do anything, do dey? the black man who might or might not be Speedy Parker broke in. No. Dey do not. If you thought about it, youd stay in yo house all day, ascairt to come out! I dont know yo problems, boy. Dont want to know em. Could be crazy, talkin bout earthquakes and all. But bein as how you helped me pick up my money and didnt steal noneI counted every plinketyplink, so I knowIll give you some advice. Some things you caint help. Sometimes people get killed because somebody does somethin . . . but if somebody didnt do that somethin, a whole lot of more people would have got killed. Do you see where Im pushin, son? The dirty sunglasses inclined down toward him. Jack felt a deep, shuddery relief. He saw, all right. The blind man was talking about hard choices. He was suggesting that maybe there was a difference between hard choices and criminal behavior. And that maybe the criminal wasnt here. The criminal might have been the guy who had told him five minutes ago to get his ass home. Could even be, the blind man remarked, hitting a dark Dminor chord on his box, that all things soive the Lord, just like my momma tole me and your momma might have tole you, if she was a Christian lady. Could be we think we doin one thing but are really doin another. Good Book says all things, even those that seem evil, soive the Lord. What you think, boy? I dont know, Jack said honestly. He was all mixed up. He only had to close his eyes and he could see the telephone tearing off the wall, hanging from its wires like a weird puppet. Well, it smells like you lettin it drive you to drink. What? Jack asked, astonished. Then he thought, I thought that Speedy looked like Mississippi John Hurt, and this guy started playing a John Hurt blues . . . and now hes talking about the magic juice. Hes being careful, but I swear thats what hes talking aboutits got to be! Youre a mindreader, Jack said in a low voice. Arent you? Did you learn it in the Territories, Speedy? Dont know nothin bout readin minds, the blind man said, but my lamps have been out fortytwo year come November, and in fortytwo year your nose and ears take up some of the slack. I can smell cheap wine on you, son. Smell it all over you. Its almost like you washed yo hair widdit! Jack felt an odd, dreamy guiltit was the way he always felt when accused of doing something wrong when he was in fact innocentmostly innocent, anyway. He had done no more than touch the almostempty bottle since flipping back into this world. Just touching it filled him with dreadhe had come to feel about it the way a fourteenthcentury European peasant might have felt about a splinter of the One True Cross or the fingerbone of a saint. It was magic, all right. Powerful magic. And sometimes it got people killed. I havent been drinking it, honest, he finally managed. What I started with is almost gone. It . . . I . . . man, I dont even like it! His stomach had begun to clench nervously; just thinking about the magic juice was making him feel nauseated. But I need to get some more. Just in case. More Poiple Jesus? Boy your age? The blind man laughed and made a shooing gesture with one hand. Hell, you dont need dat. No boy needs dat poison to travel with. But Here. Ill sing you a song to cheer you up. Sounds like you could use it. He began to sing, and his singing voice was nothing at all like his speaking voice. It was deep and powerful and thrilling, without the Nigger Jim MyHuckdatsureisgay! cadences of his talk. It was, Jack thought, awed, almost the trained, cultured voice of an opera singer, now amusing itself with a little piece of popular fluff. Jack felt goosebumps rise on his arms and back at that rich, full voice. Along the sidewalk which ran along the dull, ochre flank of the mall, heads turned. When the red, red robin goes bobbobbobbin along, ALONG, therell be no more sobbin when he starts throbbin his old . . . sweet SONG Jack was struck by a sweet and terrible familiarity, a sense that he had heard this before, or something very like it, and as the blind man bridged, grinning his crooked, yellowing smile, Jack realized where the feeling was coming from. He knew what had made all those heads turn, as they would have turned if a unicorn had gone galloping across the malls parking lot. There was a beautiful, alien clarity in the mans voice. It was the clarity of, say, air so pure that you could smell a radish when a man pulled one out of the ground half a mile away. It was a good old Tin Pan Alley song . . . but the voice was pure Territories. Get up . . . get up, you sleepyhead . . . get out . . . get out, get outta bed . . . live, love, laugh and be ha Both guitar and voice came to a sudden halt. Jack, who had been concentrating fiercely on the blind mans face (trying subconsciously to peer right through those dark glasses, perhaps, and see if Speedy Parkers eyes were behind them), now widened his focus and saw two cops standing beside the blind man. You know, I dont hear nothin, the blind guitarist said, almost coyly, but I blieve I smell somethin blue. Goddammit, Snowball, you know youre not supposed to work the mall! one of the cops cried. What did Judge Hallas tell you the last time he had you in chambers? Downtown between Center Street and Mural Street. No place else. Damn, boy, how senile have you got? Your pecker rotted off yet from that whatall your woman gave you before she took off? Christ, I just dont His partner put a hand on his arm and nodded toward Jack in a littlepitchershavebigears gesture. Go tell your mother she wants you, kid, the first cop said curtly. Jack started walking down the sidewalk. He couldnt stay. Even if there was something he could do, he couldnt stay. He was lucky the cops attention had been taken up by the man they called Snowball. If they had given him a second glance, Jack had no doubt he would have been asked to produce his bona fides. New sneakers or not, the rest of him looked used and battered. It doesnt take cops long to get good at spotting roadkids, and Jack was a boy on the road if there ever had been one. He imagined being tossed into the Zanesville pokey while the Zanesville cops, fine upstanding boys in blue who listened to Paul Harvey every day and supported President Reagan, tried to find out whose little boy he was. No, he didnt want the Zanesville cops giving him more than the one passing glance. A motor, throbbing smoothly, coming up behind him. Jack hunched his pack a little higher on his back and looked down at his new sneakers as if they interested him tremendously. From the corners of his eyes he saw the police cruiser slide slowly by. The blind man was in the back seat, the neck of his guitar poking up beside him. As the cruiser swung into one of the outbound lanes, the blind man abruptly turned his head and looked out the back window, looked directly at Jack . . . . . . and although Jack could not see through the dirty dark glasses, he knew perfectly well that Lester Speedy Parker had winked at him. 2 Jack managed to keep further thought at bay until he reached the turnpike ramps again. He stood looking at the signs, which seemed the only clearcut things left in a world (worlds?) where all else was a maddening gray swirl. He felt a dark depression swirling all around him, sinking into him, trying to destroy his resolve. He recognized that homesickness played a part in this depression, but this feeling made his former homesickness seem boyish and callow indeed. He felt utterly adrift, without a single firm thing to hold on to. Standing by the signs, watching the traffic on the turnpike, Jack realized he felt damn near suicidal. For quite a while he had been able to keep himself going with the thought that he would see Richard Sloat soon (and, although he had hardly admitted the thought to himself, the idea that Richard might head west with him had done more than cross Jacks mindafter all, it would not be the first time that a Sawyer and a Sloat had made strange journeys together, would it?), but the hard work at the Palamountain farm and the peculiar happenings at the Buckeye Mall had given even that the false glitter of fools gold. Go home, Jacky, youre beaten, a voice whispered. If you keep on, youre going to end up getting the living shit kicked out of you . . . and next time it may be fifty people that die. Or five hundred. I70 East. I70 West. Abruptly he fished in his pocket for the cointhe coin that was a silver dollar in this world. Let whatever gods there were decide this, once and for all. He was too beaten to do it for himself. His back still smarted where Mr. AllAmerica had whacked him. Come up tails, and he would go down the eastbound ramp and head home. Come up heads, he would go on . . . and there would be no more looking back. He stood in the dust of the soft shoulder and flicked the coin into the chilly October air. It rose, turning over and over, kicking up glints of sun. Jack craned his head to follow its course. A family passing in an old stationwagon stopped squabbling long enough to look at him curiously. The man driving the wagon, a balding C.P.A. who sometimes awoke in the middle of the night fancying that he could feel shooting pains in his chest and down his left arm, had a sudden and absurd series of thoughts Adventure. Danger. A quest of some noble purpose. Dreams of fear and glory. He shook his head, as if to clear it, and glanced at the boy in the wagons rearview mirror just as the kid leaned over to look at something. Christ, the balding C.P.A. thought. Get it out of your head, Larry, you sound like a fucking boys adventure book. Larry shot into traffic, quickly getting the wagon up to seventy, forgetting about the kid in the dirty jeans by the side of the road. If he could get home by three, hed be in good time to watch the middleweight title fight on ESPN. The coin came down. Jack bent over it. It was heads . . . but that was not all. The lady on the coin wasnt Lady Liberty. It was Laura DeLoessian, Queen of the Territories. But God, what a difference here from the pale, still, sleeping face he had glimpsed for a moment in the pavillion, surrounded by anxious nurses in their billowing white wimples! This face was alert and aware, eager and beautiful. It was not a classic beauty; the line of the jaw was not clear enough for that, and the cheekbone which showed in profile was a little soft. Her beauty was in the regal set of her head combined with the clear sense that she was kind as well as capable. And oh it was so like the face of his mother. Jacks eyes blurred with tears and he blinked them hard, not wanting the tears to fall. He had cried enough for one day. He had his answer, and it was not for crying over. When he opened his eyes again, Laura DeLoessian was gone; the woman on the coin was Lady Liberty again. He had his answer all the same. Jack bent over, picked up the coin out of the dust, put it in his pocket, and headed down the westbound ramp of Interstate 70. 3 A day later; white overcast in the air that tasted of chilly rain on its way; the OhioIndiana border not much more than a lick and a promise from here. Here was in a scrub of woods beyond the Lewisburg rest area on I70. Jack was standing concealedhe hopedamong the trees, patiently waiting for the large bald man with the large bald voice to get back into his Chevy Nova and drive away. Jack hoped he would go soon, before it started to rain. He was cold enough without getting wet, and all morning his sinuses had been plugged, his voice foggy. He thought he must finally be getting a cold. The large bald man with the large bald voice had given his name as Emory W. Light. He had picked Jack up around eleven oclock, north of Dayton, and Jack had felt a tired sinking sensation in the pit of his belly almost at once. He had gotten rides with Emory W. Light before. In Vermont Light had called himself Tom Ferguson, and said he was a shoeshop foreman; in Pennsylvania the alias had been Bob Darrent (Almost like that fellow who sang SplishSplash, ahhahahhah), and the job had changed to District High School Superintendent; this time Light said he was President of the First Mercantile Bank of Paradise Falls, in the town of Paradise Falls, Ohio. Ferguson had been lean and dark, Darrent as portly and pink as a freshly tubbed baby, and this Emory W. Light was large and owlish, with eyes like boiled eggs behind his rimless glasses. Yet all of these differences were only superficial, Jack had found. They all listened to the Story with the same breathless interest. They all asked him if he had had any girlfriends back home. Sooner or later he would find a hand (a large bald hand) lying on his thigh, and when he looked at FergusonDarrentLight, he would see an expression of halfmad hope in the eyes (mixed with halfmad guilt) and a stipple of sweat on the upper lip (in the case of Darrent, the sweat had gleamed through a dark moustache like tiny white eyes peering through scant underbrush). Ferguson had asked him if he would like to make ten dollars. Darrent had upped that to twenty. Light, in a large bald voice that nonetheless cracked and quivered through several registers, asked him if he couldnt use fifty dollarshe always kept a fifty in the heel of his left shoe, he said, and hed just love to give it to Master Lewis Farren. There was a place they could go near Randolph. An empty barn. Jack did not make any correlation between the steadily increasing monetary offers from Light in his various incarnations and any changes his adventures might be working on himhe was not introspective by nature and had little interest in selfanalysis. He had learned quickly enough how to deal with fellows like Emory W. Light. His first experience with Light, when Light had been calling himself Tom Ferguson, had taught him that discretion was by far the better part of valor. When Ferguson put his hand on Jacks thigh, Jack had responded automatically out of a California sensibility in which gays had been merely part of the scenery No thanks, mister. Im strictly A.C. He had been groped before, certainlyin movie theaters, mostly, but there had been the mensshop clerk in North Hollywood who had cheerfully offered to blow him in a changing booth (and when Jack told him no thanks, the clerk said, Fine, now try on the blue blazer, okay?). These were annoyances a goodlooking twelveyearold boy in Los Angeles simply learned to put up with, the way a pretty woman learns to put up with being groped occasionally on the subway. You eventually find a way to cope without letting it spoil your whole day. The deliberate passes, such as the one this Ferguson was making, were less of a problem than the sudden gropes from ambush. They could simply be shunted aside. At least in California they could. Eastern gaysespecially out here in the sticksapparently had a different way of dealing with rejection. Ferguson had come to a screeching, sliding halt, leaving forty yards of rubber behind his Pontiac and throwing a cloud of shoulderdust into the air. Who you calling D.C.? he screamed. Who you calling queer? Im not queer! Jesus! Give a kid a fucking ride and he calls you a fucking queer! Jack was looking at him, dazed. Unprepared for the sudden stop, he had thumped his head a damned good one on the padded dash. Ferguson, who had only a moment before been looking at him with melting brown eyes, now looked ready to kill him. Get out! Ferguson yelled. Youre the queer, not me! Youre the queer! Get out, you little queerboy! Get out! Ive got a wife! Ive got kids! Ive probably got bastards scattered all over New England! Im not queer! Youre the queer, not me, SO GET OUT OF MY CAR! More terrified than he had been since his encounter with Osmond, Jack had done just that. Ferguson tore out, spraying him with gravel, still raving. Jack staggered over to a rock wall, sat down, and began to giggle. The giggles became shrieks of laughter, and he decided right then and there that he would have to develop A POLICY, at least until he got out of the boondocks. Any serious problem demands A POLICY, his father had said once. Morgan had agreed vigorously, but Jack decided he shouldnt let that hold him back. His POLICY had worked well enough with Bob Darrent, and he had no reason to believe it wouldnt also work with Emory Light . . . but in the meantime he was cold and his nose was running. He wished Light would head em up and move em out. Standing in the trees, Jack could see him down there, walking back and forth with his hands in his pockets, his large bald head gleaming mellowly under the whiteout sky.

On the turnpike, big semis droned by, filling the air with the stink of burned diesel fuel. The woods here were trashedout, the way the woods bordering any interstate rest area always were. Empty Dorito bags. Squashed Big Mac boxes. Crimped Pepsi and Budweiser cans with poptops that rattled inside if you kicked them. Smashed bottles of Wild Irish Rose and Five OClock gin. A pair of shredded nylon panties over there, with a mouldering sanitary napkin still glued to the crotch. A rubber poked over a broken branch. Plenty of nifty stuff, all right, heyhey. And lots of graffiti jotted on the walls of the mens room, almost all of it the sort a fellow like Emory W. Light could really relate to I LIKE TO SUK BIG FAT COX. BE HERE AT 4 FOR THE BEST BLOJOB YOU EVER HAD. REEM OUT MY BUTT. And here was a gay poet with large aspirations LET THE HOLE HUMAN RACEJERK OFF ON MY SMILING FACE. Im homesick for the Territories, Jack thought, and there was no surprise at all in the realization. Here he stood behind two brick outhouses off I70 somewhere in western Ohio, shivering in a ragged sweater he had bought in a thrift store for a buck and a half, waiting for that large bald man down there to get back on his horse and ride. Jacks POLICY was simplicity itself dont antagonize a man with large bald hands and a large bald voice. Jack sighed with relief. Now it was starting to work. An expression that was halfanger, halfdisgust, had settled over Emory W. Lights large bald face. He went back to his car, got in, backed up so fast he almost hit the pickup truck passing behind him (there was a brief blare of horns and the passenger in the truck shot Emory W. Light the finger), and then left. Now it was only a matter of standing on the ramp where the restarea traffic rejoined the turnpike traffic with his thumb out . . . and, he hoped, catching a ride before it started to rain. Jack spared another look around. Ugly, wretched. These words came quite naturally to mind as he looked around at the littery desolation here on the rest areas pimply backside. It occurred to Jack that there was a feeling of death herenot just at this rest area or on the interstate roads but pressed deep into all the country he had travelled. Jack thought that sometimes he could even see it, a desperate shade of hot dark brown, like the exhaust from the shortstack of a fastmoving JimmyPete. The new homesickness came backthe wanting to go to the Territories and see that dark blue sky, the slight curve at the edge of the horizon. . . . But it plays those Jerry Bledsoe changes. Dont know nothin bout dat . . . All I know is you seem to have this idear of moider a little broad. . . . Walking down to the rest areanow he really did have to urinateJack sneezed three times, quickly. He swallowed and winced at the hot prickle in his throat. Getting sick, oh yeah. Great. Not even into Indiana yet, fifty degrees, rain in the forecast, no ride, and now Im The thought broke off cleanly. He stared at the parking lot, his mouth falling wide open. For one awful moment he thought he was going to wet his pants as everything below his breastbone seemed to cramp and squeeze. Sitting in one of the twenty or so slant parking spaces, its deep green surface now dulled with roaddirt, was Uncle Morgans BMW. No chance of a mistake; no chance at all. California vanity plates MLS, standing for Morgan Luther Sloat. It looked as if it had been driven fast and hard. But if he flew to New Hampshire, how can his car be here? Jacks mind yammered. Its a coincidence, Jack, just a Then he saw the man standing with his back to him at the pay telephone and knew it was no coincidence. He was wearing a bulky Armystyle anorak, furlined, a garment more suited to five below than to fifty degrees. Backto or not, there was no mistaking those broad shoulders and that big, loose, hulking frame. The man at the phone started to turn around, crooking the phone between his ear and shoulder. Jack drew back against the brick side of the mens toilet. Did he see me? No, he answered himself. No, I dont think so. But But Captain Farren had said that Morganthat other Morganwould smell him like a cat smells a rat, and so he had. From his hiding place in that dangerous forest, Jack had seen the hideous white face in the window of the diligence change. This Morgan would smell him, too. If given the time. Footfalls around the corner, approaching. Face numb and twisted with fear, Jack fumbled off his pack and then dropped it, knowing he was too late, too slow, that Morgan would come around the corner and seize him by the neck, smiling. Hi, Jacky! Alleealleeinfree! Games over now, isnt it, you little prick? A tall man in a houndstoothcheck jacket passed the corner of the restroom, gave Jack a disinterested glance, and went to the drinking fountain. Going back. He was going back. There was no guilt, at least not now; only that terrible trapped fear mingling oddly with feelings of relief and pleasure. Jack fumbled his pack open. Here was Speedys bottle, with less than an inch of the purple liquid now left (no boy needs dat poison to travel with but I do Speedy I do!) sloshing around in the bottom. No matter. He was going back. His heart leaped at the thought. A big Saturdaynight grin dawned on his face, denying both the gray day and the fear in his heart. Going back, oh yeah, dig it. More footsteps approaching, and this was Uncle Morgan, no doubt about that heavy yet somehow mincing step. But the fear was gone. Uncle Morgan had smelled something, but when he turned the corner he would see nothing but empty Dorito bags and crimped beercans. Jack pulled in breathpulled in the greasy stink of diesel fumes and car exhausts and cold autumn air. Tipped the bottle up to his lips. Took one of the two swallows left. And even with his eyes shut he squinted as 16 Wolf 1 the strong sunlight struck his closed lids. Through the gaggingsweet odor of the magic juice he could smell something else . . . the warm smell of animals. He could hear them, too, moving all about him. Frightened, Jack opened his eyes but at first could see nothingthe difference in the light was so sudden and abrupt that it was as if someone had suddenly turned on a cluster of twohundredwatt bulbs in a black room. A warm, hidecovered flank brushed him, not in a threatening way (or so Jack hoped), but most definitely in an Iminahurrytobegonethankyouverymuch way. Jack, who had been getting up, thumped back to the ground again. Hey! Hey! Get away from im! Right here and right now! A loud, healthy whack followed by a disgruntled animal sound somewhere between a moo and a baa. Gods nails! Got no sense! Get away from im fore I bite your Godpounding eyes out! Now his eyes had adjusted enough to the brightness of this almost flawless Territories autumn day to make out a young giant standing in the middle of a herd of milling animals, whacking their sides and slightly humped backs with what appeared to be great gusto and very little real force. Jack sat up, automatically finding Speedys bottle with its one precious swallow left and putting it away. He never took his eyes from the young man who stood with his back to him. Tall he wassixfive at least, Jack guessedand with shoulders so broad that his across still looked slightly out of proportion to his high. Long, greasy black hair shagged down his back to the shoulder blades. Muscles bulged and rippled as he moved amid the animals, which looked like pygmy cows. He was driving them away from Jack and toward the Western Road. He was a striking figure, even when seen from behind, but what amazed Jack was his dress. Everyone he had seen in the Territories (including himself) had been wearing tunics, jerkins, or rough breeches. This fellow appeared to be wearing Oshkosh bib overalls. Then he turned around and Jack felt a horrible shocked dismay well up in his throat. He shot to his feet. It was the Elroything. The herdsman was the Elroything. 2 Except it wasnt. Jack perhaps would not have lingered to see that, and everything that happened thereafterthe movie theater, the shed, and the hell of the Sunlight Homewould not have happened (or would, at the very least, have happened in some completely different way), but in the extremity of his terror he froze completely after getting up. He was no more able to run than a deer is when it is frozen in a hunters jacklight. As the figure in the bib overalls approached, he thought Elroy wasnt that tall or that broad. And his eyes were yellowThe eyes of this creature were a bright, impossible shade of orange. Looking into them was like looking into the eyes of a Halloween pumpkin. And while Elroys grin had promised madness and murder, the smile on this fellows face was large and cheerful and harmless. His feet were bare, huge, and spatulate, the toes clumped into groups of three and two, barely visible through curls of wiry hair. Not hooflike, as Elroys had been, Jack realized, halfcrazed with surprise, fear, a dawning amusement, but padlikepawlike. As he closed the distance between himself and Jack, (his? its?) eyes flared an even brighter orange, going for a moment to the DayGlo shade favored by hunters and flagmen on roadrepair jobs. The color faded to a muddy hazel. As it did, Jack saw that his smile was puzzled as well as friendly, and understood two things at once first, that there was no harm in this fellow, not an ounce of it, and second, that he was slow. Not feeble, perhaps, but slow. Wolf! the big, hairy boybeast cried, grinning. His tongue was long and pointed, and Jack thought with a shudder that a wolf was exactly what he looked like. Not a goat but a wolf. He hoped he was right about there not being any harm in him. But if I made a mistake about that, at least I wont have to worry about making any more mistakes . . . ever again. Wolf! Wolf! He stuck out one hand, and Jack saw that, like his feet, his hands were covered with hair, although this hair was finer and more luxuriantactually quite handsome. It grew especially thick in the palms, where it was the soft white of a blaze on a horses forehead. My God I think he wants to shake hands with me! Gingerly, thinking of Uncle Tommy, who had told him he must never refuse a handshake, not even with his worst enemy (Fight him to the death afterward if you must, but shake his hand first, Uncle Tommy had said), Jack put his own hand out, wondering if it was about to be crushed . . . or perhaps eaten. Wolf! Wolf! Shakin hands right here and now! the boything in the Oshkosh biballs cried, delighted. Right here and now! Good old Wolf! Godpound it! Right here and now! Wolf! In spite of this enthusiasm, Wolfs grip was gentle enough, cushioned by the crisp, furry growth of hair on his hand. Bib overalls and a big handshake from a guy who looks like an overgrown Siberian husky and smells a little bit like a hayloft after a heavy rain, Jack thought. What next? An offer to come to his church this Sunday? Good old Wolf, you bet! Good old Wolf right here and now! Wolf wrapped his arms around his huge chest and laughed, delighted with himself. Then he grabbed Jacks hand again. This time his hand was pumped vigorously up and down. Something seemed required of him at his point, Jack reflected. Otherwise, this pleasant if rather simple young man might go on shaking his hand until sundown. Good old Wolf, he said. It seemed to be a phrase of which his new acquaintance was particularly fond. Wolf laughed like a child and dropped Jacks hand. This was something of a relief. The hand had been neither crushed nor eaten, but it did feel a bit seasick. Wolf had a faster pump than a slotmachine player on a hot streak. Stranger, aintcha? Wolf asked. He stuffed his hairy hands into the slit sides of his biballs and began playing pocketpool with a complete lack of selfconsciousness. Yes, Jack said, thinking of what that word meant over here. It had a very specific meaning over here. Yes, I guess thats just what I am. A stranger. Godpounding right! I can smell it on you! Right here and now, oh yeah, oh boy! Got it! Doesnt smell bad, you know, but it sure is funny. Wolf! Thats me. Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! He threw back his head and laughed. The sound ended being something that was disconcertingly like a howl. Jack, Jack said. Jack Saw His hand was seized again and pumped with abandon. Sawyer, he finished, when he was released again. He smiled, feeling very much as though someone had hit him with a great big goofystick. Five minutes ago he had been standing scrunched against the cold brick side of a shithouse on I70. Now he was standing here talking to a young fellow who seemed to be more animal than man. And damned if his cold wasnt completely gone. 3 Wolf meet Jack! Jack meet Wolf! Here and now! Okay! Good! Oh, Jason! Cows in the road! Aint they stupid! Wolf! Wolf! Yelling, Wolf loped down the hill to the road, where about half of his herd was standing, looking around with expressions of bland surprise, as if to ask where the grass had gone. They really did look like some strange cross between cows and sheep, Jack saw, and wondered what you would call such a crossbreed. The only word to come immediately to mind was creepsor perhaps, he thought, the singular would be more proper in this case, as in Heres Wolf taking care of his flock of creep. Oh yeah. Right here and now. The goofystick came down on Jacks head again. He sat down and began to giggle, his hands crisscrossed over his mouth to stifle the sounds. Even the biggest creep stood no more than four feet high. Their fur was woolly, but of a muddy shade that was similar to Wolfs eyesat least, when Wolfs eyes werent blazing like Halloween jackolanterns. Their heads were topped with short, squiggly horns that looked good for absolutely nothing. Wolf herded them back out of the road. They went obediently, with no sign of fear. If a cow or a sheep on my side of the jump got a whiff of that guy, Jack thought, itd kill itself trying to get out of his way. But Jack liked Wolfliked him on sight, just as he had feared and disliked Elroy on sight. And that contrast was particularly apt, because the comparison between the two was undeniable. Except that Elroy had been goatish while Wolf was . . . well, wolfish. Jack walked slowly toward where Wolf had set his herd to graze. He remembered tiptoeing down the stinking back hall of the Oatley Tap toward the firedoor, sensing Elroy somewhere near, smelling him, perhaps, as a cow on the other side would undoubtedly smell Wolf. He remembered the way Elroys hands had begun to twist and thicken, the way his neck had swelled, the way his teeth had become a mouthful of blackening fangs. Wolf? Wolf turned and looked at him, smiling. His eyes flared a bright orange and looked for a moment both savage and intelligent. Then the glow faded and they were only that muddy, perpetually puzzled hazel again. Are you . . . sort of a werewolf? Sure am, Wolf said, smiling. You pounded that nail, Jack. Wolf! Jack sat down on a rock, looking at Wolf thoughtfully. He believed it would be impossible for him to be further surprised than he had already been, but Wolf managed the trick quite nicely. Hows your father, Jack? he asked, in that casual, bytheway tone reserved for enquiring after the relatives of others. Hows Phil doing these days? Wolf! 4 Jack made a queerly apt crossassociation he felt as if all the wind had been knocked out of his mind. For a moment it just sat there in his head, not a thought in it, like a radio station broadcasting nothing but a carrier wave. Then he saw Wolfs face change. The expression of happiness and childish curiosity was replaced by one of sorrow. Jack saw that Wolfs nostrils were flaring rapidly. Hes dead, isnt he? Wolf! Im sorry, Jack. God pound me! Im stupid! Stupid! Wolf crashed a hand into his forehead and this time he really did howl. It was a sound that chilled Jacks blood. The herd of creep looked around uneasily. Thats all right, Jack said. He heard his voice more in his ears than in his head, as if someone else had spoken. But . . . how did you know? Your smell changed, Wolf said simply. I knew he was dead because it was in your smell. Poor Phil! What a good guy! Tell you that right here and now, Jack! Your father was a good guy! Wolf! Yes, Jack said, he was. But how did you know him? And how did you know he was my father? Wolf looked at Jack as though he had asked a question so simple it barely needed answering. I remember his smell, of course. Wolfs remember all smells. You smell just like him. Whack! The goofystick came down on his head again. Jack felt an urge to just roll back and forth on the tough, springy turf, holding his gut and howling. People had told him he had his fathers eyes and his fathers mouth, even his fathers knack for quicksketching, but never before had he been told that he smelled like his father. Yet he supposed the idea had a certain crazy logic, at that. How did you know him? Jack asked again. Wolf looked at a loss. He came with the other one, he said at last. The one from Orris. I was just little. The other one was bad. The other one stole some of us. Your father didnt know, he added hastily, as if Jack had shown anger. Wolf! No! He was good, your father. Phil. The other one . . . Wolf shook his head slowly. On his face was an expression even more simple than his pleasure. It was the memory of some childhood nightmare. Bad, Wolf said. He made himself a place in this world, my father says. Mostly he was in his Twinner, but he was from your world. We knew he was bad, we could tell, but who listens to Wolfs? No one. Your father knew he was bad, but he couldnt smell him as good as we could. He knew he was bad, but not how bad. And Wolf threw his head back and howled again, a long, chilly ululation of sorrow that resounded against the deep blue sky. Interlude Sloat in This World (II) From the pocket of his bulky parka (he had bought it convinced that from the Rockies east, America was a frigid wasteland after October 1st or sonow he was sweating rivers), Morgan Sloat took a small steel box. Below the latch were ten small buttons and an oblong of cloudy yellow glass a quarter of an inch high and two inches long. He pushed several of the buttons carefully with the fingernail of his lefthand pinky, and a series of numbers appeared briefly in the readout window. Sloat had bought this gadget, billed as the worlds smallest safe, in Zurich. According to the man who had sold it to him, not even a week in a crematory oven would breach its carbonsteel integrity. Now it clicked open. Sloat folded back two tiny wings of ebony jewelers velvet, revealing something he had had for well over twenty yearssince long before the odious little brat who was causing all this trouble had been born. It was a tarnished tin key, and once it had gone into the back of a mechanical toy soldier. Sloat had seen the toy soldier in the window of a junkshop in the odd little town of Point Venuti, Californiaa town in which he had great interest. Acting under a compulsion much too strong to deny (he hadnt even wanted to deny it, not really; he had always made a virtue of compulsion, had Morgan Sloat), he had gone in and paid five dollars for the dusty, dented soldier . . . and it wasnt the soldier he had wanted, anyway. It was the key that had caught his eye and then whispered to him. He had removed the key from the soldiers back and pocketed it as soon as he was outside the junkshop door. The soldier itself he threw in a litterbasket outside the Dangerous Planet Bookstore. Now, as Sloat stood beside his car in the Lewisburg rest area, he held the key up and looked at it. Like Jacks croaker, the tin key became something else in the Territories. Once, when coming back, he had dropped that key in the lobby of the old office building. And there must have been some Territories magic left in it, because that idiot Jerry Bledsoe had gotten himself fried not an hour later. Had Jerry picked it up? Stepped on it, perhaps? Sloat didnt know and didnt care. Nor had he cared a tinkers damn about Jerryand considering the handyman had had an insurance policy specifying double indemnity for accidental death (the buildings super, with whom Sloat sometimes shared a hashpipe, had passed this little tidbit on to him), Sloat imagined that Nita Bledsoe had done nipupsbut he had been nearly frantic about the loss of his key. It was Phil Sawyer who had found it, giving it back to him with no comment other than Here, Morg. Your lucky charm, isnt it? Must have a hole in your pocket. I found it in the lobby after they took poor old Jerry away. Yes, in the lobby. In the lobby where everything smelled like the motor of a Waring Blender that had been running continuously on Hi Speed for about nine hours. In the lobby where everything had been blackened and twisted and fused. Except for this humble tin key. Which, in the other world, was a queer kind of lightningrodand which Sloat now hung around his neck on a fine silver chain. Coming for you, Jacky, said Sloat in a voice that was almost tender. Time to bring this entire ridiculous business to a crashing halt. 17 Wolf and the Herd 1 Wolf talked of many things, getting up occasionally to shoo his cattle out of the road and once to move them to a stream about half a mile to the west. When Jack asked him where he lived, Wolf only waved his arm vaguely northward. He lived, he said, with his family. When Jack asked for clarification a few minutes later, Wolf looked surprised and said he had no mate and no childrenthat he would not come into what he called the big rutmoon for another year or two. That he looked forward to the big rutmoon was quite obvious from the innocently lewd grin that overspread his face. But you said you lived with your family. Oh, family! Them! Wolf! Wolf laughed. Sure. Them! We all live together. Have to keep the cattle, you know. Her cattle. The Queens? Yes. May she never, never die. And Wolf made an absurdly touching salute, bending briefly forward with his right hand touching his forehead. Further questioning straightened the matter out somewhat in Jacks mind . . . at least, he thought it did. Wolf was a bachelor (although that word barely fit, somehow). The family of which he spoke was a hugely extended oneliterally, the Wolf family. They were a nomadic but fiercely loyal race that moved back and forth in the great empty areas east of the Outposts but west of The Settlements, by which Wolf seemed to mean the towns and villages of the east. Wolfs (never Wolveswhen Jack once used the proper plural, Wolf had laughed until tears spurted from the corners of his eyes) were solid, dependable workers, for the most part. Their strength was legendary, their courage unquestioned. Some of them had gone east into The Settlements, where they served the Queen as guards, soldiers, even as personal bodyguards. Their lives, Wolf explained to Jack, had only two great touchstones the Lady and the family. Most of the Wolfs, he said, served the Lady as he didwatching the herds. The cowsheep were the Territories primary source of meat, cloth, tallow, and lampoil (Wolf did not tell Jack this, but Jack inferred it from what he said). All the cattle belonged to the Queen, and the Wolf family had been watching over them since time out of mind. It was their job. In this Jack found an oddly persuasive correlative to the relationship that had existed between the buffalo and the Indians of the American Plains . . . at least until the white man had come into those territories and upset the balance. Behold, and the lion shall lie down with the lamb, and the Wolf with the creep, Jack murmured, and smiled. He was lying on his back with his hands laced behind his head. The most marvellous feeling of peace and ease had stolen over him. What, Jack? Nothing, he said. Wolf, do you really change into an animal when the moon gets full? Course I do! Wolf said. He looked astounded, as if Jack had asked him something like Wolf, do you really pull up your pants after you finish taking a crap? Strangers dont, do they? Phil told me that. The, ah, herd, Jack said. When you change, do they Oh, we dont go near the herd when we change, Wolf said seriously. Good Jason, no! Wed eat them, dont you know that? And a Wolf who eats of his herd must be put to death. The Book of Good Farming says so. Wolf! Wolf! We have places to go when the moon is full. So does the herd. Theyre stupid, but they know they have to go away at the time of the big moon. Wolf! They better know, God pound them! But you do eat meat, dont you? Jack asked. Full of questions, just like your father, Wolf said. Wolf! I dont mind. Yeah, we eat meat. Of course we do. Were Wolfs, arent we? But if you dont eat from the herds, what do you eat? We eat well, Wolf said, and would say no more on that subject. Like everything else in the Territories, Wolf was a mysterya mystery that was both gorgeous and frightening. The fact that he had known both Jacks father and Morgan Sloathad, at least, met their Twinners on more than one occasioncontributed to Wolfs particular aura of mystery, but did not define it completely. Everything Wolf told him led Jack to a dozen more questions, most of which Wolf couldntor wouldntanswer. The matter of Philip Sawtelles and Orriss visits was a case in point. They had first appeared when Wolf was in the little moon and living with his mother and two littersisters. They were apparently just passing through, as Jack himself was now doing, only they had been heading east instead of west (Tell you the truth, youre just about the only human Ive ever seen this far west who was still going west, Wolf said). They had been jolly enough company, both of them. It was only later that there had been trouble . . . trouble with Orris. That had been after the partner of Jacks father had made himself a place in this world, Wolf told Jack again and againonly now he seemed to mean Sloat, in the physical guise of Orris. Wolf said that Morgan had stolen one of his littersisters (My mother bit her hands and toes for a month after she knew for certain that he took her, Wolf told Jack matteroffactly) and had taken other Wolfs from time to time. Wolf dropped his voice and, with an expression of fear and superstitious awe on his face, told Jack that the limping man had taken some of these Wolfs into the other world, the Place of the Strangers, and had taught them to eat of the herd. Thats very bad for guys like you, isnt it? Jack asked. Theyre damned, Wolf replied simply. Jack had thought at first that Wolf was speaking of kidnappingthe verb Wolf had used in connection with his littersister, after all, was the Territories version of take. He began to see now that kidnapping wasnt what was going on at allunless Wolf, with unconscious poetry, had been trying to say that Morgan had kidnapped the minds of some of the Wolf family. Jack now thought that Wolf was really talking about werewolves who had thrown over their ancient allegiance to the Crown and the herd and had given it to Morgan instead . . . Morgan Sloat and Morgan of Orris. Which led naturally enough to thoughts of Elroy. A Wolf who eats of his herd must be put to death. To thoughts of the men in the green car who had stopped to ask him directions, and offered him a Tootsie Roll, and who had then tried to pull him into their car. The eyes. The eyes had changed. Theyre damned. He made himself a place in this world. Until now he had felt both safe and delighted delighted to be back in the Territories where there was a nip in the air but nothing like the dull, cold gray bite of western Ohio, safe with big, friendly Wolf beside him, way out in the country, miles from anything or anyone. Made himself a place in this world. He asked Wolf about his fatherPhilip Sawtelle in this worldbut Wolf only shook his head. He had been a Godpounding good guy, and a Twinnerthus obviously a Strangerbut that was all Wolf seemed to know. Twinners, he said, was something that had something to do with litters of people, and about such business he could not presume to say. Nor could he describe Philip Sawtellehe didnt remember. He only remembered the smell. All he knew, he told Jack, was that, while both of the Strangers had seemed nice, only Phil Sawyer had really been nice. Once he had brought presents for Wolf and his littersisters and litterbrothers. One of the presents, unchanged from the world of the Strangers, had been a set of bib overalls for Wolf. I wore em all the time, Wolf said. My mother wanted to throw em away after Id wore em for five years or so. Said they were worn out! Said I was too big for them! Wolf! Said they were only patches holding more patches together. I wouldnt give em up, though. Finally, she bought some cloth from a drummer headed out toward the Outposts. I dont know how much she paid, and Wolf! Ill tell you the truth, Jack, Im afraid to ask. She dyed it blue and made me six pairs. The ones your father brought me, I sleep on them now. Wolf! Wolf! Its my Godpounding pillow, I guess. Wolf smiled so openlyand yet so wistfullythat Jack was moved to take his hand. It was something he never could have done in his old life, no matter what the circumstances, but that now seemed like his loss. He was glad to take Wolfs warm, strong hand. Im glad you liked my dad, Wolf, he said. I did! I did! Wolf! Wolf! And then all hell broke loose. 2 Wolf stopped talking and looked around, startled. Wolf? Whats wr Shhhh! Then Jack heard it. Wolfs more sensitive ears had picked the sound up first, but it swelled quickly; before long, a deaf man would have heard it, Jack thought. The cattle looked around and then began to move away from the source of the sound in a rough, uneasy clot. It was like a radio soundeffect where someone is supposed to be ripping a bedsheet down the middle, very slowly. Only the volume kept going up and up and up until Jack thought he was going to go crazy. Wolf leaped to his feet, looking stunned and confused and frightened. That ripping sound, a low, ragged purr, continued to grow. The bleating of the cattle became louder. Some were backing into the stream, and as Jack looked that way he saw one go down with a splash and a clumsy flailing of legs. It had been pushed over by its milling, retreating comrades. It let out a shrill, baaaing cry. Another cowsheep stumbled over it and was likewise trampled into the water by the slow retreat. The far side of the stream was low and wet, green with reeds, muddymarshy. The cowsheep who first reached this muck quickly became mired in it. Oh you Godpounding goodfornothing cattle! Wolf bellowed, and charged down the hill toward the stream, where the first animal to fall over now looked as if it were in its deaththroes. Wolf! Jack shouted, but Wolf couldnt hear him. Jack could barely hear himself over that ragged ripping sound. He looked a little to the right, on this side of the stream, and gaped with amazement. Something was happening to the air. A patch of it about three feet off the ground was rippling and blistering, seeming to twist and pull at itself. Jack could see the Western Road through this patch of air, but the road seemed blurry and shimmery, as if seen through the heated, rippling air over an incinerator. Somethings pulling the air open like a woundsomethings coming throughfrom our side? Oh Jason, is that what I do when I come through? But even in his own panic and confusion he knew it was not. Jack had a good idea who would come through like this, like a rape in progress. Jack began to run down the hill. 3 The ripping sound went on and on and on. Wolf was down on his knees in the stream, trying to help the second downed animal to its feet. The first floated limply downstream, its body tattered and mangled.

Get up! God pound you, get up! Wolf! Wolf shoved and slapped as best he could at the cowsheep who milled and backed into him, then got both arms around the drowning animals midriff and pulled upward. WOLF! HERE AND NOW! he screamed. The sleeves of his shirt split wide open along the biceps, reminding Jack of David Banner having one of the gammarayinspired tantrums that turned him into The Incredible Hulk. Water sprayed everywhere and Wolf lurched to his feet, eyes blazing orange, blue overalls now soaked black. Water streamed from the nostrils of the animal, which Wolf held clutched against his chest as if it were an overgrown puppy. Its eyes were turned up to sticky whites. Wolf! Jack screamed. Its Morgan! Its The herd! Wolf screamed back. Wolf! Wolf! My Godpounding herd! Jack! Dont try The rest was drowned out by a grinding clap of thunder that shook the earth. For a moment the thunder even covered that maddening, monotonous ripping sound. Almost as confused as Wolfs cattle, Jack looked up and saw a clear blue sky, innocent of clouds save for a few puffy white ones that were miles away. The thunder ignited outright panic in Wolfs herd. They tried to bolt, but in their exquisite stupidity, many of them tried to do it by backing up. They crashed and splashed and were rolled underwater. Jack heard the bitter snap of a breaking bone, followed by the baaaaing scream of an animal in pain. Wolf bellowed in rage, dropped the cowsheep he had been trying to save, and floundered toward the muddy far bank of the stream. Before he could get there, half a dozen cattle struck him and bore him down. Water splashed and flew in thin, bright sprays. Now, Jack saw, Wolf was the one in danger of being simultaneously trampled and drowned by the stupid, fleeing animals. Jack pushed into the stream, which was now dark with roiling mud. The current tried continually to push him offbalance. A bleating cowsheep, its eyes rolling madly, splashed past him, almost knocking him down. Water sprayed into his face and Jack tried to wipe it out of his eyes. Now that sound seemed to fill the whole world RRRRRIIIPPPP Wolf. Never mind Morgan, at least not for the moment. Wolf was in trouble. His shaggy, drenched head was momentarily visible above the water, and then three of the animals ran right over him and Jack could only see one waving, furcovered hand. He pushed forward again, trying to weave through the cattle, some still up, others floundering and drowning underfoot. Jack! a voice bellowed over that ripping noise. It was a voice Jack knew. Uncle Morgans voice. Jack! There was another clap of thunder, this one a huge oaken thud that rolled through the sky like an artillery shell. Panting, his soaked hair hanging in his eyes, Jack looked over his shoulder . . . and directly into the rest area on I70 near Lewisburg, Ohio. He was seeing it as if through ripply, badly made glass . . . but he was seeing it. The edge of the brick toilet was on the left side of that blistered, tortured patch of air. The snout of what looked like a Chevrolet pickup truck was on the right, floating three feet above the field where he and Wolf had been sitting peacefully and talking not five minutes ago. And in the center, looking like an extra in a film about Admiral Byrds assault on the South Pole, was Morgan Sloat, his thick red face twisted with murderous rage. Rage, and something else. Triumph? Yes. Jack thought that was what it was. He stood at midstream in water that was crotchdeep, cattle passing on either side of him, baaing and bleating, staring at that window which had been torn in the very fabric of reality, his eyes wide, his mouth wider. Hes found me, oh dear God, hes found me. There you are, you little shithead! Morgan bellowed at him. His voice carried, but it had a muffled, dead quality as it came from the reality of that world into the reality of this one. It was like listening to a man shout inside a telephone booth. Now well see, wont we? Wont we? Morgan started forward, his face swimming and rippling as if made of limp plastic, and Jack had time to see there was something clutched in his hand, something hung around his neck, something small and silvery. Jack stood, paralyzed, as Sloat bulled his way through the hole between the two universes. As he came he did his own werewolf number, changing from Morgan Sloat, investor, land speculator, and sometime Hollywood agent, into Morgan of Orris, pretender to the throne of a dying Queen. His flushed, hanging jowls thinned. The color faded out of them. His hair renewed itself, growing forward, first tinting the rondure of his skull, as if some invisible being were coloring Uncle Morgans head, then covering it. The hair of Sloats Twinner was long, black, flapping, somehow deadlooking. It had been tied at the nape of his neck, Jack saw, but most of it had come loose. The parka wavered, disappeared for a moment, then came back as a cloak and hood. Morgan Sloats suede boots became dark leather kneeboots, their tops turned down, what might have been the hilt of a knife poking out of one. And the small silver thing in his hand had turned to a small rod tipped with crawling blue fire. Its a lightningrod. Oh Jesus, its a Jack! The cry was low, gargling, full of water. Jack whirled clumsily around in the stream, barely avoiding another cowsheep, this one floating on its side, dead in the water. He saw Wolfs head going down again, both hands waving. Jack fought his way toward those hands, still dodging the cattle as best he could. One of them bunted his hip hard and Jack went over, inhaling water. He got up again quick, coughing and choking, one hand feeling inside his jerkin for the bottle, afraid it might have washed away. It was still there. Boy! Turn around and look at me, boy! No time just now, Morgan. Sorry, but Ive got to see if I can avoid getting drowned by Wolfs herd before I see if I can avoid getting fried by your doomstick there. I Blue fire arched over Jacks shoulder, sizzlingit was like a deadly electric rainbow. It struck one of the cowsheep caught in the reedy muck on the other side of the stream and the unfortunate beast simply exploded, as if it had swallowed dynamite. Blood flew in a needlespray of droplets. Gobbets of flesh began to rain down around Jack. Turn and look at me, boy! He could feel the force of that command, gripping his face with invisible hands, trying to turn it. Wolf struggled up again, his hair plastered against his face, his dazed eyes peering through a curtain of it like the eyes of an English sheepdog. He was coughing and staggering, seemingly no longer aware of where he was. Wolf! Jack screamed, but thunder exploded across the blue sky again, drowning him out. Wolf bent over and retched up a great muddy sheet of water. A moment later another of the terrified cowsheep struck him and bore him under again. Thats it, Jack thought despairingly. Thats it, hes gone, must be, let him go, get out of here But he struggled on toward Wolf, pushing a dying, weakly convulsing cowsheep out of his way to get there. Jason! Morgan of Orris screamed, and Jack realized that Morgan was not cursing in the Territories argot; he was calling his, Jacks, name. Only here he was not Jack. Here he was Jason. But the Queens son died an infant, died, he The wet, sizzling zap of electricity again, seeming almost to part his hair. Again it struck the other bank, this time vaporizing one of Wolfs cattle. No, Jack saw, at least not utterly. The animals legs were still there, mired in the mud like shakepoles. As he watched, they began to sag tiredly outward in four different directions. TURN AND LOOK AT ME, GOD POUND YOU! The water, why doesnt he throw it at the water, fry me, Wolf, all these animals at the same time? Then his fifthgrade science came back to him. Once electricity went to water, it could go anywhere . . . including back to the generator of the current. Wolfs dazed face, floating underwater, drove these thoughts from Jacks flying mind. Wolf was still alive, but partially pinned under a cowsheep, which, although apparently unhurt, had frozen in panic. Wolfs hands waved with pathetic, flagging energy. As Jack closed the last of the distance, one of those hands dropped and simply floated, limp as a waterlily. Without slowing, Jack lowered his left shoulder and hit the cowsheep like Jack Armstrong in a boys sports story. If it had been a fullsized cow instead of a Territories compact model, Jack would probably not have budged it, not with the streams fairly stiff current working against him. But it was smaller than a cow, and Jack was pumped up. It bawled when Jack hit it, floundered backward, sat briefly on its haunches, and then lunged for the far bank. Jack grabbed Wolfs hands and pulled with all of his might. Wolf came up as reluctantly as a waterlogged treetrunk, his eyes now glazed and halfclosed, water streaming from his ears and nose and mouth. His lips were blue. Twin forks of lightning blazed to the right and left of where Jack stood holding Wolf, the two of them looking like a pair of drunks trying to waltz in a swimming pool. On the far bank, another cowsheep flew in all directions, its severed head still bawling. Hot rips of fire zigzagged through the marshy area, lighting the reeds on the tussocks and then finding the drier grass of the field where the land began to rise again. Wolf! Jack screamed. Wolf, for Christs sake! Auh, Wolf moaned, and vomited warm muddy water over Jacks shoulder. Auhhhhhhhhhhh . . . Now Jack saw Morgan standing on the other bank, a tall, Puritanical figure in his black cloak. His hood framed his pallid, vampirelike face with a kind of cheerless romance. Jack had time to think that the Territories had worked their magic even here, on behalf of his dreadful uncle. Over here, Morgan was not an overweight, hypertensive actuarial toad with piracy in his heart and murder in his mind; over here, his face had narrowed and found a frigid masculine beauty. He pointed the silver rod like a toy magic wand, and blue fire tore the air open. Now you and your dumb friend! Morgan screamed. His thin lips split in a triumphant grin, revealing sunken yellow teeth that spoiled Jacks blurred impression of beauty once and forever. Wolf screamed and jerked in Jacks aching arms. He was staring at Morgan, his eyes orange and bulging with hate and fear. You, devil! Wolf screamed. You, devil! My sister! My littersister! Wolf! Wolf! You, devil! Jack pulled the bottle out of his jerkin. There was a single swallow left anyway. He couldnt hold Wolf up with his one arm; he was losing him, and Wolf seemed unable to support himself. Didnt matter. Couldnt take him back through into the other world anyway . . . or could he? You, devil! Wolf screamed, weeping, his wet face sliding down Jacks arm. The back of his bib overalls floated and belled in the water. Smell of burning grass and burning animals. Thunder, exploding. This time the river of fire in the air rushed by Jack so close that the hairs in his nostrils singed and curled. OH YES, BOTH OF YOU, BOTH OF YOU! Morgan howled. ILL TEACH YOU TO GET IN MY WAY, YOU LITTLE BASTARD! ILL BURN BOTH OF YOU! ILL POUND YOU DOWN! Wolf, hold on! Jack yelled. He gave up his effort to hold Wolf up; instead, he snatched Wolfs hand in his own and held it as tightly as he could. Hold on to me, do you hear? Wolf! He tipped the bottle up, and the awful cold taste of rotted grapes filled his mouth for the last time. The bottle was empty. As he swallowed, he heard it shatter as one of Morgans bolts of lightning struck it. But the sound of the breaking glass was faint . . . the tingle of electricity . . . even Morgans screams of rage. He felt as if he were falling over backward into a hole. A grave, maybe. Then Wolfs hand squeezed down on Jacks so hard that Jack groaned. That feeling of vertigo, of having done a complete dipsydoodle, began to fade . . . and then the sunlight faded, too, and became the sad purplish gray of an October twilight in the heartland of America. Cold rain struck Jack in the face, and he was faintly aware that the water he was standing in seemed much colder than it had only seconds ago. Somewhere not far away he could hear the familiar snoring drone of the big rigs on the interstate . . . except that now they seemed to be coming from directly overhead. Impossible, he thought, but was it? The bounds of that word seemed to be stretching with plastic ease. For one dizzy moment he had an image of flying Territories trucks driven by flying Territories men with big canvas wings strapped to their backs. Back, he thought. Back again, same time, same turnpike. He sneezed. Same cold, too. But two things were not the same now. No rest area here. They were standing thighdeep in the icy water of a stream beneath a turnpike overpass. Wolf was with him. That was the other change. And Wolf was screaming. 18 Wolf Goes to the Movies 1 Overhead, another truck pounded across the overpass, big diesel engine bellowing. The overpass shook. Wolf wailed and clutched at Jack, almost knocking them both into the water. Quit it! Jack shouted. Let go of me, Wolf! Its just a truck! Let go! He slapped at Wolf, not wanting to do itWolfs terror was pathetic. But, pathetic or not, Wolf had the best part of a foot and maybe a hundred and fifty pounds on Jack, and if he overbore him, they would both go into this freezing water and it would be pneumonia for sure. Wolf! Dont like it! Wolf! Dont like it! Wolf! Wolf! But his hold slackened. A moment later his arms dropped to his sides. When another truck snored by overhead, Wolf cringed but managed to keep from grabbing Jack again. But he looked at Jack with a mute, trembling appeal that said Get me out of this, please get me out of this, Id rather be dead than in this world. Nothing Id like better, Wolf, but Morgans over there. Even if he werent, I dont have the magic juice anymore. He looked down at his left hand and saw he was holding the jagged neck of Speedys bottle, like a man getting ready to do some serious barroom brawling. Just dumb luck Wolf hadnt gotten a bad cut when he grabbed Jack in his terror. Jack tossed it away. Splash. Two trucks this timethe noise was doubled. Wolf howled in terror and plastered his hands over his ears. Jack could see that most of the hair had disappeared from Wolfs hands in the flipmost, but not all. And, he saw, the first two fingers of each of Wolfs hands were exactly the same length. Come on, Wolf, Jack said when the racket of the trucks had faded a little. Lets get out of here. We look like a couple of guys waiting to get baptized on a PTL Club special. He took Wolfs hand, and then winced at the panicky way Wolfs grip closed down. Wolf saw his expression and loosened up . . . a little. Dont leave me, Jack, Wolf said. Please, please dont leave me. No, Wolf, I wont, Jack said. He thought How do you get into these things, you asshole? Here you are, standing under a turnpike overpass somewhere in Ohio with your pet werewolf. How do you do it? Do you practice? And, oh, by the way, whats happening with the moon, JackO? Do you remember? He didnt, and with clouds blanketing the sky and a cold rain falling, there was no way to tell. What did that make the odds? Thirty to one in his favor? Twentyeight to two? Whatever the odds were, they werent good enough. Not the way things were going. No, I wont leave you, he repeated, and then led Wolf toward the far bank of the stream. In the shallows, the decayed remains of some childs dolly floated bellyup, her glassy blue eyes staring into the growing dark. The muscles of Jacks arm ached from the strain of pulling Wolf through into this world, and the joint in his shoulder throbbed like a rotted tooth. As they came out of the water onto the weedy, trashy bank, Jack began to sneeze again. 2 This time, Jacks total progress in the Territories had been half a mile westthe distance Wolf had moved his herd so they could drink in the stream where Wolf himself had later almost been drowned. Over here, he found himself ten miles farther west, as best he could figure. They struggled up the bankWolf actually ended up pulling Jack most of the wayand in the last of the daylight Jack could see an exitramp splitting off to the right some fifty yards up the road. A reflectorized sign read ARCANUM LAST EXIT IN OHIO STATE LINE 15 MILES. Weve got to hitch, Jack said. Hitch? Wolf said doubtfully. Lets have a look at you. He thought Wolf would do, at least in the dark. He was still wearing the bib overalls, which now had an actual OSHKOSH label on them. His homespun shirt had become a machineproduced blue chambray that looked like an ArmyNavy Surplus special. His formerly bare feet were clad in a huge pair of dripping penny loafers and white socks. Oddest of all, a pair of round steelrimmed spectacles of the sort John Lennon used to wear sat in the middle of Wolfs big face. Wolf, did you have trouble seeing? Over in the Territories? I didnt know I did, Wolf said. I guess so. Wolf! I sure see better over here, with these glass eyes. Wolf, right here and now! He looked out at the roaring turnpike traffic, and for just a moment Jack saw what he must be seeing great steel beasts with huge yellowwhite eyes, snarling through the night at unimaginable speeds, rubber wheels blistering the road. I see better than I want to, Wolf finished forlornly. 3 Two days later a pair of tired, footsore boys limped past the MUNICIPAL TOWN LIMITS sign on one side of Highway 32 and the 104 Diner on the other side, and thus into the city of Muncie, Indiana. Jack was running a fever of a hundred and two degrees and coughing pretty steadily. Wolfs face was swollen and discolored. He looked like a pug that has come out on the short end in a grudge match. The day before, he had tried to get them some late apples from a tree growing in the shade of an abandoned barn beside the road. He had actually been in the tree and dropping shrivelled autumn apples into the front of his overalls when the wallwasps, which had built their nest somewhere in the eaves of the old barn, had found him. Wolf had come back down the tree as fast as he could, with a brown cloud around his head. He was howling. And still, with one eye completely closed and his nose beginning to resemble a large purple turnip, he had insisted that Jack have the best of the apples. None of them was very goodsmall and sour and wormyand Jack didnt feel much like eating anyway, but after what Wolf had gone through to get them, he hadnt had the heart to refuse. A big old Camaro, jacked in the back so that the nose pointed at the road, blasted by them. Heyyyyy, assholes! someone yelled, and there was a burst of loud, beerfueled laughter. Wolf howled and clutched at Jack. Jack had thought that Wolf would eventually get over his terror of cars, but now he was really beginning to wonder. Its all right, Wolf, he said wearily, peeling Wolfs arms off for the twentieth or thirtieth time that day. Theyre gone. So loud! Wolf moaned. Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! So loud, Jack, my ears, my ears! Glasspack muffler, Jack said, thinking wearily Youd love the California freeways, Wolf. Well check those out if were still travelling together, okay? Then well try a few stockcar races and motorcycle scrambles. Youll be nuts about them. Some guys like the sound, you know. They But he went into another coughing fit that doubled him over. For a moment the world swam away in gray shades. It came back very, very slowly. Like it, Wolf muttered. Jason! How could anyone like it, Jack? And the smells . . . Jack knew that, for Wolf, the smells were the worst. They hadnt been over here four hours before Wolf began to call it the Country of Bad Smells. That first night Wolf had retched half a dozen times, at first throwing up muddy water from a stream which existed in another universe onto the Ohio ground, then simply dryheaving. It was the smells, he explained miserably. He didnt know how Jack could stand them, how anyone could stand them. Jack knewcoming back from the Territories, you were bowled over by odors you barely noticed when you were living with them. Diesel fuel, car exhausts, industrial wastes, garbage, bad water, ripe chemicals. Then you got used to them again. Got used to them or just went numb. Only that wasnt happening to Wolf. He hated the cars, he hated the smells, he hated this world. Jack didnt think he was ever going to get used to it. If he didnt get Wolf back into the Territories fairly soon, Jack thought he might go crazy. Hell probably drive me crazy while hes at it, Jack thought. Not that Ive got far to go anymore. A clattering farmtruck loaded with chickens ground by them, followed by an impatient line of cars, some of them honking. Wolf almost jumped into Jacks arms. Weakened by the fever, Jack reeled into the brushy, trashlittered ditch and sat down so hard his teeth clicked together. Im sorry, Jack, Wolf said miserably. God pound me! Not your fault, Jack said. Fall out. Time to take five. Wolf sat down beside Jack, remaining silent, looking at Jack anxiously. He knew how hard he was making it for Jack; he knew that Jack was in a fever to move faster, partly to outdistance Morgan, but mostly for some other reason. He knew that Jack moaned about his mother in his sleep, and sometimes cried. But the only time he had cried when awake was after Wolf went a little crazy on the Arcanum turnpike ramp. That was when he realized what Jack meant by hitching. When Wolf told Jack he didnt think he could hitch ridesat least not for a while and maybe not everJack had sat down on the top strand of guardrail cable and had wept into his hands. And then he had stopped, which was good . . . but when he took his face out of his hands, he had looked at Wolf in a way that made Wolf feel sure that Jack would leave him in this horrible Country of Bad Smells . . . and without Jack, Wolf would soon go quite mad. 4 They had walked up to the Arcanum exit in the breakdown lane, Wolf cringing and pawing at Jack each time a car or truck passed in the deepening dusk. Jack had heard a mocking voice drift back on the slipstream Wheres your car, faggots? He shook it off like a dog shaking water out of his eyes, and had simply kept going, taking Wolfs hand and pulling him after when Wolf showed signs of lagging or drifting toward the woods. The important thing was to get off the turnpike proper, where hitchhiking was forbidden, and onto the westbound Arcanum entrance ramp. Some states had legalized hitching from the ramps (or so a roadbum with whom Jack had shared a barn one night had told him), and even in states where thumbing was technically a crime, the cops would usually wink if you were on a ramp. So first, get to the ramp. Hope no state patrol happened along while you were getting there. What a state trooper might make of Wolf Jack didnt want to think about. He would probably think he had caught an eighties incarnation of Charles Manson in Lennon glasses. They made the ramp and crossed over to the westbound lane. Ten minutes later a battered old Chrysler had pulled up. The driver, a burly man with a bull neck and a cap which read CASE FARM EQUIPMENT tipped back on his head, leaned over and opened the door. Hop in, boys! Dirty night, aint it? Thanks, mister, it sure is, Jack said cheerfully. His mind was in overdrive, trying to figure out how he could work Wolf into the Story, and he barely noticed Wolfs expression. The man noticed it, however. His face hardened. You smell anything bad, son? Jack was snapped back to reality by the mans tone, which was as hard as his face. All cordiality had departed it, and he looked as if he might have just wandered into the Oatley Tap to eat a few beers and drink a few glasses. Jack whipped around and looked at Wolf. Wolfs nostrils were flaring like the nostrils of a bear which smells a blown skunk. His lips were not just pulled back from his teeth; they were wrinkled back from them, the flesh below his nose stacked in little ridges. What is he, retarded? the man in the CASE FARM EQUIPMENT hat asked Jack in a low voice. No, ah, he just Wolf began to growl. That was it. Oh, Christ, the man said in the tones of one who simply cannot believe this is happening. He stepped on the gas and roared down the exit ramp, the passenger door flopping shut. His taillights dotdashed briefly in the rainy dark at the foot of the ramp, sending reflections in smeary red arrows up the pavement toward where they stood. Boy, thats great, Jack said, and turned to Wolf, who shrank back from his anger. Thats just great! If hed had a CB radio, hed be on Channel Nineteen right now, yelling for a cop, telling anyone and everyone that there are a couple of loonies trying to hitch a ride out of Arcanum! Jason! Or Jesus! Or Whoever, I dont care! You want to see some fucking nails get pounded, Wolf? You do that a few more times and youll feel them get pounded! Us! Well get pounded! Exhausted, bewildered, frustrated, almost used up, Jack advanced on the cringing Wolf, who could have torn his head from his shoulders with one hard, swinging blow if he had wanted to, and Wolf backed up before him. Dont shout, Jack, he moaned. The smells . . . to be in there . . . shut up in there with those smells . . . I didnt smell anything! Jack shouted. His voice broke, his sore throat hurt more than ever, but he couldnt seem to stop; it was shout or go mad. His wet hair had fallen in his eyes. He shook it away and then slapped Wolf on the shoulder. There was a smart crack and his hand began to hurt at once. It was as if he had slapped a stone. Wolf howled abjectly, and this made Jack angrier. The fact that he was lying made him angrier still. He had been in the Territories less than six hours this time, but that mans car had smelled like a wild animals den. Harsh aromas of old coffee and fresh beer (there had been an open can of Strohs between his legs), an airfreshener hanging from the rearview mirror that smelled like dry sweet powder on the cheek of a corpse. And there had been something else, something darker, something wetter . . . Not anything! he shouted, his voice breaking hoarsely. He slapped Wolfs other shoulder. Wolf howled again and turned around, hunching like a child who is being beaten by an angry father. Jack began to slap at his back, his smarting hands spatting up little sprays of water from Wolfs overalls. Each time Jacks hand descended, Wolf howled. So you better get used to it (Slap!) because the next car to come along might be a cop (Slap!) or it might be Mr. Morgan Bloat in his pukegreen BMW (Slap!) and if all you can be is a big baby, were going to be in one big fucking world of hurt! (Slap!) Do you understand that? Wolf said nothing. He stood hunched in the rain, his back to Jack, quivering. Crying. Jack felt a lump rise in his own throat, felt his eyes grow hot and stinging. All of this only increased his fury. Some terrible part of him wanted most of all to hurt himself, and knew that hurting Wolf was a wonderful way to do it. Turn around! Wolf did. Tears ran from his muddy brown eyes behind the round spectacles. Snot ran from his nose. Do you understand me? Yes, Wolf moaned. Yes, I understand, but I couldnt ride with him, Jack. Why not? Jack looked at him angrily, fisted hands on his hips. Oh, his head was aching. Because he was dying, Wolf said in a low voice. Jack stared at him, all his anger draining away. Jack, didnt you know? Wolf asked softly. Wolf! You couldnt smell it? No, Jack said in a small, whistling, outofbreath voice. Because he had smelled something, hadnt he? Something he had never smelled before. Something like a mixture of . . . It came to him, and suddenly his strength was gone. He sat down heavily on the guardrail cable and looked at Wolf. Shit and rotting grapes. That was what that smell had been like. That wasnt it a hundred percent, but it was too hideously close. Shit and rotting grapes. Its the worst smell, Wolf said. Its when people forget how to be healthy. We call itWolf!the Black Disease. I dont even think he knew he had it. And . . . these Strangers cant smell it, can they, Jack? No, he whispered. If he were to be suddenly teleported back to New Hampshire, to his mothers room in the Alhambra, would he smell that stink on her? Yes. He would smell it on his mother, drifting out of her pores, the smell of shit and rotting grapes, the Black Disease. We call it cancer, Jack whispered. We call it cancer and my mother has it. I just dont know if I can hitch, Wolf said. Ill try again if you want, Jack, but the smells . . . inside . . . theyre bad enough in the outside air, Wolf! but inside . . . That was when Jack put his face in his hands and wept, partly out of desperation, mostly out of simple exhaustion. And, yes, the expression Wolf believed he had seen on Jacks face really had been there; for an instant the temptation to leave Wolf was more than a temptation, it was a maddening imperative. The odds against his ever making it to California and finding the Talismanwhatever it might behad been long before; now they were so long they dwindled to a point on the horizon. Wolf would do more than slow him down; Wolf would sooner or later get both of them thrown in jail. Probably sooner. And how could he ever explain Wolf to Rational Richard Sloat? What Wolf saw on Jacks face in that moment was a look of cold speculation that unhinged his knees. He fell on them and held his clasped hands up to Jack like a suitor in a bad Victorian melodrama. Dont go away an leave me, Jack, he wept. Dont leave old Wolf, dont leave me here, you brought me here, please, please dont leave me alone. . . . Beyond this, conscious words were lost; Wolf was perhaps trying to talk but all he really seemed able to do was sob. Jack felt a great weariness fall over him. It fit well, like a jacket that one has worn often. Dont leave me here, you brought me here . . . There it was. Wolf was his responsibility, wasnt he? Yes. Oh yes indeed. He had taken Wolf by the hand and dragged him out of the Territories and into Ohio and he had the throbbing shoulder to prove it. He had had no choice, of course; Wolf had been drowning, and even if he hadnt drowned, Morgan would have crisped him with whatever that lightningrod thing had been. So he could have turned on Wolf again, could have said Which would you prefer, Wolf old buddy? To be here and scared, or there and dead? He could, yes, and Wolf would have no answer because Wolf wasnt too swift in the brains department. But Uncle Tommy had been fond of quoting a Chinese proverb that went The man whose life you save is your responsibility for the rest of your life. Never mind the ducking, never mind the fancy footwork; Wolf was his responsibility. Dont leave me, Jack, Wolf wept. WolfWolf! Please dont leave good old Wolf, Ill help you, Ill stand guard at night, I can do lots, only dont dont Quit bawling and get up, Jack said quietly. I wont leave you. But weve got to get out of here in case that guy does send a cop back to check on us. Lets move it. 5 Did you figure out what to do next, Jack? Wolf asked timidly. They had been sitting in the brushy ditch just over the Muncie town line for more than half an hour, and when Jack turned toward Wolf, Wolf was relieved to see he was smiling. It was a weary smile, and Wolf didnt like the dark, tired circles under Jacks eyes (he liked Jacks smell even lessit was a sick smell), but it was a smile. I think I see what we should do next right over there, Jack said. I was thinking about it just a few days ago, when I got my new sneakers. He bowed his feet. He and Wolf regarded the sneakers in depressed silence. They were scuffed, battered, and dirty. The left sole was bidding a fond adieu to the left upper. Jack had owned them for . . . he wrinkled his forehead and thought. The fever made it hard to think. Three days.

Only three days since he had picked them out of the bargain bin of the Fayva store. Now they looked old. Old. Anyway . . . Jack sighed. Then he brightened. See that building over there, Wolf? The building, an explosion of uninteresting angles in gray brick, stood like an island in the middle of a giant parking lot. Wolf knew what the asphalt in that parking lot would smell like dead, decomposing animals. That smell would almost suffocate him, and Jack would barely notice it. For your information, the sign there said Town Line Sixplex, Jack said. It sounds like a coffee pot, but actually its a movie with six shows. There ought to be one we like. And in the afternoon, there wont be many people there and thats good because you have this distressing habit of going Section Eight, Wolf. Come on. He got unsteadily to his feet. Whats a movie, Jack? Wolf asked. He had been a dreadful problem to Jack, he knewsuch a dreadful problem that he now hesitated to protest about anything, or even express unease. But a frightening intuition had come to him that going to a movie and hitching a ride might be the same thing. Jack called the roaring carts and carriages cars, and Chevys, and Jartrans, and stationwagons (these latter, Wolf thought, must be like the coaches in the Territories which carried passengers from one coachstation to the next). Might the bellowing, stinking carriages also be called movies? It sounded very possible. Well, Jack said, its easier to show you than to tell you. I think youll like it. Come on. Jack stumbled coming out of the ditch and went briefly to his knees. Jack, are you okay? Wolf asked anxiously. Jack nodded. They started across the parking lot, which smelled just as bad as Wolf had known it would. 6 Jack had come a good part of the thirtyfive miles between Arcanum, Ohio, and Muncie, Indiana, on Wolfs broad back. Wolf was frightened of cars, terrified of trucks, nauseated by the smells of almost everything, apt to howl and run at sudden loud noises. But he was also almost tireless. As far as that goes, you can strike the almost, Jack thought now. So far as I know, he is tireless. Jack had moved them away from the Arcanum ramp as fast as he could, forcing his wet, aching legs into a rusty trot. His head had been throbbing like a slick, flexing fist inside his skull, waves of heat and cold rushing through him. Wolf moved easily to his left, his stride so long that he was keeping up with Jack easily by doing no more than a moderately fast walk. Jack knew that he had maybe gotten paranoid about the cops, but the man in the CASE FARM EQUIPMENT hat had looked really scared. And pissed. They hadnt gone even a quarter of a mile when a deep, burning stitch settled into his side and he asked Wolf if he could give him a piggyback for a while. Huh? Wolf asked. You know, Jack said, and pantomimed. A big grin had overspread Wolfs face. Here at last was something he understood; here was something he could do. You want a horseyback! he cried, delighted. Yeah, I guess . . . Oh, yeah! Wolf! Here and now! Used to give em to my litterbrothers! Jump up, Jack! Wolf bent down, holding his curved hands ready, stirrups for Jacks thighs. Now when I get too heavy, just put me d Before he could finish, Wolf had swept him up and was running lightly down the road with him into the darkreally running. The cold, rainy air flipped Jacks hair back from his hot brow. Wolf, youll wear yourself out! Jack shouted. Not me! Wolf! Wolf! Runnin here and now! For the first time since they had come over, Wolf sounded actually happy. He ran for the next two hours, until they were west of Arcanum and travelling along a dark, unmarked stretch of twolane blacktop. Jack saw a deserted barn standing slumped in a shaggy, untended field, and they slept there that night. Wolf wanted nothing to do with downtown areas where the traffic was a roaring flood and the stinks rose up to heaven in a noxious cloud, and Jack didnt want anything to do with them, either. Wolf stuck out too much. But he had forced one stop, at a roadside store just across the Indiana line, near Harrisville. While Wolf waited nervously out by the road, hunkering down, digging at the dirt, getting up, walking around in a stiff little circle, then hunkering again, Jack bought a newspaper and checked the weather page carefully. The next full moon was on October 31stHalloween, that was fitting enough. Jack turned back to the front page so he could see what day it was today . . . yesterday, that had been now. It had been October 26th. 7 Jack pulled open one of the glass doors and stepped inside the lobby of the Town Line Sixplex. He looked around sharply at Wolf, but Wolf lookedfor the moment, at leastpretty much okay. Wolf was, in fact, cautiously optimistic . . . at least for the moment. He didnt like being inside a building, but at least it wasnt a car. There was a good smell in herelight and sort of tasty. Or would have been, except for a bitter, almost rancid undersmell. Wolf looked left and saw a glass box full of white stuff. That was the source of the good light smell. Jack, he whispered. Huh? I want some of that white stuff, please. But none of the pee. Pee? What are you talking about? Wolf searched for a more formal word and found it. Urine. He pointed at a thing with a light going off and on inside it. BUTTERY FLAVORING, it read. Thats some kind of urine, isnt it? Its got to be, the way it smells. Jack smiled tiredly. A popcorn without the fake butter, right, he said. Now pipe down, okay? Sure, Jack, Wolf said humbly. Right here and now. The ticketgirl had been chewing a big wad of grapeflavored bubble gum. Now she stopped. She looked at Jack, then at Jacks big, hulking companion. The gum sat on her tongue inside her halfopen mouth like a large purple tumor. She rolled her eyes at the guy behind the counter. Two, please, Jack said. He took out his roll of bills, dirty, tageared ones with an orphan five hiding in the middle. Which show? Her eyes moved back and forth, back and forth, Jack to Wolf and Wolf to Jack. She looked like a woman watching a hot tabletennis match. Whats just starting? Jack asked her. Well . . . She glanced down at the paper Scotchtaped beside her. Theres The Flying Dragon in Cinema Four. Its a kungfu movie with Chuck Norris. Back and forth went her eyes, back and forth, back and forth. Then, in Cinema Six, theres a double feature. Two Ralph Bakshi cartoons. Wizards and The Lord of the Rings. Jack felt relieved. Wolf was nothing but a big, overgrown kid, and kids loved cartoons. This could work out after all. Wolf would maybe find at least one thing in the Country of Bad Smells that would amuse him, and Jack could sleep for three hours. That one, he said. The cartoons. Thatll be four dollars, she said. Bargain Matinee prices end at two. She pushed a button and two tickets poked out of a slot with a mechanical ratcheting noise. Wolf flinched backward with a small cry. The girl looked at him, eyebrows raised. You jumpy, mister? No, Im Wolf, Wolf said. He smiled, showing a great many teeth. Jack would have sworn that Wolf showed more teeth now when he smiled than he had a day or two ago. The girl looked at all those teeth. She wet her lips. Hes okay. He just Jack shrugged. He doesnt get off the farm much. You know. He gave her the orphan five. She handled it as if she wished she had a pair of tongs to do it with. Come on, Wolf. As they turned away to the candystand, Jack stuffing the one into the pocket of his grimy jeans, the ticketgirl mouthed to the counterman Look at his nose! Jack looked at Wolf and saw Wolfs nose flaring rhythmically. Stop that, he muttered. Stop what, Jack? Doing that thing with your nose. Oh. Ill try, Jack, but Shh. Help you, son? the counterman asked. Yes, please. A Junior Mints, a Reeses Pieces, and an extralarge popcorn without the grease. The counterman got the stuff and pushed it across to them. Wolf got the tub of popcorn in both hands and immediately began to snaffle it up in great jawcracking chomps. The counterman looked at this silently. Doesnt get off the farm much, Jack repeated. Part of him was already wondering if these two had seen enough of sufficient oddness to get them thinking that a call to the police might be in order. He thoughtnot for the first timethat there was a real irony in all this. In New York or L.A., probably no one would have given Wolf a second look . . . or if a second look, certainly not a third. Apparently the weirdnesstoleration level was a lot lower out in the middle of the country. But, of course, Wolf would have flipped out of his gourd long since if they had been in New York or L.A. Ill bet he dont, the counterman said. Thatll be twoeighty. Jack paid it with an inward wince, realizing he had just laid out a quarter of his cash for their afternoon at the movies. Wolf was grinning at the counterman through a mouthful of popcorn. Jack recognized it as Wolfs A 1 Friendly Smile, but he somehow doubted that the counterman was seeing it that way. There were all those teeth in that smile . . . hundreds of them, it seemed. And Wolf was flaring his nostrils again. Screw it, let them call the cops, if thats what they want to do, he thought with a weariness that was more adult than child. It cant slow us down much more than were slowed down already. He cant ride in the new cars because he cant stand the smell of the catalytic convertors and he cant ride in old cars because they smell like exhaust and sweat and oil and beer and he probably cant ride in any cars because hes so goddam claustrophobic. Tell the truth, JackO, even if its only to yourself. Youre going along telling yourself hes going to get over it pretty soon, but its probably not going to happen. So what are we going to do? Walk across Indiana, I guess. Correction, Wolf is going to walk across Indiana. Me, Im going to cross Indiana riding horseyback. But first Im going to take Wolf into this damn movie theater and sleep either until both pictures are over or until the cops arrive. And that is the end of my tale, sir. Well, enjoy the show, the counterman said. You bet, Jack replied. He started away and then realized Wolf wasnt with him. Wolf was staring at something over the countermans head with vacant, almost superstitious wonder. Jack looked up and saw a mobile advertising the reissue of Steven Spielbergs Close Encounters floating around on drafts of convection. Come on, Wolf, he said. 8 Wolf knew it wasnt going to work as soon as they went through the door. The room was small, dim, and dank. The smells in here were terrible. A poet, smelling what Wolf was smelling at that moment, might have called it the stink of sour dreams. Wolf was no poet. He only knew that the smell of the popcornurine predominated, and that he felt suddenly like throwing up. Then the lights began to dim even further, turning the room into a cave. Jack, he moaned, clutching at Jacks arm. Jack, we oughtta get out of here, okay? Youll like it, Wolf, Jack muttered, aware of Wolfs distress but not of its depth. Wolf was, after all, always distressed to some degree. In this world, the word distress defined him. Try it. Okay, Wolf said, and Jack heard the agreement but not the thin waver that meant Wolf was holding on to the last thread of his control with both hands. They sat down with Wolf on the aisle, his knees accordioned up uncomfortably, the tub of popcorn (which he no longer wanted) clutched to his chest. In front of them a match flared briefly yellow. Jack smelled the dry tang of pot, so familiar in the movies that it could be dismissed as soon as identified. Wolf smelled a forestfire. Jack! Shhh, pictures starting. And Im dozing off. Jack would never know of Wolfs heroism in the next few minutes; Wolf did not really know of it himself. He only knew that he had to try to stick this nightmare out for Jacks sake. It must be all right, he thought, look, Wolf, Jacks going right to sleep, right to sleep right here and now. And you know Jack wouldnt take you to a HurtPlace, so just stick it out . . . just wait . . . Wolf! . . . itll be all right . . . But Wolf was a cyclic creature, and his cycle was approaching its monthly climax. His instincts had become exquisitely refined, almost undeniable. His rational mind told him that he would be all right in here, that Jack wouldnt have brought him otherwise. But that was like a man with an itchy nose telling himself not to sneeze in church because it was impolite. He sat there smelling forestfire in a dark, stinking cave, twitching each time a shadow passed down the aisle, waiting numbly for something to fall on him from the shadows overhead. And then a magic window opened at the front of the cave and he sat there in the acrid stink of his own terrorsweat, eyes wide, face a mask of horror, as cars crashed and overturned, as buildings burned, as one man chased another. Previews, Jack mumbled. Told you youd like it. . . . There were Voices. One said nosmoking. One said dont litter. One said groupratesavailable. One said Bargain Matineepriceseveryweekdayuntilfourp.m. Wolf, we got screwed, Jack mumbled. He started to say something else, but it turned into a snore. A final voice said andnowourfeaturepresentation and that was when Wolf lost control. Bakshis The Lord of the Rings was in Dolby sound, and the projectionist had orders to really crank it in the afternoons, because thats when the heads drifted in, and the heads really liked loud Dolby. There was a screeching, discordant crash of brass. The magic window opened again and now Wolf could see the fireshifting oranges and reds. He howled and leaped to his feet, pulling with him a Jack who was more asleep than awake. Jack! he screamed. Get out! Got to get out! Wolf! See the fire! Wolf! Wolf! Down in front! someone shouted. Shut up, hoser! someone else yelled. The door at the back of Cinema 6 opened. Whats going on in here? Wolf, shut up! Jack hissed. For Gods sake OWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Wolf howled. A woman got a good look at Wolf as the white light from the lobby fell on him. She screamed and began dragging her little boy out by one arm. Literally dragging him; the kid had fallen to his knees and was skidding up the popcornlittered carpet of the center aisle. One of his sneakers had come off. OWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHOOOOOOHHHHOOOOOO! The pothead three rows down had turned around and was looking at them with bleary interest. He held a smouldering joint in one hand; a spare was cocked behind his ear. Far . . . out, he pronounced. Fucking werewolves of London strike again, right? Okay, Jack said. Okay, well get out. No problem. Just . . . just dont do that anymore, okay? Okay? He started leading Wolf out. The weariness had fallen over him again. The light of the lobby hit his eyes sharply, needling them. The woman who had dragged the little boy out of the theater was backed into a corner with her arms around the kid. When she saw Jack lead the stillhowling Wolf through the double doors of Cinema 6, she swept the kid up and made a break for it. The counterman, the ticketgirl, the projectionist, and a tall man in a sportcoat that looked as if it belonged on the back of a racetrack tout were clustered together in a tight little group. Jack supposed the guy in the checkered sportcoat and white shoes was the manager. The doors of the other cinemas in the hive had opened partway. Faces peered out of the darkness to see what all the hooraw was. To Jack, they all looked like badgers peering out of their holes. Get out! the man in the checkered sportcoat said. Get out, Ive called the police already, theyll be here in five minutes. Bullshit you did, Jack thought, feeling a ray of hope. You didnt have time. And if we blow right away, maybejust maybeyou wont bother. Were going, he said. Look, Im sorry. Its just that . . . my big brothers an epileptic and he just had a seizure. We . . . we forgot his medicine. At the word epileptic, the ticketgirl and the counterman recoiled. It was as if Jack had said leper. Come on, Wolf. He saw the managers eyes drop, saw his lip curl with distaste. Jack followed the glance and saw the wide dark stain on the front of Wolfs Oshkosh biballs. He had wet himself. Wolf also saw. Much in Jacks world was foreign to him, but he apparently knew well enough what that look of contempt meant. He burst into loud, braying, heartbroken sobs. Jack, Im sorry, Wolf is so SORRY! Get him out of here, the manager said contemptuously, and turned away. Jack put an arm around Wolf and got him started toward the door. Come on, Wolf, he said. He spoke quietly, and with an honest tenderness. He had never felt quite so keenly for Wolf as he did now. Come on, it was my fault, not yours. Lets go. Sorry. Wolf wept brokenly. Im no good, God pound me, just no good. Youre plenty good, Jack said. Come on. He pushed open the door and they went out into the thin, lateOctober warmth. The woman with the child was easily twenty yards away, but when she saw Jack and Wolf, she retreated backward toward her car, holding her kid in front of her like a cornered gangster with a hostage. Dont let him come near me! she screamed. Dont let that monster come near my baby! Do you hear? Dont let him come near me! Jack thought he should say something to calm her down, but he couldnt think what it might be. He was too tired. He and Wolf started away, heading across the parking lot at an angle. Halfway back to the road, Jack staggered. The world went briefly gray. He was vaguely aware of Wolf sweeping him up in his arms and carrying him that way, like a baby. Vaguely aware that Wolf was crying. Jack, Im so sorry, please dont hate Wolf, I can be a good old Wolf, you wait, youll see . . . I dont hate you, Jack said. I know youre . . . youre a good old But before he could finish, he had fallen asleep. When he woke up it was evening and Muncie was behind them. Wolf had gotten off the main roads and on to a web of farm roads and dirt tracks. Totally unconfused by the lack of signs and the multitude of choices, he had continued west with all the unerring instinct of a migrating bird. They slept that night in an empty house north of Cammack, and Jack thought in the morning that his fever had gone down a little. It was midmorningmidmorning of October 28thwhen Jack realized that the hair was back on Wolfs palms. 19 Jack in the Box 1 They camped that night in the ruins of a burnedout house with a wide field on one side and a copse of woods on another. There was a farmhouse on the far side of the field, but Jack thought that he and Wolf would be safe enough if they were quiet and stayed in most of the time. After the sun went down, Wolf went off into the woods. He was moving slowly, his face close to the ground. Before Jack lost sight of him, he thought that Wolf looked like a nearsighted man hunting for his dropped spectacles. Jack became quite nervous (visions of Wolf caught in a steeljawed trap had begun to come to him, Wolf caught and grimly not howling as he gnawed at his own leg . . .) before Wolf returned, walking almost upright this time, and carrying plants in both hands, the roots dangling out of his fists. What have you got there, Wolf? Jack asked. Medicine, Wolf said morosely. But its not very good, Jack. Wolf! Nothings much good in your world! Medicine? What do you mean? But Wolf would say no more. He produced two wooden matches from the bib pocket of his overalls and started a smokeless fire and asked Jack if he could find a can. Jack found a beer can in the ditch. Wolf smelled it and wrinkled his nose. More bad smells. Need water, Jack. Clean water. Ill go, if youre too tired. Wolf, I want to know what youre up to. Ill go, Wolf said. Theres a farm right across that field. Wolf! Therell be water there. You rest. Jack had a vision of some farmers wife looking out the kitchen window as she did the supper dishes and seeing Wolf skulking around in the dooryard with a beer can in one hairy paw and a bunch of roots and herbs in the other. Ill go, he said. The farm was not five hundred feet away from where they had camped; the warm yellow lights were clearly visible across the field. Jack went, filled the beer can at a shed faucet without incident, and started back. Halfway across the field he realized he could see his shadow, and looked up at the sky. The moon, now almost full, rode the eastern horizon. Troubled, Jack went back to Wolf and gave him the can of water. Wolf sniffed, winced again, but said nothing. He put the can over the fire and began to sift crumbled bits of the things he had picked in through the poptop hole. Five minutes or so later, a terrible smella reek, not to put too fine a point on itbegan to rise on the steam. Jack winced. He had no doubt at all that Wolf would want him to drink that stuff, and Jack also had no doubt it would kill him. Slowly and horribly, probably. He closed his eyes and began snoring loudly and theatrically. If Wolf thought he was sleeping, he wouldnt wake him up. No one woke up sick people, did they? And Jack was sick; his fever had come back at dark, raging through him, punishing him with chills even while he oozed sweat from every pore. Looking through his lashes, he saw Wolf set the can aside to cool. Wolf sat back and looked skyward, his hairy hands locked around his knees, his face dreamy and somehow beautiful. Hes looking at the moon, Jack thought, and felt a thread of fear. We dont go near the herd when we change. Good Jason, no! Wed eat them! Wolf, tell me something am I the herd now? Jack shivered. Five minutes laterJack almost had gone to sleep by thenWolf leaned over the can, sniffed, nodded, picked it up, and came over to where Jack was leaning against a fallen, fireblackened beam with an extra shirt behind his neck to pad the angle. Jack closed his eyes tightly and resumed snoring. Come on, Jack, Wolf said jovially. I know youre awake. You cant fool Wolf. Jack opened his eyes and looked at Wolf with bleary resentment. How did you know? People have a sleepsmell and a wakesmell, Wolf said. Even Strangers must know that, dont they? I guess we dont, Jack said. Anyway, you have to drink this. Its medicine. Drink it up, Jack, right here and now. I dont want it, Jack said. The smell coming from the can was swampy and rancid. Jack, Wolf said, youve got a sicksmell, too. Jack looked at him, saying nothing. Yes, Wolf said. And it keeps getting worse. Its not really bad, not yet, butWolf!its going to get bad if you dont take some medicine. Wolf, Ill bet youre great at sniffing out herbs and things back in the Territories, but this is the Country of Bad Smells, remember? Youve probably got ragweed in there, and poison oak, and bitter vetch, and Theyre good things, Wolf said. Just not very strong, God pound them. Wolf looked wistful. Not everything smells bad here, Jack. There are good smells, too. But the good smells are like the medicine plants. Weak. I think they were stronger, once. Wolf was looking dreamily up at the moon again, and Jack felt a recurrence of his earlier unease. Ill bet this was a good place once, Wolf said. Clean and full of power . . . Wolf? Jack asked in a low voice. Wolf, the hairs come back on your palms. Wolf started and looked at Jack. For a momentit might have been his feverish imagination, and even if not, it was only for a momentWolf looked at Jack with a flat, greedy hunger. Then he seemed to shake himself, as if out of a bad dream. Yes, he said. But I dont want to talk about that, and I dont want you to talk about that. It doesnt matter, not yet. Wolf! Just drink your medicine, Jack, thats all you have to do. Wolf was obviously not going to take no for an answer; if Jack didnt drink the medicine, then Wolf might feel dutybound to simply pull open his jaws and pour it down his throat. Remember, if this kills me, youll be alone, Jack said grimly, taking the can. It was still warm. A look of terrible distress spread over Wolfs face. He pushed the round glasses up on his nose. Dont want to hurt you, JackWolf never wants to hurt Jack. The expression was so large and so full of misery that it would have been ludicrous had it not been so obviously genuine. Jack gave in and drank the contents of the can. There was no way he could stand against that expression of hurt dismay. The taste was as awful as he had imagined it would be . . . and for a moment didnt the world waver? Didnt it waver as if he were about to flip back into the Territories? Wolf! he yelled. Wolf, grab my hand! Wolf did, looking both concerned and excited. Jack? Jacky? What is it? The taste of the medicine began to leave his mouth. At the same time, a warm glowthe sort of glow he got from a small sip of brandy on the few occasions his mother had allowed him to have onebegan to spread in his stomach. And the world grew solid around him again. That brief wavering might also have been imagination . . . but Jack didnt think so. We almost went. For a moment there it was very close. Maybe I can do it without the magic juice . . . maybe I can! Jack? What is it? I feel better, he said, and managed a smile. I feel better, thats all. He discovered that he did, too. You smell better, too, Wolf said cheerfully. Wolf! Wolf! 2 He continued to improve the next day, but he was weak. Wolf carried him horseyback and they made slow progress west. Around dusk they started looking for a place to lie up for the night. Jack spotted a woodshed in a dirty little gully. It was surrounded by trash and bald tires. Wolf agreed without saying much. He had been quiet and morose all day long. Jack fell asleep almost at once and woke up around eleven needing to urinate. He looked beside him and saw that Wolfs place was empty. Jack thought he had probably gone in search of more herbs in order to administer the equivalent of a booster shot. Jack wrinkled his nose, but if Wolf wanted him to drink more of the stuff, he would. It surely had made him feel one hell of a lot better. He went around to the side of the shed, a straight slim boy wearing Jockey shorts, unlaced sneakers, and an open shirt. He peed for what seemed like a very long time indeed, looking up at the sky as he did so. It was one of those misleading nights which sometimes comes to the midwest in October and early November, not so long before winter comes down with a cruel, iron snap. It was almost tropically warm, and the mild breeze was like a caress. Overhead floated the moon, white and round and lovely. It cast a clear and yet eerily misleading glow over everything, seeming to simultaneously enhance and obscure. Jack stared at it, aware that he was almost hypnotized, not really caring. We dont go near the herd when we change. Good Jason, no! Am I the herd now, Wolf? There was a face on the moon. Jack saw with no surprise that it was Wolfs face . . . except it was not wide and open and a little surprised, a face of goodness and simplicity. This face was narrow, ah yes, and dark; it was dark with hair, but the hair didnt matter. It was dark with intent. We dont go near them, wed eat them, eat them, wed eat them, Jack, when we change wed The face in the moon, a chiaroscuro carved in bone, was the face of a snarling beast, its head cocked in that final moment before the lunge, the mouth open and filled with teeth. Wed eat wed kill wed kill, kill, KILL KILL A finger touched Jacks shoulder and ran slowly down to his waist. Jack had only been standing there with his penis in his hand, the foreskin pinched lightly between thumb and forefinger, looking at the moon. Now a fresh, hard jet of urine spurted out of him. I scared you, Wolf said from behind him. Im sorry, Jack. God pound me. But for a moment Jack didnt think Wolf was sorry. For a moment it sounded as if Wolf were grinning. And Jack was suddenly sure he was going to be eaten up. House of bricks? he thought incoherently. I dont even have a house of straw that I can run to. Now the fear came, dry terror in his veins hotter than any fever. Whos afraid of the big bad Wolf the big bad Wolf the big bad Jack? I am, I am, oh God I am afraid of the big bad Wolf He turned around slowly. Wolfs face, which had been lightly scruffed with stubble when the two of them crossed to the shed and lay down, was now heavily bearded from a point so high on his cheekbones that the hair almost seemed to begin at his temples. His eyes glared a bright redorange. Wolf, are you all right? Jack asked in a husky, breathy whisper. It was as loud as he could talk. Yes, Wolf said. Ive been running with the moon. Its beautiful. I ran . . . and ran . . . and ran. But Im all right, Jack. Wolf smiled to show how all right he was, and revealed a mouthful of giant, rending teeth. Jack recoiled in numb horror. It was like looking into the mouth of that Alien thing in the movies. Wolf saw his expression, and dismay crossed his roughened, thickening features. But under the dismayand not far under, eitherwas something else. Something that capered and grinned and showed its teeth. Something that would chase prey until blood flew from the preys nose in its terror, until it moaned and begged. Something that would laugh as it tore the screaming prey open. It would laugh even if he were the prey. Especially if he were the prey. Jack, Im sorry, he said. The time . . . its coming. Well have to do something. Well . . . tomorrow. Well have to . . . have to . . . He looked up and that hypnotized expression spread over his face as he looked into the sky. He raised his head and howled. And Jack thought he heardvery faintlythe Wolf in the moon howl back. Horror stole through him, quietly and completely. Jack slept no more that night. 3 The next day Wolf was better. A little better, anyway, but he was almost sick with tension. As he was trying to tell Jack what to doas well as he could, anywaya jet plane passed high overhead. Wolf jumped to his feet, rushed out, and howled at it, shaking his fists at the sky. His hairy feet were bare again. They had swelled and split the cheap penny loafers wide open. He tried to tell Jack what to do, but he had little to go on except old tales and rumors. He knew what the change was in his own world, but he sensed it might be much worsemore powerful and more dangerousin the land of the Strangers. And he felt that now. He felt that power sweeping through him, and tonight when the moon rose he felt sure it would sweep him away. Over and over again he reiterated that he didnt want to hurt Jack, that he would rather kill himself than hurt Jack. 4 Daleville was the closest small town. Jack got there shortly after the courthouse clock struck noon, and went into the True Value hardware store. One hand was stuffed into his pants pocket, touching his depleted roll of bills. Help you, son? Yes sir, Jack said. I want to buy a padlock. Well, step over here and lets us have a look. Weve got Yales, and Mosslers, and LokTites, and you name it. What kind of padlock you want? A big one, Jack said, looking at the clerk with his shadowed, somehow disquieting eyes. His face was gaunt but still persuasive in its odd beauty. A big one, the clerk mused. And what would you be wanting it for, might I ask? My dog, Jack said steadily. A Story. Always they wanted a Story. He had gotten this one ready on the way in from the shed where they had spent the last two nights. I need it for my dog. I have to lock him up. He bites. 5 The padlock he picked out cost ten dollars, leaving Jack with about ten dollars to his name. It hurt him to spend that much, and he almost went for a cheaper item . . . and then he had a memory of how Wolf had looked the night before, howling at the moon with orange fire spilling from his eyes. He paid the ten dollars. He stuck out his thumb at every passing car as he hurried back to the shed, but of course none of them stopped. Perhaps he looked too wildeyed, too frantic. He certainly felt wildeyed and frantic.

The newspaper the hardware store clerk had let him look at promised sunset at six oclock P.M. on the dot. Moonrise was not listed, but Jack guessed seven, at the latest. It was already one p.m., and he had no idea where he was going to put Wolf for the night. You have to lock me up, Jack, Wolf had said. Have to lock me up good. Because if I get out, Ill hurt anything I can run down and catch hold of. Even you, Jack. Even you. So you have to lock me up and keep me locked up, no matter what I do or what I say. Three days, Jack, until the moon starts to get thin again. Three days . . . even four, if youre not completely sure. Yes, but where? It had to be someplace away from people, so no one would hear Wolf ifwhen, he amended reluctantlyhe began to howl. And it had to be someplace a lot stronger than the shed they had been staying in. If Jack used his fine new tendollar padlock on the door of that place, Wolf would bust right out through the back. Where? He didnt know, but he knew he had only six hours to find a place . . . maybe less. Jack began to hurry along even faster. 6 They had passed several empty houses to come this far, had even spent the night in one, and Jack watched all the way back from Daleville for the signs of lack of occupancy for blank uncovered windows and FOR SALE signs, for grass grown as high as the second porch step and the sense of lifelessness common to empty houses. It was not that he hoped he could lock Wolf into some farmers bedroom for the three days of his Change. Wolf would be able to knock down the door of the shed. But one farmhouse had a root cellar; that would have worked. A stout oaken door set into a grassy mound like a door in a fairy tale, and behind it a room without walls or ceilingan underground room, a cave no creature could dig its way out of in less than a month. The cellar would have held Wolf, and the earthen floor and walls would have kept him from injuring himself. But the empty farmhouse, and the root cellar, must have been at least thirty or forty miles behind them. They would never make it back there in the time remaining before moonrise. And would Wolf still be willing to run forty miles, especially for the purpose of putting himself in a foodless solitary confinement, so close to the time of his Change? Suppose, in fact, that too much time had passed. Suppose that Wolf had come too close to the edge and would refuse any sort of imprisonment? What if that capering, greedy underside of his character had climbed up out of the pit and was beginning to look around this odd new world, wondering where the food was hiding? The big padlock threatening to rip the seams out of Jacks pocket would be useless. He could turn around, Jack realized. He could walk back to Daleville and keep on going. In a day or two hed be nearly to Lapel or Cicero, and maybe he would work an afternoon at a feed store or get in some hours as a farmhand, make a few dollars or scrounge a meal or two, and then push all the way to the Illinois border in the next few days. Illinois would be easy, Jack thoughthe didnt know how he was going to do this, exactly, but he was pretty sure he could get to Springfield and the Thayer School only a day or two after he made it into Illinois. And, Jack puzzled as he hesitated a quartermile down the road from the shed, how would he explain Wolf to Richard Sloat? His old buddy Richard, in his round glasses and ties and laced cordovans? Richard Sloat was thoroughly rational and, though very intelligent, hardheaded. If you couldnt see it, it probably didnt exist. Richard had never been interested in fairy tales as a child; he had remained unexcited by Disney films about fairy godmothers who turned pumpkins into coaches, about wicked queens who owned speaking mirrors. Such conceits were too absurd to snare Richards sixyearold (or eightyearold, or tenyearold) fancyunlike, say, a photograph of an electron microscope. Richards enthusiasm had embraced Rubiks Cube, which he could solve in less than ninety seconds, but Jack did not think it would go so far as to accept a sixfootfive, sixteenyearold werewolf. For a moment Jack twisted helplessly on the roadfor a moment he almost thought that he would be able to leave Wolf behind and get on with his journey toward Richard and then the Talisman. What if Im the herd? he asked himself silently. And what he thought of was Wolf scrambling down the bank after his poor terrified animals, throwing himself into the water to rescue them. 7 The shed was empty. As soon as Jack saw the door leaning open he knew that Wolf had taken himself off somewhere, but he scrambled down the side of the gully and picked his way through the trash almost in disbelief. Wolf could not have gone farther than a dozen feet by himself, yet he had done so. Im back, Jack called. Hey, Wolf? I got the lock. He knew he was talking to himself, and a glance into the shed confirmed this. His pack lay on a little wooden bench; a stack of pulpy magazines dated 1973 stood beside it. In one corner of the windowless wooden shed odd lengths of deadwood had been carelessly heaped, as if someone had once halfheartedly made a stab at squirreling away firewood. Otherwise the shed was bare. Jack turned around from the gaping door and looked helplessly up the banks of the gully. Old tires scattered here and there among the weeds, a bundle of faded and rotting political pamphlets still bearing the name LUGAR, one dented blueandwhite Connecticut license plate, beerbottles with labels so faded they were white . . . no Wolf. Jack raised his hands to cup his mouth. Hey, Wolf! Im back! He expected no reply, and got none. Wolf was gone. Shit, Jack said, and put his hands on his hips. Conflicting emotions, exasperation and relief and anxiety, surged through him. Wolf had left in order to save Jacks lifethat had to be the meaning of his disappearance. As soon as Jack had set off for Daleville, his partner had skipped out. He had run away on those tireless legs and by now was miles away, waiting for the moon to come up. By now, Wolf could be anywhere. This realization was part of Jacks anxiety. Wolf could have taken himself into the woods visible at the end of the long field bordered by the gully, and in the woods gorged himself on rabbits and fieldmice and whatever else might live there, moles and badgers and the whole cast of The Wind in the Willows. Which would have been dandy. But Wolf just might sniff out the livestock, wherever it was, and put himself in real danger. He might also, Jack realized, sniff out the farmer and his family. Or, even worse, Wolf might have worked his way close to one of the towns north of them. Jack couldnt be sure, but he thought that a transformed Wolf would probably be capable of slaughtering at least half a dozen people before somebody finally killed him. Damn, damn, damn, Jack said, and began to climb up the far side of the gully. He had no real hopes of seeing Wolfhe would probably never see Wolf again, he realized. In some smalltown paper, a few days down the road, hed find a horrified description of the carnage caused by an enormous wolf which had apparently wandered into Main Street looking for food. And there would be more names. More names like Thielke, Heidel, Hagen . . . At first he looked toward the road, hoping even now to see Wolfs giant form skulking away to the easthe wouldnt want to meet Jack returning from Daleville. The long road was as deserted as the shed. Of course. The sun, as good a clock as the one he wore on his wrist, had slipped well below its meridian. Jack turned despairingly toward the long field and the edge of the woods behind it. Nothing moved but the tips of the stubble, which bent before a chill wandering breeze. HUNT CONTINUES FOR KILLER WOLF, a headline would read, a few days down the road. Then a large brown boulder at the edge of the woods did move, and Jack realized that the boulder was Wolf. He had hunkered down on his heels and was staring at Jack. Oh, you inconvenient son of a bitch, Jack said, and in the midst of his relief knew that a part of him had been secretly delighted by Wolfs departure. He stepped toward him. Wolf did not move, but his posture somehow intensified, became more electric and aware. Jacks next step required more courage than the first. Twenty yards farther, he saw that Wolf had continued to change. His hair had become even thicker, more luxuriant, as if it had been washed and blowdried; and now Wolfs beard really did seem to begin just beneath his eyes. He entire body, hunkered down as it was, seemed to have become wider and more powerful. His eyes, filled with liquid fire, blazed Halloween orange. Jack made himself go nearer. He nearly stopped when he thought he saw that Wolf now had paws instead of hands, but a moment later realized that his hands and fingers were completely covered by a thatch of coarse dark hair. Wolf continued to gaze at him with his blazing eyes. Jack again halved the distance between them, then paused. For the first time since he had come upon Wolf tending his flock beside a Territories stream, he could not read his expression. Maybe Wolf had become too alien for that already, or maybe all the hair simply concealed too much of his face. What he was sure of was that some strong emotion had gripped Wolf. A dozen feet away he stopped for good and forced himself to look into the werewolfs eyes. Soon now, Jacky, Wolf said, and his mouth dropped open in a fearsome parody of a smile. I thought you ran away, Jack said. Sat here to see you coming. Wolf! Jack did not know what to make of this declaration. Obscurely, it reminded him of Little Red Riding Hood. Wolfs teeth did look particularly crowded, sharp, and strong. I got the lock, he said. He pulled it out of his pocket and held it up. You have any ideas while I was gone, Wolf? Wolfs whole faceeyes, teeth, everythingblazed out at Jack. Youre the herd now, Jacky, Wolf said. And lifted his head and released a long unfurling howl. 8 A less frightened Jack Sawyer might have said, Can that stuff, willya? or Well have every dog in the county around here if you keep that up, but both of these statements died in his throat. He was too scared to utter a word. Wolf gave him his A 1 smile again, his mouth looking like a television commercial for Ginsu knives, and rose effortlessly to his feet. The John Lennon glasses seemed to be receding back into the bristly top of his beard and the thick hair falling over his temples. He looked at least seven feet tall to Jack, and as burly as the beer barrels in the back room of the Oatley Tap. You have good smells in this world, Jacky, Wolf said. And Jack finally recognized his mood. Wolf was exultant. He was like a man who against steep odds had just won a particularly difficult contest. At the bottom of this triumphant emotion percolated that joyful and feral quality Jack had seen once before. Good smells! Wolf! Wolf! Jack took a delicate step backward, wondering if he was upwind of Wolf. You never said anything good about it before, he said, not quite coherently. Before is before and now is now, Wolf said. Good things. Many good thingsall around. Wolf will find them, you bet. That made it worse, for now Jack could seecould nearly feela flat, confident greed, a wholly amoral hunger shining in the reddish eyes. Ill eat anything I catch and kill, it said. Catch and kill. I hope none of those good things are people, Wolf, Jack said quietly. Wolf lifted his chin and uttered a bubbling series of noises halfhowl, halflaughter. Wolfs need to eat, he said, and his voice, too, was joyous. Oh, Jacky, how Wolfs do need to eat. EAT! Wolf! Im going to have to put you in that shed, Jack said. Remember, Wolf? I got the lock? Well just have to hope itll hold you. Lets start over there now, Wolf. Youre scaring the shit out of me. This time the bubbling laughter ballooned out of Wolfs chest. Scared! Wolf knows! Wolf knows, Jacky! You have the fearsmell. Im not surprised, Jack said. Lets get over to that shed now, okay? Oh, Im not going in the shed, Wolf said, and a long pointed tongue curled out from between his jaws. No, not me, Jacky. Not Wolf. Wolf cant go in the shed. The jaws widened, and the crowded teeth shone. Wolf remembered, Jacky. Wolf! Right here and now! Wolf remembered! Jack stepped backward. More fearsmell. Even on your shoes. Shoes, Jacky! Wolf! Shoes that smelled of fear were evidently deeply comic. You have to go in the shed, thats what you should remember. Wrong! Wolf! You go in the shed, Jacky! Jacky goes in shed! I remembered! Wolf! The werewolfs eyes slid from blazing reddishorange to a mellow, satisfied shade of purple. From The Book of Good Farming, Jacky. The story of the Wolf Who Would Not Injure His Herd. Remember it, Jacky? The herd goes in the barn. Remember? The lock goes on the door. When the Wolf knows his Change is coming on him, the herd goes in the barn and the lock goes on the door. He Would Not Injure His Herd. The jaws split and widened again, and the long dark tongue curled up at the tip in a perfect image of delight. Not! Not! Not Injure His Herd! Wolf! Right here and now! You want me to stay locked up in the shed for three days? Jack said. I have to eat, Jacky, Wolf said simply, and the boy saw something dark, quick, and sinister slide toward him from Wolfs changing eyes. When the moon takes me with her, I have to eat. Good smells here, Jacky. Plenty of food for Wolf. When the moon lets me go, Jacky comes out of the shed. What happens if I dont want to be locked up for three days? Then Wolf will kill Jacky. And then Wolf will be damned. This is all in The Book of Good Farming, is it? Wolf nodded his head. I remembered. I remembered in time, Jacky. When I was waiting for you. Jack was still trying to adjust himself to Wolfs idea. He would have to go three days without food. Wolf would be free to wander. He would be in prison, and Wolf would have the world. Yet it was probably the only way he would survive Wolfs transformation. Given the choice of a threeday fast or death, hed choose an empty stomach. And then it suddenly seemed to Jack that this reversal was really no reversal at allhe would still be free, locked in the shed, and Wolf out in the world would still be imprisoned. His cage would just be larger than Jacks. Then God bless The Book of Good Farming, because I would never have thought of it myself. Wolf gleamed at him again, and then looked up at the sky with a blank, yearning expression. Not long now, Jacky. Youre the herd. I have to put you inside. Okay, Jack said. I guess you do have to. And this too struck Wolf as uproariously funny. As he laughed his howling laugh, he threw an arm around Jacks waist and picked him up and carried him all the way across the field. Wolf will take care of you, Jacky, he said when he had nearly howled himself insideout. He set the boy gently on the ground at the top of the gully. Wolf, Jack said. Wolf widened his jaws and began rubbing his crotch. You cant kill any people, Wolf, Jack said. Remember thatif you remembered that story, then you can remember not to kill any people. Because if you do, theyll hunt you down for sure. If you kill any people, if you kill even one person, then a lot of people will come to kill you. And theyd get you, Wolf. I promise you. Theyd nail your hide to a board. No people, Jacky. Animals smell better than people. No people. Wolf! They walked down the slope into the gully. Jack removed the lock from his pocket and several times clipped it through the metal ring that would hold it, showing Wolf how to use the key. Then you slide the key under the door, okay? he asked. When youve changed back, Ill push it back to you. Jack glanced down at the bottom of the doorthere was a twoinch gap between it and the ground. Sure, Jacky. Youll push it back to me. Well, what do we do now? Jack said. Should I go in the shed right now? Sit there, Wolf said, pointing to a spot on the floor of the shed a foot from the door. Jack looked at him curiously, then stepped inside the shed and sat down. Wolf hunkered back down just outside the sheds open door, and without even looking at Jack, held out his hand toward the boy. Jack took Wolfs hand. It was like holding a hairy creature about the size of a rabbit. Wolf squeezed so hard that Jack nearly cried outbut even if he had, he didnt think that Wolf would have heard him. Wolf was staring upward again, his face dreamy and peaceful and rapt. After a second or two Jack was able to shift his hand into a more comfortable position inside Wolfs grasp. Are we going to stay like this a long time? he asked. Wolf took nearly a minute to answer. Until, he said, and squeezed Jacks hand again. 9 They sat like that, on either side of the doorframe, for hours, wordlessly, and finally the light began to fade. Wolf had been almost imperceptibly trembling for the previous twenty minutes, and when the air grew darker the tremor in his hand intensified. It was, Jack thought, the way a thoroughbred horse might tremble in its stall at the beginning of a race, waiting for the sound of a gun and the gate to be thrown open. Shes beginning to take me with her, Wolf said softly. Soon well be running, Jack. I wish you could, too. He turned his head to look at Jack, and the boy saw that while Wolf meant what he had just said, there was a significant part of him that was silently saying I could run after you as well as beside you, little friend. We have to close the door now, I guess, Jack said. He tried to pull his hand from Wolfs grasp, but could not free himself until Wolf almost disdainfully released him. Lock Jacky in, lock Wolf out. Wolfs eyes flared for a moment, becoming red molten Elroyeyes. Remember, youre keeping the herd safe, Jack said. He stepped backward into the middle of the shed. The herd goes in the barn, and the lock goes on the door. He Would Not Injure His Herd. Wolfs eyes ceased to drip fire, shaded toward orange. Put the lock on the door. God pound it, thats what Im doing now, Wolf said. Im putting the Godpounding lock on the Godpounding door, see? He banged the door shut, immediately sealing Jack up in the darkness. Hear that, Jacky? Thats the Godpounding lock. Jack heard the lock click against the metal loop, then heard its ratchets catch as Wolf slid it home. Now the key, Jack said. Godpounding key, right here and now, Wolf said, and a key rattled into a slot, rattled out. A second later the key bounced off the dusty ground beneath the door high enough to skitter onto the sheds floorboards. Thanks, Jack breathed. He bent down and brushed his fingers along the boards until he touched the key. For a moment he clamped it so hard into his palm that he almost drove it through his skinthe bruise, shaped like the state of Florida, would endure nearly five days, when in the excitement of being arrested he would fail to notice that it had left him. Then Jack carefully slid the key into his pocket. Outside, Wolf was panting in hot regular agitatedsounding spurts. Are you angry with me, Wolf? he whispered through the door. A fist thumped the door, hard. Not! Not angry! Wolf! All right, Jack said. No people, Wolf. Remember that. Or theyll hunt you down and kill you. No peopOOOWWWOOOOOOOOHHHOOOO! The word turned into a long, liquid howl. Wolfs body bumped against the door, and his long blackfurred feet slid into the opening beneath it. Jack knew that Wolf had flattened himself out against the shed door. Not angry, Jack, Wolf whispered, as if his howl had embarrassed him. Wolf isnt angry. Wolf is wanting, Jacky. Its so soon now, so Godpounding soon. I know, Jack said, now suddenly feeling as if he had to cryhe wished he could have hugged Wolf. More painfully, he wished that they had stayed the extra days at the farmhouse, and that he were now standing outside a root cellar where Wolf was safely jailed. The odd, disturbing thought came to him again that Wolf was safely jailed. Wolfs feet slid back under the door, and Jack thought he had a glimpse of them becoming more concentrated, slimmer, narrower. Wolf grunted, panted, grunted again. He had moved well back from the door. He uttered a noise very like Aaah. Wolf? Jack said. An earsplitting howl lifted up from above Jack Wolf had moved to the top of the gully. Be careful, Jack said, knowing that Wolf would not hear him, and fearing that he would not understand him even if he were close enough to hear. A series of howls followed soon afterthe sound of a creature set free, or the despairing sound of one who wakes to find himself still confined, Jack could not tell which. Mournful and feral and oddly beautiful, the cries of poor Wolf flew up into the moonlit air like scarves flung into the night. Jack did not know he was trembling until he wrapped his arms around himself and felt his arms vibrating against his chest, which seemed to vibrate, too. The howls diminished, retreating. Wolf was running with the moon. 10 For three days and three nights, Wolf was engaged in a nearly ceaseless search for food. He slept from each dawn until just past noon, in a hollow he had discovered beneath the fallen trunk of an oak. Certainly Wolf did not feel himself imprisoned, despite Jacks forebodings. The woods on the other side of the field were extensive, and full of a wolfs natural diet. Mice, rabbits, cats, dogs, squirrelsall these he found easily. He could have contained himself in the woods and eaten more than enough to carry him through to his next Change. But Wolf was riding with the moon, and he could no more confine himself to the woods than he could have halted his transformation in the first place. He roamed, led by the moon, through barnyards and pastures, past isolated suburban houses and down unfinished roads where bulldozers and giant asymmetrical rollers sat like sleeping dinosaurs on the banks. Half of his intelligence was in his sense of smell, and it is not exaggerating to suggest that Wolfs nose, always acute, had attained a condition of genius. He could not only smell a coop full of chickens five miles away and distinguish their odors from those of the cows and pigs and horses on the same farmthat was elementaryhe could smell when the chickens moved. He could smell that one of the sleeping pigs had an injured foot, and one of the cows in the barn an ulcerated udder. And this worldfor was it not this worlds moon which led him?no longer stank of chemicals and death. An older, more primitive order of being met him on his travels. He inhaled whatever remained of the earths original sweetness and power, whatever was left of qualities we might once have shared with the Territories. Even when he approached some human dwelling, even while he snapped the backbone of the family mutt and tore the dog into gristly rags he swallowed whole, Wolf was aware of pure cool streams moving far beneath the ground, of bright snow on a mountain somewhere a long way west. This seemed a perfect place for a transmogrified Wolf, and if he had killed any human being he would have been damned. He killed no people. He saw none, and perhaps that is why. During the three days of his Change, Wolf did kill and devour representatives of most other forms of life to be found in eastern Indiana, including one skunk and an entire family of bobcats living in limestone caves on a hillside two valleys away. On his first night in the woods he caught a lowflying bat in his jaws, bit off its head, and swallowed the rest while it was still jerking. Whole squadrons of domestic cats went down his throat, platoons of dogs. With a wild, concentrated glee he one night slaughtered every pig in a pen the size of a city block. But twice Wolf found that he was mysteriously forbidden from killing his prey, and this too made him feel at home in the world through which he prowled. It was a question of place, not of any abstract moral concernand on the surface, the places were merely ordinary. One was a clearing in the woods into which he had chased a rabbit, the other the scruffy back yard of a farmhouse where a whimpering dog lay chained to a stake. The instant he set a paw down in these places, his hackles rose and an electric tingling traversed the entire distance of his spine. These were sacred places, and in a sacred place a Wolf could not kill. That was all. Like all hallowed sites, they had been set apart a long time ago, so long ago that the word ancient could have been used to describe themancient is probably as close as we can come to representing the vast well of time Wolf sensed about him in the farmers back yard and the little clearing, a dense envelope of years packed together in a small, highly charged location. Wolf simply backed off the sacred ground and took himself elsewhere. Like the wingmen Jack had seen, Wolf lived in a mystery and so was comfortable with all such things. And he did not forget his obligations to Jack Sawyer. 11 In the locked shed, Jack found himself thrown upon the properties of his own mind and character more starkly than at any other time in his life. The only furniture in the shed was the little wooden bench, the only distraction the nearly decadeold magazines. And these he could not actually read. Since there were no windows, except in very early morning when light came streaming under the door he had trouble just working out the pictures on the pages. The words were streams of gray worms, indecipherable. He could not imagine how he would get through the next three days. Jack went toward the bench, struck it painfully with his knee, and sat down to think. One of the first things he realized was that shedtime was different from time on the outside. Beyond the shed, seconds marched quickly past, melted into minutes which melted into hours. Whole days ticked along like metronomes, whole weeks. In shedtime, the seconds obstinately refused to movethey stretched into grotesque monsterseconds, Plasticmanseconds. Outside, an hour might go by while four or five seconds swelled and bloated inside the shed. The second thing Jack realized was that thinking about the slowness of time made it worse. Once you started concentrating on the passing of seconds, they more or less refused to move at all. So he tried to pace off the dimensions of his cell just to take his mind off the eternity of seconds it took to make up three days. Putting one foot in front of another and counting his steps, he worked out that the shed was approximately seven feet by nine feet. At least there would be enough room for him to stretch out at night. If he walked all the way around the inside of the shed, hed walk about thirtytwo feet. If he walked around the inside of the shed a hundred and sixtyfive times, hed cover a mile. He might not be able to eat, but he sure could walk. Jack took off his watch and put it in his pocket, promising himself that he would look at it only when he absolutely had to. He was about onefourth of the way through his first mile when he remembered that there was no water in the shed. No food and no water. He supposed that it took longer than three or four days to die of thirst. As long as Wolf came back for him, hed be all rightwell, maybe not all right, but at least alive. And if Wolf didnt come back? He would have to break the door down. In that case, he thought, hed better try it now, while he still had some strength. Jack went to the door and pushed it with both hands. He pushed it harder, and the hinges squeaked. Experimentally, Jack threw his shoulder at the edge of the door, opposite the hinges. He hurt his shoulder, but he didnt think he had done anything to the door. He banged his shoulder against the door more forcefully. The hinges squealed but did not move a millimeter. Wolf could have torn the door off with one hand, but Jack did not think that he could move it if he turned his shoulders into hamburger by running into it. He would just have to wait for Wolf. By the middle of the night, Jack had walked seven or eight mileshed lost count of the number of times he had reached one hundred and sixtyfive, but it was something like seven or eight. He was parched, and his stomach was rumbling. The shed stank of urine, for Jack had been forced to pee against the far wall, where a crack in the boards meant that at least some of it went outside. His body was tired, but he did not think he could sleep. According to clocktime, Jack had been in the shed barely five hours; in shedtime it was more like twentyfour. He was afraid to lie down. His mind would not let him gothat was how it felt. He had tried making lists of all the books hed read in the past year, of every teacher hed had, of every player on the Los Angeles Dodgers . . . but disturbing, disorderly images kept breaking in. He kept seeing Morgan Sloat tearing a hole in the air. Wolfs face floated underwater, and his hands drifted down like heavy weeds. Jerry Bledsoe twitched and rocked before the electrical panel, his glasses smeared over his nose. A mans eyes turned yellow, and his hand became a clawhoof. Uncle Tommys false teeth coruscated in the Sunset Strip gutter. Morgan Sloat came toward his mother, not himself. Songs by Fats Waller, he said, sending himself around another circuit in the dark. Your Feets Too Big. Aint Misbehavin. Jitterbug Waltz. Keepin Out of Mischief Now. The Elroything reached out toward his mother, whispering lewdly, and clamped a hand down over her hip. Countries in Central America. Nicaragua. Honduras. Guatemala. Costa Rica . . . Even when he was so tired he finally had to lie down and curl into a ball on the floor, using his knapsack as a pillow, Elroy and Morgan Sloat rampaged through his mind. Osmond flicked his bullwhip across Lily Cavanaughs back, and his eyes danced. Wolf reared up, massive, absolutely inhuman, and caught a rifle bullet directly in the heart. The first light woke him, and he smelled blood. His whole body begged for water, then for food. Jack groaned. Three more nights of this would be impossible to survive. The low angle of the sunlight allowed him dimly to see the walls and roof of the shed. It all looked larger than he had felt it to be last night. He had to pee again, though he could scarcely believe that his body could afford to give up any moisture. Finally he realized that the shed seemed larger because he was lying on the floor. Then he smelled blood again, and looked sideways, toward the door. The skinned hindquarters of a rabbit had been thrust through the gap. They lay sprawled on the rough boards, leaking blood, glistening. Smudges of dirt and a long ragged scrape showed that they had been forced into the shed. Wolf was trying to feed him. Oh, Jeez, Jack groaned. The rabbits stripped legs were disconcertingly human. Jacks stomach folded into itself. But instead of vomiting, he laughed, startled by an absurd comparison. Wolf was like the family pet who each morning presents his owners with a dead bird, an eviscerated mouse. With two fingers Jack delicately picked up the horrible offering and deposited it under the bench. He still felt like laughing, but his eyes were wet. Wolf had survived the first night of his transformation, and so had Jack. The next morning brought an absolutely anonymous, almost ovoid knuckle of meat around a startingly white bone splintered at both ends. 12 On the morning of the fourth day Jack heard someone sliding down into the gully. A startled bird squawked, then noisily lifted itself off the roof of the shed. Heavy footsteps advanced toward the door. Jack raised himself onto his elbows and blinked into the darkness. A large body thudded against the door and stayed there. A pair of split and stained penny loafers was visible through the gap. Wolf? Jack asked softly. Thats you, isnt it? Give me the key, Jack. Jack slipped his hand into his pocket, brought out the key, and pushed it directly between the penny loafers. A large brown hand dropped into view and picked up the key.

Bring any water? Jack asked. Despite what he had been able to extract from Wolfs gruesome presents, he had come close to serious dehydrationhis lips were puffy and cracked, and his tongue felt swollen, baked. The key slid into the lock, and Jack heard it click open. Then the lock came away from the door. A little, Wolf said. Close your eyes, Jacky. You have nighteyes now. Jack clasped his hands over his eyes as the door opened, but the light which boomed and thundered into the shed still managed to trickle through his fingers and stab his eyes. He hissed with the pain. Better soon, Wolf said, very close to him. Wolfs arms circled and lifted him. Eyes closed, Wolf warned, and stepped backward out of the shed. Even as Jack said, Water, and felt the rusty lip of an old cup meet his own lips, he knew why Wolf had not lingered in the shed. The air outside seemed unbelievably fresh and sweetit might have been imported directly from the Territories. He sucked in a double tablespoon of water that tasted like the best meal on earth and wound down through him like a sparkling little river, reviving everything it touched. He felt as though he were being irrigated. Wolf removed the cup from his lips long before Jack considered he was through with it. If I give you more youll just sick it up, Wolf said. Open your eyes, Jackbut only a little bit. Jack followed directions. A million particles of light stormed into his eyes. He cried out. Wolf sat down, cradling Jack in his arms. Sip, he said, and put the cup once more to Jacks lips. Eyes open, little more. Now the sunlight hurt much less. Jack peered out through the screen of his eyelashes at a flaring dazzle while another miraculous trickle of water slipped down his throat. Ah, Jack said. What makes water so delicious? The western wind, Wolf promptly replied. Jack opened his eyes wider. The swarm and dazzle resolved into the weathered brown of the shed and the mixed green and lighter brown of the gully. His head rested against Wolfs shoulder. The bulge of Wolfs stomach pressed into his backbone. Are you okay, Wolf? he asked. Did you get enough to eat? Wolfs always get enough to eat, Wolf said simply. He patted the boys thigh. Thanks for bringing me those pieces of meat. I promised. You were the herd. Remember? Oh, yes, I remember, Jack said. Can I have some more of that water? He slid off Wolfs huge lap and sat on the ground, where he could face him. Wolf handed him the cup. The John Lennon glasses were back; Wolfs beard was now little more than a scurf covering his cheeks; his black hair, though still long and greasy, fell well short of his shoulders. Wolfs face was friendly and peaceful, almost tiredlooking. Over the bib overalls he wore a gray sweatshirt, about two sizes too small, with INDIANA UNIVERSITY ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT stencilled on the front. He looked more like an ordinary human being than at any other time since he and Jack had met. He did not look as if he could have made it through the simplest college course, but he could have been a great highschool football player. Jack sipped againWolfs hand hovered above the rusty tin cup, ready to snatch it away if Jack gulped. Youre really okay? Right here and now, Wolf said. He rubbed his other hand over his belly, so distended that it stretched the fabric at the bottom of the sweatshirt as taut as a hand would a rubber glove. Just tired. Little sleep, Jack. Right here and now. Whered you get the sweatshirt? It was hanging on a line, Wolf said. Cold here, Jacky. You didnt hurt any people, did you? No people. Wolf! Drink that water slow, now. His eyes disconcertingly shaded into happy Halloween orange for a second, and Jack saw that Wolf could never really be said to resemble an ordinary human being. Then Wolf opened his wide mouth and yawned. Little sleep. He hitched himself into a more comfortable position on the slope and put down his head. He was almost immediately asleep. THREE A COLLISION OF WORLDS 20 Taken by the Law 1 By two oclock that afternoon they were a hundred miles west, and Jack Sawyer felt as if he too had been running with the moonit had gone that easily. In spite of his extreme hunger, Jack sipped slowly at the water in the rusty can and waited for Wolf to awaken. Finally Wolf stirred, said, Ready now, Jack, hitched the boy up onto his back, and trotted into Daleville. While Wolf sat outside on the curb and tried to look inconspicuous, Jack entered the Daleville Burger King. He made himself go first to the mens room and strip to the waist. Even in the bathroom, the maddening smell of grilling meat caused the saliva to spill into his mouth. He washed his hands, arms, chest, face. Then he stuck his head under the tap and washed his hair with liquid soap. Crumpled paper towels fell, one after the other, to the floor. At last he was ready to go to the counter. The uniformed girl there stared at him while he gave his orderhis wet hair, he thought. While she waited for the order to come through, the girl stepped back and leaned against the service hatch, still unabashedly looking at him. He was biting into the first Whopper as he turned away toward the glass doors. Juice ran down his chin. He was so hungry he could scarcely bother to chew. Three enormous bites took most of the big sandwich. He had just worked his mouth far enough around the remainder to take a fourth when he saw through the doors that Wolf had attracted a crowd of children. The meat congealed in his mouth, and his stomach slammed shut. Jack hurried outside, still trying to swallow his mouthful of ground chuck, limp bread, pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, and sauce. The kids stood in the street on three sides of Wolf, staring at him every bit as frankly as the waitress had stared at Jack. Wolf had hunched down on the curb as far as he was able, bowing his back and pulling in his neck like a turtle. His ears seemed flattened against his head. The wad of food stuck in Jacks throat like a golfball, and when he swallowed convulsively, it dropped down another notch. Wolf glanced at him out of the side of his eye, and visibly relaxed. A tall bluejeaned man in his twenties opened the door of a battered red pickup five or six feet away down the curb, leaned against the cab, and watched, smiling. Have a burger, Wolf, Jack said as carelessly as he could. He handed Wolf the box, which Wolf sniffed. Then Wolf lifted his head and took a huge bite out of the box. He began methodically to chew. The children, astounded and fascinated, stepped nearer. A few of them were giggling. What is he? asked a little girl with blond pigtails tied with fuzzy pink giftwrapping yarn. Is he a monster? A crewcut boy of seven or eight shoved himself in front of the girl and said, Hes the Hulk, isnt he? Hes really the Hulk. Hey? Hey? Huh? Right? Wolf had managed to extract what was left of his Whopper from its cardboard container. He pushed the whole thing into his mouth with his palm. Shreds of lettuce fell between his upraised knees, mayonnaise and meat juices smeared over his chin, his cheek. Everything else became a brownish pulp smacked to death between Wolfs enormous teeth. When he swallowed he started to lick the inside of the box. Jack gently took the container out of his hands. No, hes just my cousin. Hes not a monster, and hes not the Hulk. Why dont you kids get away and leave us alone, huh? Go on. Leave us alone. They continued to stare. Wolf was now licking his fingers. If you keep on gawping at him like that, you might make him mad. I dont know what hed do if he got mad. The boy with the crewcut had seen David Banners transformation often enough to have an idea of what anger might do to this monstrous Burger King carnivore. He stepped back. Most of the others moved back with him. Go on, please, Jack said, but the children had frozen again. Wolf rose up mountainously, his fists clenched. GOD POUND YOU, DONT LOOK AT ME! he bellowed. DONT MAKE ME FEEL FUNNY! EVERYBODY MAKES ME FEEL FUNNY! The children scattered. Breathing hard, redfaced, Wolf stood and watched them disappear up Dalevilles Main Street and around the corner. When they were gone, he wrapped his arms around his chest and looked dartingly at Jack. He was miserable with embarrassment. Wolf shouldnt have yelled, he said. They were just little ones. Big fat scarell do them a lot of good, a voice said, and Jack saw that the young man from the red pickup was still leaning against his cab, smiling at them. Never saw anything like that before myself. Cousins, are you? Jack nodded suspiciously. Hey, I didnt mean to get personal or anything. He stepped forward, an easy, darkhaired young man in a sleeveless down vest and a plaid shirt. I especially dont want to make anybody feel funny now, ya know. He paused, lifted his hands, palmout. Really. I was just thinking that you guys look like youve been on the road awhile. Jack glanced at Wolf, who was still hugging himself in embarrassment but also glowering through his round glasses at this figure. Ive been there myself, the man said. Hey, dig itthe year I got out of good old DHSDaleville High, you knowI hitched all the way to northern California and all the way back. Anyhow, if youre sort of going west, I can give you a lift. Cant, Jacky. Wolf spoke in a thunderous stage whisper. How far west? Jack asked. Were trying to make it to Springfield. I have a friend in Springfield. Hey, no probleema, seenyor. He raised his hands again. Im going just this side of Cayuga, right next to the Illinois border. You let me scarf a burger, we gone. Straight shot. An hour and a half, maybe lessyoull be about halfway to Springfield. Cant, Wolf rasped again. Theres one problem, okay? I got some stuff on the front seat. One of you guysll have to ride behind. Its gonna be windy back there. You dont know how great that is, Jack said, speaking nothing more than the truth. Well see you when you come back out. Wolf began to dance in agitation. Honest. Well be out here, mister. And thanks. He turned to whisper to Wolf as soon as the man went through the doors. And so when the young manBill Buck Thompson, for that was his namereturned to his pickup carrying the containers for two more Whoppers, he found a sedatelooking Wolf kneeling in the open back, his arms resting on the side panel, mouth open, nose already lifting. Jack was in the passenger seat, crowded by a stack of bulky plastic bags which had been taped, then stapled shut, and then sprayed extensively with room freshener, to judge by the smell. Through the translucent sides the bags were visible long frondlike cuttings, medium green. Clusters of buds grew on these amputated fronds. I reckoned you still looked a little hungry, he said, and tossed another Whopper to Wolf. Then he let himself in on the drivers side, across the pile of plastic bags from Jack. Thought he might catch it in his teeth, no reflection on your cousin. Here, take this one, he already pulverized his. And a hundred miles west they went, Wolf delirious with joy to have the wind whipping past his head, halfhypnotized by the speed and variety of the odors which his nose caught in flight. Eyes blazing and glowing, registering every nuance of the wind, Wolf twitched from side to side behind the cab, shoving his nose into the speeding air. Buck Thompson spoke of himself as a farmer. He talked nonstop during the seventyfive minutes he kept his foot near the floor, and never once asked Jack any questions. And when he swung off onto a narrow dirt road just outside the Cayuga town line and stopped the car beside a cornfield that seemed to run for miles, he dug in his shirt pocket and brought out a faintly irregular cigarette rolled in almost tissuelike white paper. Ive heard of redeye, he said. But your cousins ridiculous. He dropped the cigarette into Jacks hand. Have him take some of this when he gets excited, willya? Doctors orders. Jack absently stuffed the joint into his shirt pocket and climbed out of the cab. Thanks, Buck, he called up to the driver. Man, I thought Id seen something when I saw him eat, Buck said. How do you get him to go places? Yell mush! mush! at him? Once Wolf realized that the ride was over, he bounded off the back of the truck. The red pickup rolled off, leaving a long plume of dust behind it. Lets do that again! Wolf sang out. Jacky! Lets do that again! Boy, I wish we could, Jack said. Come on, lets walk for a while. Someone will probably come along. He was thinking that his luck had turned, that in no time at all he and Wolf would be over the border into Illinoisand hed always been certain that things would go smoothly once he got to Springfield and Thayer School and Richard. But Jacks mind was still partially in shedtime, where what is unreal bloats and distorts whatever is real, and when the bad things started to happen again, they happened so quickly that he was unable to control them. It was a long time before Jack saw Illinois, and during that time he found himself back in the shed. 2 The bewilderingly rapid series of events which led to the Sunlight Home began ten minutes after the two boys had walked past the stark little roadsign telling them that they were now in Cayuga, pop. 23,568. Cayuga itself was nowhere visible. To their right the endless cornfield rolled across the land; to their left a bare field allowed them to see how the road bent, then arrowed straight toward the flat horizon. Just after Jack had realized that they would probably have to walk all the way into town to get their next ride, a car appeared on this road, travelling fast toward them. Ride in back? Wolf yelled, joyfully raising his arms up over his head. Wolf ride in back! Right here and now! Its going the wrong way, Jack said. Just be calm and let it pass us, Wolf. Get your arms down or hell think youre signalling him. Reluctantly Wolf lowered his arms. The car had come nearly to the bend in the road which would take it directly past Jack and Wolf. No ride in the back now? Wolf asked, pouting almost childishly. Jack shook his head. He was staring at an oval medallion painted on the cars dusty white doorpanel. County Parks Commission, this might have said, or State Wildlife Board. It might have been anything from the vehicle of the state agricultural agent to the property of the Cayuga Maintenance Department. But when it turned into the bend, Jack saw it was a police car. Thats a cop, Wolf. A policeman. Just keep walking and stay nice and loose. We dont want him to stop. Whats a coppiceman? Wolfs voice had dropped into a dark brown range; he had seen that the speeding car was now coming straight toward him. Does a coppiceman kill Wolfs? No, Jack said, they absolutely never kill Wolfs, but it did no good. Wolf captured Jacks hand in his own, which trembled. Let go of me, please, Wolf, Jack pleaded. Hell think its funny. Wolfs hand dropped away. As the police car advanced toward them, Jack glanced at the figure behind the wheel, and then turned around and walked back a few paces so that he could watch Wolf. What he had seen was not encouraging. The policeman driving the car had a wide doughy domineering face with livid slabs of fat where hed once had cheekbones. And Wolfs terror was plain on his face. Eyes, nostrils flared; he was showing his teeth. You really liked riding in the back of that truck, didnt you? Jack asked him. Some of the terror disappeared, and Wolf nearly managed a smile. The police car roared pastJack was conscious of the driver turning his head to inspect them. All right, Jack said. Hes on his way. Were okay, Wolf. He had turned around again when he heard the sound of the police car suddenly begin to grow louder again. Coppicemans coming back! Probably just going back to Cayuga, Jack said. Turn around and just act like me. Dont stare at him. Wolf and Jack trudged along, pretending to ignore the car, which seemed to hang behind them deliberately. Wolf uttered a sound that was halfmoan, halfhowl. The police car swung out into the road, passed them, flashed its brake lights, and then cut in diagonally before them. The officer pushed open his door and got his feet planted on the ground. Then he hoisted himself out of the seat. He was roughly Jacks height, and all his weight was in his face and his stomachhis legs were twigskinny, his arms and shoulders those of a normally developed man. His gut, trussed in the brown uniform like a fifteenpound turkey, bulged out on both sides of the wide brown belt. I cant wait for it, he said, and cocked an arm and leaned on the open door. Whats your story, anyhow? Give. Wolf padded up behind Jack and hunched his shoulders, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his overalls. Were going to Springfield, officer, Jack said. Weve been hitchingI guess maybe we shouldnt. You guess maybe you shouldnt. Holeee shit. Whats this guy tryinna disappear behind you, a Wookie? Hes my cousin. Jack thought frantically for a momentthe Story had to be bent far enough to accommodate Wolf. Im supposed to be taking him home. He lives in Springfield with his Aunt Helen, I mean my Aunt Helen, the one whos a schoolteacher. In Springfield. Whatd he do, escape from somewhere? No, no, nothing like that. It was just that The cop looked at him neutrally, his face sizzling. Names. Now the boy met a dilemma Wolf was certain to call him Jack, no matter what name he gave the cop. Im Jack Parker, he said. And hes Hold it. I want the feeb to tell me himself. Come on, you. You remember your name, basket case? Wolf squirmed behind Jack, digging his chin into the top of his overalls. He muttered something. I couldnt hear you, sonny. Wolf, he whispered. Wolf. Probly I should have guessed. Whats your first name, or did they just give you a number? Wolf had squeezed his eyes shut, and was twisting his legs together. Come on, Phil, Jack said, thinking that it was one of the few names Wolf might remember. But he had just finished it when Wolf pulled up his head and straightened his back and yelled, JACK! JACK! JACK WOLF! We call him Jack sometimes, the boy put in, knowing it was already too late. Its because he likes me so much, sometimes Im the only one who can do anything with him. I might even stay there in Springfield a few days after I get him home, just to make sure he settles down okay. I sure am sick of the sound of your voice, Jack boy. Why dont you and good old PhilJack get in the back seat here and well go into town and straighten everything out? When Jack did not move, the policeman put a hand on the butt of the enormous pistol which hung from his straining belt. Get in the car. Him first. I want to find out why youre a hundred miles from home on a school day. In the car. Right now. Ah, officer, Jack began, and behind him Wolf rasped, No. Cant. My cousin has this problem, Jack said. Hes claustrophobic. Small spaces, especially the insides of cars, drive him crazy. We can only get rides in pickups, so he can be in the back. Get in the car, the policeman said. He stepped forward and opened the back door. CANT! Wolf wailed. Wolf CANT! Stinks, Jacky, it stinks in there. His nose and lip had wrinkled into corrugations. You get him in the car or I will, the cop said to Jack. Wolf, it wont be for long, Jack said, reaching for Wolfs hand. Reluctantly, Wolf allowed him to take it. Jack pulled him toward the back seat of the police car, Wolf literally dragging his feet across the surface of the road. For a couple of seconds it looked as though it would work. Wolf got close enough to the police car to touch the doorframe. Then his entire body shook. He clamped both hands onto the top of the doorframe. It looked as though he were going to try to rip the top of the car in half, as a circus strongman tears a telephone book in two. Please, Jack said quietly. We have to. But Wolf was terrified, and too disgusted by whatever he had smelled. He shook his head violently. Slobber ran from his mouth and dripped onto the top of the car. The policeman stepped around Jack and released something from a catch on his belt. Jack had time only to see that it was not his pistol before the cop expertly whapped his blackjack into the base of Wolfs skull. Wolfs upper body dropped onto the top of the car, and then all of Wolf slid gracefully down onto the dusty road. You get on his other side, the cop said, fastening the sap to his belt. Were gonna finally get this big bag of shit into the vehicle. Two or three minutes later, after they had twice dropped Wolfs heavy unconscious body back onto the road, they were speeding toward Cayuga. I already know whats gonna happen to you and your feeb cousin, if he is your cousin, which I doubt. The cop looked up at Jack in his rearview mirror, and his eyes were raisins dipped in fresh tar. All the blood in Jacks body seemed to swing down, down in his veins, and his heart jumped in his chest. He had remembered the cigarette in his shirt pocket. He clapped his hand over it, then jerked his hand away before the cop could say anything. I gotta put his shoes back on, Jack said. They sort of fell off. Forget it, the cop said, but did not object further when Jack bent over. Out of sight of the mirror, he first shoved one of the splitseamed loafers back up on Wolfs bare heel, then quickly snatched the joint out of his pocket and popped it in his mouth. He bit into it, and dry crumbly particles with a oddly herbal taste spilled over his tongue. Jack began to grind them between his teeth. Something scratched down into his throat, and he convulsively jerked upright, put his hand in front of his mouth, and tried to cough with his lips together. When his throat was clear, he hurriedly swallowed all of the dampened, now rather sludgy marijuana. Jack ran his tongue over his teeth, collecting all the flecks and traces. You got a few surprises ahead of you, the policeman said. Youre gonna get a little sunlight in your soul. Sunlight in my soul? Jack asked, thinking that the cop had seen him stuff the joint into his mouth. A few blisters on your hands, too, the cop said, and glared happily at Jacks guilty image in the rearview mirror. The Cayuga Municipal Building was a shadowy maze of unlighted hallways and narrow staircases that seemed to wind unexpectedly upward alongside equally narrow rooms. Water sang and rumbled in the pipes. Let me explain something to you kids, the policeman said, ushering them toward the last staircase to their right. Youre not under arrest. Got that? You are being detained for questioning. I dont want to hear any bullshit about one phone call. Youre in limbo until you tell us who you are and what youre up to, the cop went on. You hear me? Limbo. Nowhere. Were gonna see Judge Fairchild, hes the magistrate, and if you dont tell us the truth, youre gonna pay some big fuckin consequences. Upstairs. Move it! At the top of the stairs the policeman pushed a door open. A middleaged woman in wire glasses and a black dress looked up from a typewriter placed sideways against the far wall. Two more runaways, the policeman said. Tell him were here. She nodded, picked up her telephone, and spoke a few words. You may go in, the secretary said to them, her eyes wandering from Wolf to Jack and back again. The cop pushed them across the anteroom and opened the door to a room twice as large, lined with books on one long wall, framed photographs and diplomas and certificates on another. Blinds had been lowered across the long windows opposite. A tall skinny man in a dark suit, a wrinkled white shirt, and a narrow tie of no discernible pattern stood up behind a chipped wooden desk that must have been six feet long. The mans face was a relief map of wrinkles, and his hair was so black it must have been dyed. Stale cigarette smoke hung visibly in the air. Well, what have we got here, Franky? His voice was startlingly deep, almost theatrical. Kids I picked up on French Lick Road, over by Thompsons place. Judge Fairchilds wrinkles contorted into a smile as he looked at Jack. You have any identification papers on you, son? No sir, Jack said. Have you told Officer Williams here the truth about everything? He doesnt think you have, or you wouldnt be here. Yes sir, Jack said. Then tell me your story. He walked around his desk, disturbing the flat layers of smoke just over his head, and halfsat, halfleaned on the front corner nearest Jack. Squinting, he lit a cigaretteJack saw the Judges recessed pale eyes peering at him through the smoke and knew there was no charity in them. It was the pitcher plant again. Jack drew in a large breath. My name is Jack Parker. Hes my cousin, and hes called Jack, too. Jack Wolf. But his real name is Philip. He was staying with us in Daleville because his dads dead and his mother got sick. I was just taking him back to Springfield. Simpleminded, is he? A little slow, Jack said, and glanced up at Wolf. His friend seemed barely conscious. Whats your mothers name? the Judge asked Wolf. Wolf did not respond in any way. His eyes were clamped shut and his hands stuffed into his pockets. Shes named Helen, Jack said. Helen Vaughan. The Judge eased himself off the desk and walked slowly over to Jack. Have you been drinking, son? Youre a little unsteady. No. Judge Fairchild came to within a foot of Jack and bent down. Let me smell your breath. Jack opened his mouth and exhaled. Nope. No booze. The Judge straightened up again. But thats the only thing you were telling the truth about, isnt it? Youre trying to string me along, boy. Im sorry we were hitching, Jack said, aware that he had to speak with great caution now. Not only might what he said determine whether he and Wolf were to be let free, but he was having a little trouble forming the words themselveseverything seemed to be happening with great slowness. As in the shed, the seconds had wandered off the metronome. In fact, we hardly ever hitch because WolfJack, that ishates being in cars. Well never do it again. We havent done anything wrong, sir, and that really is the truth. You dont understand, sonny, the Judge said, and his faroff eyes gleamed again. Hes enjoying this, Jack understood. Judge Fairchild moved slowly back behind his desk. Hitching rides isnt the issue. You two boys are out on the road by yourself, coming from nowhere, going nowherereal targets for trouble. His voice was like dark honey. Now we have here in this country what we think is a most unusual facilitystateapproved and statefunded, by the waywhich might have been set up expressly for the benefit of boys like yourselves. Its called the Sunlight Gardener Scripture Home for Wayward Boys. Mr. Gardeners work with young fellows in trouble has been nothing short of miraculous. Weve sent him some tough cases, and in no time at all he has those boys on their knees begging Jesus for forgiveness. Now Id say that was pretty special, wouldnt you? Jack swallowed. His mouth felt drier than it had been in the shed. Ah, sir, its really urgent that we get to Springfield. Everybodys going to wonder I very much doubt that, said the Judge, smiling with all his wrinkles. But Ill tell you what. As soon as you two wags are on your way to the Sunlight Home, Ill telephone Springfield and try to get the number of this Helen . . . Wolf, is it? Or is it Helen Vaughan? Vaughan, Jack said, and a redhot blush covered his face like a fever. Yes, the Judge said. Wolf shook his head, blinking, and then put a hand on Jacks shoulder. Coming around are you, son? the Judge asked. Could you tell me your age? Wolf blinked again, and looked at Jack. Sixteen, Jack said. And you? Twelve. Oh. I would have taken you for several years older. All the more reason for seeing you get help now before you get in real deep trouble, wouldnt you say, Franky? Amen, the policeman said. You boys come back here in a month, said the Judge. Then well see if your memory is any better. Why are your eyes so bloodshot? They feel kind of funny, Jack said, and the policeman barked. He had laughed, Jack realized a second later. Take them away, Franky, the Judge said. He was already picking up the telephone. Youre going to be different boys thirty days from now. Depend on it. While they walked down the steps of the redbrick Municipal Building, Jack asked Franky Williams why the Judge had asked for their ages. The cop paused on the bottom step and halfturned to glare up at Jack out of his blazing face. Old Sunlight generally takes em in at twelve and turns em loose at nineteen. He grinned. You tellin me you never heard him on the radio? Hes about the most famous thing we got around here. Im pretty sure they heard of old Sunlight Gardener even way over in Daleville. His teeth were small discolored pegs, irregularly spaced. 3 Twenty minutes later they were in farmland again. Wolf had climbed into the back seat of the police car with surprisingly little fuss. Franky Williams had pulled his sap from his belt and said, You want this again, you fuckin freak? Who knows, it might make you smart. Wolf had trembled, Wolfs nose had wrinkled up, but he had followed Jack into the car. He had immediately clapped his hand over his nose and begun breathing through his mouth. Well get away from this place, Wolf, Jack had whispered into his ear. A couple of days, thats all, and well see how to do it. No chatter came from the front seat. Jack was strangely relaxed. He was certain that they would find a way to escape. He leaned back against the plastic seat, Wolfs hand wrapped around his, and watched the fields go by. There she is, Franky Williams called from the front seat. Your future home. Jack saw a meeting of tall brick walls planted surrealistically amidst the fields. Too tall to see over, the walls around the Sunlight Home were topped with three strands of barbed wire and shards of broken glass set in cement. The car was now driving past exhausted fields bordered with fences in which strands of barbed and smooth wire alternated. Got sixty acres out here, Williams said. And all of it is either walled or fencedyou better believe it. Boys did it themselves. A wide iron gate interrupted the expanse of wall where the drive turned into the Homes property. As soon as the police car turned into the drive the gates swung open, triggered by some electronic signal. TV camera, the policeman explained. Theyre awaitin for you two fresh fish. Jack leaned forward and put his face to the window. Boys in denim jackets worked in the long fields to either side, hoeing and raking, pushing wheelbarrows. You two shitheads just earned me twenty bucks, Williams said. Plus another twenty for Judge Fairchild. Aint that great? 21 The Sunlight Home 1 The Home looked like something made from a childs blocks, Jack thoughtit had grown randomly as more space was needed. Then he saw that the numerous windows were barred, and the sprawling building immediately seemed penal, rather than childish. Most of the boys in the fields had put down their tools to watch the progress of the police car. Franky Williams pulled up into the wide, rounded end of the drive. As soon as he had cut off his engine, a tall figure stepped through the front door and stood regarding them from the top of the steps, his hands knitted together before him. Beneath a full head of longish wavy white hair, the mans face seemed unrealistically youthfulas if these chipped, vitally masculine features had been created or at least assisted by plastic surgery. It was the face of a man who could sell anything, anywhere, to anybody. His clothes were as white as his hair white suit, white shoes, white shirt, and a trailing white silk scarf around his neck. As Jack and Wolf got out of the back seat, the man in white pulled a pair of dark green sunglasses from his suitpocket, put them on, and appeared to examine the two boys for a moment before smilinglong creases split his cheeks. Then he removed the sunglasses and put them back in his pocket. Well, he said. Well, well, well.

Where would we all be without you, Officer Williams? Afternoon, Reverend Gardener, the policeman said. Is it the usual sort of thing, or were these two bold fellows actually engaged in criminal activity? Vagrants, said the cop. Hands on hips, he squinted up at Gardener as if all that whiteness hurt his eyes. Refused to give Fairchild their right names. This one, the big one, he said, pointing a thumb at Wolf, he wouldnt talk at all. I had to nail him in the head just to get him in the car. Gardener shook his head tragically. Why dont you bring them up here so they can introduce themselves, and then well take care of the various formalities. Is there any reason why the two of them should look so, ah, shall we say, befuddled? Just that I cracked that big one behind the ears. Ummmmm. Gardener stepped backward, steepling his fingers before his chest. As Williams prodded the boys up the steps to the long porch, Gardener cocked his head and regarded his new arrivals. Jack and Wolf reached the top of the steps and moved tentatively onto the surface of the porch. Franky Williams wiped his forehead and huffed himself up beside them. Gardener was smiling mistily, but his eyes switched back and forth between the boys. The second after something hard, cold, and familiar jumped out of his eyes at Jack, the Reverend again twitched the sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. The smile remained misty and delicate, but even wrapped as he was in a sense of false security, Jack felt frozen by that glancebecause he had seen it before. Reverend Gardener pulled the sunglasses below the bridge of his nose and peered playfully over the tops of the frames. Names? Names? Might we have some names from you two gentlemen? Im Jack, the boy said, and then stoppedhe did not want to say one more word until he had to. Reality seemed to fold and buckle about Jack for a moment he felt that he had been jerked back into the Territories, but that now the Territories were evil and threatening, and that foul smoke, jumping flames, the screams of tortured bodies filled the air. A powerful hand closed over his elbow and held him upright. Instead of the foulness and smoke, Jack smelled some heavy sweet cologne, applied too liberally. A pair of melancholy gray eyes were looking directly into his. And have you been a bad boy, Jack? Have you been a very bad boy? No, we were just hitching, and I think youre a trifle stoned, said the Reverend Gardener. Well have to see that you get some special attention, wont we? The hand released his elbow; Gardener stepped neatly away, and pushed the sunglasses up over his eyes again. You do possess a last name, I imagine. Parker, Jack said. Yesss. Gardener whipped the glasses off his head, executed a dancing little halfturn, and was scrutinizing Wolf. He had given no indication whether he believed Jack or not. My, he said. Youre a healthy specimen, arent you? Positively strapping. Well certainly be able to find a use for a big strong boy like you around here, praise the Lord. And might I ask you to emulate Mr. Jack Parker here, and give me your name? Jack looked uneasily at Wolf. His head was bowed, and he was breathing heavily. A glistening line of slobber went from the corner of his mouth to his chin. A black smudge, halfdirt, halfgrease, covered the front of the stolen Athletic Department sweatshirt. Wolf shook his head, but the gesture seemed to have no contenthe might have been shaking away a fly. Name, son? Name? Name? Are you called Bill? Paul? Art? Sammy? Nosomething exceedingly foursquare, Im sure. George, perhaps? Wolf, said Wolf. Ah, that is nice. Gardener beamed at both of them. Mr. Parker and Mr. Wolf. Perhaps youll escort them inside, Officer Williams? And arent we happy that Mr. Bast is in residence already? For the presence of Mr. Hector Bastone of our stewards, by the waymeans that we shall probably be able to outfit Mr. Wolf. He peered at the two boys over the frames of his sunglasses. One of our beliefs here at the Scripture Home is that the soldiers of the Lord march best when they march in uniform. And Heck Bast is nearly as large as your friend Wolf, young Jack Parker. So from the points of view of both clothing and discipline you shall be very well served indeed. A comfort, yes? Jack, Wolf said in a low voice. Yes. My head hurts, Jack. Hurts bad. Your little head pains you, Mr. Wolf? Reverend Sunlight Gardener halfdanced toward Wolf and gently patted his arm. Wolf snatched his arm away, his face working into an exaggerated reflex of disgust. The cologne, Jack knewthat heavy cloying odor would have been like ammonia in Wolfs sensitive nostrils. Never mind, son, said Gardener, seemingly unaffected by Wolfs withdrawal from him. Mr. Bast or Mr. Singer, our other steward, will see to that inside. Frank, I thought I told you to get them into the Home. Officer Williams reacted as if he had been jabbed in the back with a pin. His face grew more feverish, and he jerked his peculiar body across the porch to the front door. Sunlight Gardener twinkled at Jack again, and the boy saw that all his dandified animation was only a kind of sterile selfamusement the man in white was cold and crazy within. A heavy gold chain rattled out of Gardeners sleeve and came to rest against the base of his thumb. Jack heard the whistle of a whip cutting through the air, and this time he recognized Gardeners dark gray eyes. Gardener was Osmonds Twinner. Inside, young fellows, Gardener said, halfbowing and indicating the open door. 2 By the way, Mr. Parker, Gardener said, once they had gone in, is it possible that weve met before? There must be some reason you look so familiar to me, mustnt there? I dont know, Jack said, looking carefully around the odd interior of the Scripture Home. Long couches covered with a dark blue fabric sat against the wall on the forestgreen carpet; two massive leathertopped desks had been placed against the opposite wall. At one of the desks a pimply teenager glanced at them dully, then returned to the video screen before him, where a TV preacher was inveighing against rock and roll. The teenage boy seated at the adjoining desk straightened up and fixed Jack with an aggressive stare. He was slim and blackhaired and his narrow face looked clever and badtempered. To the pocket of his white turtleneck sweater was pinned a rectangular nameplate of the sort worn by soldiers SINGER. But I do think we have met each other somewhere, dont you, my lad? I assure you, we must haveI dont forget, I am literally incapable of forgetting, the face of a boy I have encountered. Have you ever been in trouble before this, Jack? Jack said, I never saw you before. Across the room, a massive boy had lifted himself off one of the blue couches and was now standing at attention. He too wore a white turtleneck sweater and a military nameplate. His hands wandered nervously from his sides to his belt, into the pockets of his blue jeans, back to his sides. He was at least sixthree and seemed to weigh nearly three hundred pounds. Acne burned across his cheeks and forehead. This, clearly, was Bast. Well, perhaps it will come to me later, Sunlight Gardener said. Heck, come up here and help our new arrivals at the desk, will you? Bast lumbered forward, scowling. He made a point of coming up very close to Wolf before he sidestepped past him, scowling more fiercely all the whileif Wolf had opened his eyes, which he did not, he would have seen no more than the ravaged moonscape of Basts forehead and the mean small eyes, like a bears eyes, bulging up at him from beneath crusty brows. Bast switched his gaze to Jack, muttered, Cmon, and flapped a hand toward the desk. Registration, then take them up to the laundry for clothes, Gardener said in a flat voice. He smiled with chromelike brilliance at Jack. Jack Parker, he said softly. I wonder who you really are, Jack Parker. Bast, make sure everything is out of his pockets. Bast grinned. Sunlight Gardener drifted across the room toward an obviously impatient Franky Williams and languidly withdrew a long leather wallet from his jackets inside pocket. Jack saw him begin to count money out into the policemans hands. Pay attention, snotface, said the boy behind the desk, and Jack snapped around to face him. The boy was playing with a pencil, the smirk on his face an utterly inadequate disguise for what seemed to Jacks keyedup perceptions his characteristic angera rage that bubbled far down within him, eternally stoked. Can he write? Jeez, I dont think so, Jack said. Then youll have to sign in for him. Singer shoved two legalsized sheets of paper at him. Print on the top line, write on the bottom one. Where the Xs are. He fell back into his chair, raising the pencil to his lips, and slumped eloquently into its corner. Jack supposed that was a trick learned from the very Reverend Sunlight Gardener. JACK PARKER, he printed, and scrawled something like that at the bottom of the sheet. PHILIP JACK WOLF. Another scrawl, even less like his real handwriting. Now youre wards of the State of Indiana, and thats what youll be for the next thirty days, unless you decide to stay longer. Singer twitched the papers back toward himself. Youll be Decide? Jack asked. What do you mean, decide? A trifle of red grew smooth beneath Singers cheeks. He jerked his head to one side and seemed to smile. I guess you dont know that over sixty percent of our kids are here voluntarily. Its possible, yeah. You could decide to stay here. Jack tried to keep his face expressionless. Singers mouth twitched violently, as if a fishhook had snagged it. This is a pretty good place, and if I ever hear you ranking it Ill pound the shit out of youits the best place youve ever been in, Im sure. Ill tell you another thing you got no choice. You have to respect the Sunlight Home. You understand? Jack nodded his head. How about him? Does he? Jack looked up at Wolf, who was blinking slowly and breathing through his mouth. I think so. All right. The two of you will be bunkmates. The day starts at five in the morning, when we have chapel. Fieldwork until seven, then breakfast in the dining hall. Back to the field until noon, when we get lunch plus Bible readingseverybody gets a crack at this, so you better start thinking about what youll read. None of that sexy stuff from the Song of Songs, either, unless you want to find out what discipline means. More work after lunch. He looked sharply up at Jack. Hey, dont think that you work for nothing at the Sunlight Home. Part of our arrangement with the state is that everybody gets a fair hourly wage, which is set against the cost of keeping you hereclothes and food, electricity, heating, stuff like that. You are credited fifty cents an hour. That means that you earn five dollars a day for the hours you put inthirty dollars a week. Sundays are spent in the Sunlight Chapel, except for the hour when we actually put on the Sunlight Gardener Gospel Hour. The red smoothed itself out under the surface of his skin again, and Jack nodded in recognition, being more or less obliged to. If you turn out right and if you can talk like a human being, which most people cant, then you might get a shot at OSOutside Staff. Weve got two squads of OS, one that works the streets, selling hymn sheets and flowers and Reverend Gardeners pamphlets, and the other one on duty at the airport. Anyhow, we got thirty days to turn you two scumbags around and make you see how dirty and filthy and diseased your crummy lives were before you came here, and this is where we start, right now exactly. Singer stood up, his face the color of a blazing autumn leaf, and delicately set the tips of his fingers atop his desk. Empty your pockets. Right now. Right here and now, Wolf mumbled, as if by rote. TURN EM OUT! Singer shouted. I WANT TO SEE IT ALL! Bast stepped up beside Wolf. Reverend Gardener, having seen Franky Williams to his car, drifted expressively into Jacks vicinity. Personal possessions tend to tie our boys too much to the past, weve found, Gardener purred to Jack. Destructive. We find this a very helpful tool. EMPTY YOUR POCKETS! Singer bawled, now nearly in a straightforward rage. Jack pulled from his pockets the random detritus of his time on the road. A red handkerchief Elbert Palamountains wife had given him when shed seen him wipe his nose on his sleeve, two matchbooks, the few dollars and scattered change that was all of his moneya total of six dollars and fortytwo centsthe key to room 407 of the Alhambra Inn and Gardens. He closed his fingers over the three objects he intended to keep. I guess you want my pack, too, he said. Sure, you sorry little fart, Singer ranted, of course we want your foul backpack, but first we want whatever youre trying to hide. Get it outright now. Reluctantly Jack took Speedys guitarpick, the croaker marble, and the big wheel of the silver dollar from his pocket and put them in the nest of the handkerchief. Theyre just goodluck stuff. Singer snatched up the pick. Hey, whats this? I mean, what is it? Fingerpick. Yeah, sure. Singer turned it over in his fingers, sniffed it. If he had bitten it, Jack would have slugged him in the face. Fingerpick. You tellin me the truth? A friend of mine gave it to me, Jack said, and suddenly felt as lonely and adrift as he ever had during these weeks of travelling. He thought of Snowball outside the shopping mall, who had looked at him with Speedys eyes, who in some fashion Jack did not understand had actually been Speedy Parker. Whose name he had just adopted for his own. Bet he stole it, Singer said to no one in particular, and dropped the pick back into the handkerchief beside the coin and the marble. Now the knapsack. When Jack had unshouldered the backpack, handed it over, Singer pawed through it for some minutes in growing distaste and frustration. The distaste was caused by the condition of the few clothes Jack had left, the frustration by the reluctance of the pack to yield up any drugs. Speedy, where are you now? Hes not holding, Singer complained. You think we should do a skin search? Gardener shook his head. Let us see what we can learn from Mr. Wolf. Bast shouldered up even closer. Singer said, Well? He doesnt have anything in his pockets, Jack said. I want those pockets EMPTY! EMPTY! Singer yelled. ON THE TABLE! Wolf tucked his chin into his chest and clamped his eyes shut. You dont have anything in your pockets, do you? Jack asked. Wolf nodded once, very slowly. Hes holding! The dummys holding! Singer crowed. Come on, you big dumb idiot, get the stuff out on the table. He clapped his hands sharply together twice. Oh wow, Williams never searched him! Fairchild never did! This is incredibletheyre going to look like such morons. Bast shoved his face up to Wolfs and snarled, If you dont empty your pockets onto that table in a hurry, Im going to tear your face off. Jack softly said, Do it, Wolf. Wolf groaned. Then he removed his balled right hand from its overall pocket. He leaned over the desk, brought his hand forward, and opened his fingers. Three wooden matches and two small waterpolished stones, grained and straited and colorful, fell out onto the leather. When his left hand opened, two more pretty little stones rolled alongside the others. Pills! Singer snatched at them. Dont be an idiot, Sonny, Gardener said. You made me look like a jerk, Singer said in low but vehement tones to Jack as soon as they were on the staircase to the upper floors. These stairs were covered with a shabby rosepatterned carpet. Only the principal downstairs rooms of the Sunlight Scripture Home had been decorated, dressed upthe rest of it looked rundown and ill cared for. Youre gonna be sorry, I promise you thatin this place, nobody makes Sonny Singer into a jackass. I practically run this place, you two idiots. Christ! He pushed his burning narrow face into Jacks. That was a great stunt back there, the dummy and his fuckin stones. Itll be a long time before you get over that one. I didnt know he had anything in his pockets, Jack said. A step ahead of Jack and Wolf, Singer abruptly stopped moving. His eyes narrowed; his entire face seemed to contract. Jack understood what was going to happen a second before Singers hand slapped stingingly over the side of his face. Jack? Wolf whispered. Im okay, he said. When you hurt me, Ill hurt you back twice as bad, Singer said to Jack. When you hurt me in front of Reverend Gardener, Ill hurt you four times as bad, you got that? Yeah, Jack said. I think I got it. Arent we supposed to get some clothes? Singer whirled around and marched upward, and for a second Jack stood still and watched the other boys thin intense back go up the stairs. You, too, he said to himself. You and Osmond. Someday. Then he followed, and Wolf trudged after. In a long room stacked with boxes Singer fidgeted at the door while a tall boy with a passionless bland face and the demeanor of a sleepwalker researched the shelves for their clothes. Shoes, too. You get him into regulation shoes or youre gonna be holding a shovel all day, Singer said from the doorway, conspicuously not looking at the clerk. Weary disgustit would have been another of Sunlight Gardeners lessons. The boy finally located a size thirteen pair of the heavy square black laceups in a corner of the storeroom, and Jack got them on Wolfs feet. Then Singer took them up another flight to the dormitory floor. Here there was no attempt to disguise the real nature of the Sunlight Home. A narrow corridor ran the entire length of the top of the houseit might have been fifty feet long. Rows of narrow doors with inset eyelevel windows marched down either side of the long corridor. To Jack, the socalled dormitory looked like a prison. Singer took them a short way up the narrow hall and paused before one of the doors. On their first day, nobody works. You start the full schedule tomorrow. So get in here for now and look at your Bibles or something until five. Ill come back and let you out in time for the confession period. And change into the Sunlight clothes, hey? You mean youre going to lock us in there for the next three hours? Jack asked. You want me to hold your hand? Singer exploded, his face reddening again. Look. If you were a voluntary, I could let you walk around, get a look at the place. But since youre a ward of the state on a referral from a local police department, youre one step up from being a convicted criminal. Maybe in thirty days youll be voluntaries, if youre lucky. In the meantime, get in your room and start acting like a human being made in Gods image instead of like an animal. He impatiently fitted a key into the lock, swung the door open, and stood beside it. Get in there. I got work to do. What happens to all our stuff? Singer theatrically sighed. You little creep, do you think wed be interested in stealing anything you could have? Jack kept himself from responding. Singer sighed again. Okay. We keep it all for you, in a folder with your name on it. In Reverend Gardeners office downstairsthats where we keep your money, too, right up until the time you get released. Okay? Get in there now before I report you for disobedience. I mean it. Wolf and Jack went into the little room. When Singer slammed the door, the overhead light automatically went on, revealing a windowless cubicle with a metal bunkbed, a small corner sink, and a metal chair. Nothing more. On the white Sheetrock walls yellowing tape marks showed where pictures had been put up by the rooms previous inhabitants. The lock clicked shut. Jack and Wolf turned to see Singers driven face in the small rectangular window. Be good, now, he said, grinning, and disappeared. No, Jacky, Wolf said. The ceiling was no more than an inch from the top of his head. Wolf cant stay here. Youd better sit down, Jack said. You want the top or the bottom bunk? Huh? Take the bottom one and sit down. Were in trouble here. Wolf knows, Jacky. Wolf knows. This is a bad bad place. Cant stay. Why is it a bad place? How do you know it, I mean? Wolf sat heavily on the lower bunk, dropped his new clothes on the floor, and idly picked up the book and two pamphlets set out there. The book was a Bible bound in some artificial fabric that looked like blue skin; the pamphlets, Jack saw by looking at those on his own bunk, were entitled The High Road to Everlasting Grace and God Loves You! Wolf knows. You know, too, Jacky. Wolf looked up at him, almost scowling. Then he glanced back down at the books in his hands, began turning them over, almost shuffling them. They were, Jack supposed, the first books Wolf had ever seen. The white man, Wolf said, almost too softly for Jack to hear. White man? Wolf held up one of the pamphlets, its back cover showing. The whole rear cover was a blackandwhite photograph of Sunlight Gardener, his beautiful hair lifting in a breeze, his arms outstretcheda man of everlasting grace, beloved of God. Him, Wolf said. He kills, Jacky. With whips. This is one of his places. No Wolf should ever be in one of his places. No Jack Sawyer, either. Never. We have to get away from here, Jacky. Well get out, Jack said. I promise you. Not today, not tomorrowwe have to work it out. But soon. Wolfs feet protruded far past the edge of his bunk. Soon. 3 Soon, he had promised, and Wolf had required the promise. Wolf was terrified. Jack could not tell if Wolf had ever seen Osmond in the Territories, but he had certainly heard of him. Osmonds reputation in the Territories, at least among members of the Wolf family, appeared to be even worse than Morgans. But though both Wolf and Jack had recognized Osmond in Sunlight Gardener, Gardener had not recognized themwhich brought up two possibilities. Either Gardener was just having fun with them, pretending ignorance; or he was a Twinner like Jacks mother, profoundly connected to a Territories figure but unaware of the connection at any but the deepest level. And if that was true, as Jack thought it was, then he and Wolf could wait for the really right moment to escape. They had time to watch, time to learn. Jack put on the scratchy new clothes. The square black shoes seemed to weigh several pounds apiece, and to be suited to either foot. With difficulty, he persuaded Wolf to put on the Sunlight Home uniform. Then the two of them lay down. Jack heard Wolf begin to snore, and after a while, he drifted off himself. In his dreams his mother was somewhere in the dark, calling for him to help her, help her. 22 The Sermon 1 At five that afternoon, an electric bell went off in the hallway, a long, toneless blare of sound. Wolf leaped from his bunk, thudding the metal frame of the upper with the side of his head hard enough to wake up Jack, who had been dozing, with a jolt. The bell stopped shrieking after fifteen seconds or so; Wolf went right on. He staggered over into the corner of the room, his hands wrapped around his head. Bad place, Jack! he screamed. Bad place right here and now! Gotta get outta here! Gotta get outta here RIGHT HERE AND NOW! Pounding on the wall. Shut the dummy up! From the other side, a shrieking, whinnying, horsey laugh. You gittin some sunlight in you souls now, boys! And from de way dat big fella soun, it sho feel fine! The giggling, whinnying laugh, too much like a horrified scream, came again. Bad, Jack! Wolf! Jason! Bad! Bad, bad Doors were opening all up and down the hall. Jack could hear the rumble of many feet dressed in blocky Sunlight Home shoes. He got down from the top bunk, forcing himself to move. He felt crossgrained to realitynot awake, not really asleep, either. Moving across the mean little room to Wolf was like moving through Karo syrup instead of air. He felt so tired now . . . so very tired. Wolf, he said. Wolf, stop it. Cant, Jacky! Wolf sobbed. His arms were still wrapped around his head, as if to keep it from exploding. You got to, Wolf. We have to go out in the hall now. Cant, Jacky, Wolf sobbed, its a bad place, bad smells. . . . From the hallway, someoneJack thought it was Heck Bastyelled, Out for confession! Out for confession! someone else yelled, and they all took up the chant Out for confession! Out for confession! It was like some weird football cheer. If were going to get out of here with our skins on, weve got to stay cool. Cant, Jacky, cant stay cool, bad. . . . Their door was going to open in a minute and Bast or Sonny Singer would be there . . . maybe both. They were not out for confession, whatever that was, and while newcomers to the Sunlight Home might be allowed a few screwups during their orientation period, Jack thought their chances for escape would be better if they blended in as completely as they could as soon as they could. With Wolf, that wasnt going to be easy. Christ, Im sorry I got you into this, big guy, Jack thought. But the situation is what the situation is. And if we cant ride it, its gonna ride us down. So if Im hard with you, its for your own good. He added miserably to himself, I hope. Wolf, he whispered, do you want Singer to start beating on me again? No, Jack, no. . . . Then you better come out in the hall with me, Jack said. You have to remember that what you do is going to have a lot to do with how Singer and that guy Bast treat me. Singer slapped me around because of your stones Someone might slap him around, Wolf said. His voice was low and mild, but his eyes suddenly narrowed, flared orange. For a moment Jack saw the gleam of white teeth between Wolfs lipsnot as if Wolf had grinned, but as if his teeth had grown. Dont even think of that, Jack said grimly. Itll only makes things worse. Wolfs arms fell away from his head. Jack, I dont know. . . . Will you try? Jack asked. He threw another urgent glance at the door. Ill try, Wolf whispered shakily. Tears shone in his eyes. 2 The upstairs corridor should have been bright with lateafternoon light, but it wasnt. It was as if some sort of filtering device had been fitted over the windows at the end of the corridor so that the boys could see outout to where the real sunlight wasbut that the light itself wasnt allowed to enter. It seemed to drop dead on the narrow inner sills of those high Victorian windows. There were forty boys standing in front of twenty doors, ten on each side. Jack and Wolf were by far the last to appear, but their lateness was not noticed. Singer, Bast, and two other boys had found someone to rag and could not be bothered with taking attendance. Their victim was a narrowchested, bespectacled kid of maybe fifteen. He was standing at a sorry approximation of attention with his chinos puddled around his black shoes. He wore no underpants. Have you stopped it yet? Singer asked. I Shut up! One of the other boys with Singer and Bast yelled this last. The four of them wore blue jeans instead of chinos, and clean white turtleneck sweaters. Jack learned soon enough that the fellow who had just shouted was Warwick. The fat fourth was Casey. When we want you to talk, well ask you! Warwick shouted now. You still whipping your weasel, Morton? Morton trembled and said nothing. ANSWER HIM! Casey shrieked. He was a tubby boy who looked a little bit like a malevolent Tweedledum. No, Morton whispered. WHAT? SPEAK UP! Singer yelled. No! Morton moaned. If you can stop for a whole week, youll get your underpants back, Singer said with the air of one conferring a great favor on an undeserving subject. Now pull up your pants, you little creep. Morton, sniffling, bent over and pulled up his trousers. The boys went down to confession and supper. 3 Confession was held in a large barewalled room across the way from the dining hall. The maddening smells of baked beans and hotdogs drifted across, and Jack could see Wolfs nostrils flaring rhythmically. For the first time that day the dull expression left his eyes and he began to look interested. Jack was more wary of confession than he had let on to Wolf. Lying in his upper bunk with his hands behind his head, he had seen a black something in the upper corner of the room. He had thought for a moment or two that it was some sort of a dead beetle, or the husk of its shellhe thought if he got closer he would perhaps see the spiders web the thing was caught in. It had been a bug, all right, but not the organic kind. It was a small, oldfashionedlooking microphone gadget, screwed into the wall with an eyebolt. A cord snaked from the back of it and through a ragged hole in the plaster. There had been no real effort to conceal it. Just part of the service, boys. Sunlight Gardener Listens Better. After seeing the bug, after the ugly little scene with Morton in the hall, he had expected confession to be an angry, perhaps scary, adversary situation. Someone, possibly Sunlight Gardener himself, more probably Sonny Singer or Hector Bast, would try to get him to admit that he had used drugs on the road, that he had broken into places in the middle of the night and robbed while on the road, that he had spit on every sidewalk he could find while on the road, and played with himself after a hard day on the road. If he hadnt done any of those things, they would keep after him until he admitted them, anyway. They would try to break him. Jack thought he could hold up under such treatment, but he wasnt sure Wolf could. But what was most disturbing about confession was the eagerness with which the boys in the Home greeted it. The inner cadrethe boys in the white turtleneckssat down near the front of the room. Jack looked around and saw the others looking toward the open door with a sort of witless anticipation. He thought it must be supper they were anticipatingit smelled very damn good, all right, especially after all those weeks of pickup hamburgers interspersed with large helpings of nothing at all. Then Sunlight Gardener walked briskly in and Jack saw the expressions of anticipation change to looks of gratification. Apparently it hadnt been dinner they had been looking forward to, after all. Morton, who had been cowering in the upper hallway with his pants puddled around his ankles only fifteen minutes ago, looked almost exalted. The boys got to their feet. Wolf sat, nostrils flaring, looking puzzled and frightened, until Jack grabbed a fistful of shirt and pulled him up. Do what they do, Wolf, he muttered. Sit down, boys, Gardener said, smiling. Sit down, please. They sat. Gardener was wearing faded blue jeans overtopped with an openthroated shirt of blinding white silk. He looked at them, smiling benignly. The boys looked back worshipfully, for the most part. Jack saw one boywavy brown hair that came to a deep widows peak on his brow, receding chin, delicate little hands as pale as Uncle Tommys Delftwareturn aside and cup his mouth to hide a sneer, and he, Jack, felt some encouragement. Apparently not everyones head had been blown by whatever was going on here . . . but a lot of heads had been. Wideopen they had been blown, from the way things looked. The fellow with the great buck teeth was looking at Sunlight Gardener adoringly. Let us pray. Heck, will you lead us? Heck did. He prayed fast and mechanically. It was like listening to a DialaPrayer recorded by a dyslexic. After asking God to favor them in the days and weeks ahead, to forgive them their trespasses and to help them become better people, Heck Bast rapped out, ForJesussakeamen, and sat down. Thank you, Heck, Gardener said. He had taken an armless chair, had turned it around backward, and was sitting on it like a rangeridin cowpoke in a John Ford Western. He was at his most charming tonight; the sterile, selfreferring craziness Jack had seen that morning was almost gone. Let us have a dozen confessions, please. No more than that. Will you lead us, Andy? Warwick, an expression of ludicrous piety on his face, took Hecks place. Thank you, Reverend Gardener, he said, and then looked at the boys. Confession, he said. Who will start? There was a rustling stir . . .

and then hands began to go up. Two . . . six . . . nine of them. Roy Owdersfelt, Warwick said. Roy Owdersfelt, a tall boy with a pimple the size of a tumor on the end of his nose, stood up, twisting his rawboned hands in front of him. I stole ten bucks from my mommas purse last year! he announced in a high, screamy voice. One scabbed, grimy hand wandered up to his face, settled on the pimple, and gave it a fearful tweak. I took it down to The Wizard of Odds and I turned it into quarters and I played all these different games like PacMan and Laser Strike until it was gone! That was money she had put away against the gas bill, and thats how come for a while they turned off our heat! He blinked around at them. And my brother got sick and had to go in the hospital up in Indianapolis with pneumonia! Because I stole that money! Thats my confession. Roy Owdersfelt sat down. Sunlight Gardener said, Can Roy be forgiven? In unison the boys replied, Roy can be forgiven. Can anyone here forgive him, boys? No one here. Who can forgive him? God through the power of His only begotten Son, Jesus. Will you pray to Jesus to intercede for you? Gardener asked Roy Owdersfelt. Sure am gonna! Roy Owdersfelt cried in an unsteady voice, and tweaked the pimple again. Jack saw that Roy Owdersfelt was weeping. And the next time your momma comes here are you going to tell your momma that you know you sinned against her and your little brother and against the face of God and youre just as sorry a boy as ever there was? You bet! Sunlight Gardener nodded to Andy Warwick. Confession, Warwick said. Before confession was over at six oclock, almost everyone except Jack and Wolf had his hand up, hoping to relate some sin to those gathered. Several confessed petty theft. Others told of stealing liquor and drinking until they threw up. There were, of course, many tales of drugs. Warwick called on them, but it was Sunlight Gardener they looked to for approval as they told . . . and told . . . and told. Hes got them liking their sins, Jack thought, troubled. They love him, they want his approval, and I guess they only get it if they confess. Some of these sad sacks probably even make their crimes up. The smells from the dining hall had been getting stronger. Wolfs stomach rumbled furiously and constantly next to Jack. Once, during one boys tearful confession of having hooked a Penthouse magazine so he could look at those filthy pictures of what he called sexedout women, Wolfs stomach rumbled so loudly that Jack elbowed him. Following the last confession of the evening, Sunlight Gardener offered a short, melodious prayer. Then he stood in the doorway, informal and yet resplendent in his jeans and white silk shirt, as the boys filed out. As Jack and Wolf passed, he closed one of his hands around Jacks wrist. Ive met you before. Confess, Sunlight Gardeners eyes demanded. And Jack felt an urge to do just that. Oh yes, we know each other, yes. You whipped my back bloody. No, he said. Oh yes, Gardener said. Oh yes. Ive met you before. In California? In Maine? Oklahoma? Where? Confess. I dont know you, Jack said. Gardener giggled. Inside his own head, Jack suddenly knew, Sunlight Gardener was jigging and dancing and snapping a bullwhip. So Peter said when he was asked to identify Jesus Christ, he said. But Peter lied. So do you, I think. Was it in Texas, Jack? El Paso? Was it in Jerusalem in another life? On Golgotha, the place of the skull? I tell you Yes, yes, I know, weve only just met. Another giggle. Wolf, Jack saw, had shied as far away from Sunlight Gardener as the doorway would allow. It was the smell. The gagging, cloying smell of the mans cologne. And under it, the smell of craziness. I never forget a face, Jack. I never forget a face or a place. Ill remember where we met. His eyes flicked from Jack to WolfWolf whined a little and pulled backand then back to Jack again. Enjoy your dinner, Jack, he said. Enjoy your dinner, Wolf. Your real life at the Sunlight Home begins tomorrow. Halfway to the stairs, he turned and looked back. I never forget a place or a face, Jack. Ill remember. Coldly, Jack thought, God, I hope not. Not until Im about two thousand miles away from this fucking pris Something slammed into him hard. Jack flew out into the hall, pinwheeling his arms madly for balance. He hit his head on the bare concrete floor and saw a tangled shower of stars. When he was able to sit up, he saw Singer and Bast standing together, grinning. Behind them was Casey, his gut pouching out his white turtleneck. Wolf was looking at Singer and Bast, and something in his tenseddown posture alarmed Jack. No, Wolf! he said sharply. Wolf slumped. No, go ahead, dummy, Heck Bast said, laughing a little. Dont listen to him. Go on and try me, if you want. I always liked a little warmup before dinner. Singer glanced at Wolf and said, Leave the dummy alone, Heck. Hes just the body. He nodded at Jack. Theres the head. Theres the head we got to change. He looked down at Jack, hands on his knees, like an adult bending to pass a pleasant word or two with a very small child. And we will change it, Mr. Jack Parker. You can believe it. Deliberately, Jack said, Piss off, you bullying asshole. Singer recoiled as if slapped, a flush rising out of his collar, up his neck, and into his face. With a growl, Heck Bast stepped forward. Singer grabbed Basts arm. Still looking at Jack, he said, Not now. Later. Jack got to his feet. You want to watch out for me, he said quietly to them both, and although Hector Bast only glowered, Sonny Singer looked almost scared. For a moment he seemed to see something in Jack Sawyers face that was both strong and forbiddingsomething that had not been there almost two months ago, when a much younger boy had set the small seafront town of Arcadia Beach to his back and had begun walking west. 4 Jack thought that Uncle Tommy might have described dinnernot unkindlyas consisting of American Grange Hall Cuisine. The boys sat at long tables and were served by four of their number, who had changed into clean messwhites following the confession period. Following another prayer, chow was duly brought on. Big glass bowls full of homebaked beans were passed up and down the four tables, steaming platters of cheap red hotdogs, tureens of canned pineapple chunks, lots of milk in plain cartons marked DONATED COMMODITIES and INDIANA STATE DAIRY COMMISSION. Wolf ate with grim concentration, his head down, a piece of bread always in one hand to serve as a combination pusher and mopper. As Jack watched, he gobbled five hotdogs and three helpings of the bullethard beans. Thinking of the small room with its closed window, Jack wondered if he were going to need a gasmask tonight. He supposed sonot that he was likely to be issued one. He watched dismally as Wolf slopped a fourth helping of beans onto his plate. Following dinner, all the boys rose, formed lines, and cleared the tables. As Jack took his dishes, a Wolfdecimated loaf of bread, and two milkpitchers out into the kitchen, he kept his eyes wide open. The stark labels on the milk cartons had given him an idea. This place wasnt a prison, and it wasnt a workhouse. It was probably classed as a boarding school or something, and the law would demand that some sort of state inspectors must keep an eye on it. The kitchen would be a place where the State of Indianas eye would fall most often. Bars on the windows upstairs, okay. Bars on the kitchen windows? Jack didnt think so. They would raise too many questions. The kitchen might make a good jumpingoff point for an escape attempt, so Jack studied it carefully. It looked a lot like the cafeteria kitchen at his school in California. The floor and walls were tiled, the big sinks and counters stainless steel. The cupboards were nearly the size of vegetable bins. An old conveyorbelt dishwasher stood against one wall. Three boys were already operating this hoary antique under the supervision of a man in cooks whites. The man was narrow, pallid, and possessed of a ratlike little face. An unfiltered cigarette was pasted to his upper lip, and that identified him in Jacks mind as a possible ally. He doubted if Sunlight Gardener would let any of his own people smoke cigarettes. On the wall, he saw a framed certificate which announced that this public kitchen had been rated acceptable under standards set by the State of Indiana and the U.S. Government. And no, there were no bars on the frostedglass windows. The ratlike man looked over at Jack, peeled his cigarette off his lower lip, and tossed it into one of the sinks. New fish, you and your buddy, huh? he asked. Well, youll be old fish soon enough. The fish get old real quick here in the Sunlight Home, dont they, Sonny? He grinned insolently at Sonny Singer. It was quite obvious that Singer did not know how to cope with such a smile; he looked confused and unsure, just a kid again. You know youre not supposed to talk to the boys, Rudolph, he said. You can just cram it up your ass anytime you cant roll it down the alley or kick it in the air, buddyroo, Rudolph said, flicking his eyes lazily over Singer. You know that, dont you? Singer looked at him, lips first trembling, then writhing, then pushing together hard. He suddenly turned around. Nightchapel! he shouted furiously. Nightchapel, come on, lets go, get those tables cleared and lets get up the hall, were late! Nightchapel! 5 The boys trooped down a narrow staircase lit by naked bulbs enclosed in wire mesh. The walls were dank plaster, and Jack didnt like the way Wolfs eyeballs were rolling. After that, the cellar chapel was a surprise. Most of the downstairs areawhich was considerablehad been converted into a spare, modern chapel. The air down here was goodnot too warm, not too cold. And fresh. Jack could hear the whispering of convection units somewhere near. There were five pews split by a central aisle, leading up to a dais with a lectern and a simple wooden cross hung on a purple velvet backdrop. Somewhere, an organ was playing. The boys filed quietly into the pews. The microphone on the lectern had a large, professionallooking baffle on the end of it. Jack had been in plenty of studio soundrooms with his mother, often sitting patiently by and reading a book or doing his homework assignments while she did TV overdubs or looped unclear dialogue, and he knew that sort of baffle was meant to keep the speaker from popping the mike. He thought it a strange thing to see in the chapel of a religious boarding home for wayward boys. Two video cameras stood at either side of the lectern, one to catch Sunlight Gardeners right profile, the other to catch his left. Neither was turned on this evening. There were heavy purple drapes on the walls. On the right, they were unbroken. Set into the left wall, however, was a glass rectangle. Jack could see Casey crouched over an extremely professionallooking soundboard, reeltoreel tape recorder close to his right hand. As Jack watched, Casey grabbed a pair of cans from the board and slipped them over his ears. Jack looked up and saw hardwood beams rising in a series of six modest arches. Between them was drilled white composition board . . . soundproofing. The place looked like a chapel, but it was a very efficient combination TVandradio studio. Jack suddenly thought of Jimmy Swaggart, Rex Humbard, Jack Van Impe. Folks, just lay yo hand on yo television set, and you gone be HEALED!!! He suddenly felt like screaming with laughter. A small door to the left of the podium opened, and Sunlight Gardener stepped out. He was dressed in white from head to toe, and Jack saw expressions varying from exaltation to outright adoration on the faces of many of the boys, but Jack again had to restrain himself from a wild laughingspree. The vision in white approaching the lectern reminded him of a series of commercials he had seen as a very young child. He thought Sunlight Gardener looked like the Man from Glad. Wolf turned toward him and whispered hoarsely, Whats the matter, Jack? You smell like somethings really funny. Jack snorted so hard into the hand cupped over his mouth that he blew colorless snot all over his fingers. Sunlight Gardener, his face glowing with ruddy good health, turned the pages of the great Bible on the lectern, apparently lost in deepest meditation. Jack saw the glowering scorchedearth landscape of Heck Basts face, the narrow, suspicious face of Sonny Singer. He sobered up in a hurry. In the glass booth, Casey was sitting up, watching Gardener alertly. And as Gardener raised his handsome face from his Bible and fastened his cloudy, dreaming, and utterly insane eyes upon his congregation, Casey flipped a switch. The reels of the big tape recorder began to turn. 6 Fret not thyself because of evildoers, said Sunlight Gardener. His voice was low, musical, thoughtful. Neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the Territories (Jack Sawyer felt his heart take a nasty, leaping turn in his chest) and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. . . . Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. For evildoers shall be cut off but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit his Territory. Sunlight Gardener closed the Book. May God, he said, add His Blessing to the reading of His Holy Word. He looked down at his hands for a long, long time. In Caseys glass booth, the wheels of the tape recorder turned. Then he looked up again, and in his mind Jack suddenly heard this man scream Not the Kingsland? You dont mean to tell me youve overturned a full wagonload of Kingsland Ale, you stupid goats penis? You dont mean to tell me that, do yoooooouuuuuuu? Sunlight Gardener studied his young male congregation closely and earnestly. Their faces looked back at himround faces, lean faces, bruised faces, faces flaring with acne, faces that were sly, and faces that were open and youthful and lovely. What does it mean, boys? Do you understand Psalm Thirtyseven? Do you understand this lovely, lovely song? No, their faces saidsly and open, clear and sweet, pitted and poxed. Not too much, only got as far as the fifth grade, been on the road, been on the bum, been in trouble . . . tell me . . . tell me. . . . Suddenly, shockingly, Gardener shrieked into the mike, It means DONT SWEAT IT! Wolf recoiled, moaning a little. Now you know what that means, dont you? You boys have heard that one, havent you? Yeah! someone shouted from behind Jack. OHYEAH! Sunlight Gardener echoed, beaming. DONT SWEAT IT! NEGATIVE PERSPIRATION! They are good words, arent they, boys? Those are some kind of gooooood words, OHYEAH! Yeah! . . . YEAH! This Psalm says you dont have to WORRY about the evildoers! NO SWEAT! OHYEAH! It says you dont have to WORRY about the workers of sin and iniquity! NEGATIVE PERSPIRATION! This Psalm here says that if you WALK the Lord and TALK the Lord, EVERYTHINGS GONNA BE SO COOL! Do you understand that, boys? Do you have an understanding ear for that? Yeah! Hallelujah! Heck Bast cried, grinning divinely. Amen! a boy with a great lazy eye behind his magnifying spectacles returned. Sunlight Gardener took the mike with practiced ease, and Jack was again reminded of a Las Vegas lounge performer. Gardener began to walk back and forth with nervous, mincing rapidity. He sometimes did a jigging little halfstep in his clean white leather shoes; now he was Dizzy Gillespie, now Jerry Lee Lewis, now Stan Kenton, now Gene Vincent; he was in a fever of jive Godhead testimony. Naw, you dont have to fear! Ah, naw! You dont have to fear that kid who wants to show you dirtybook pictures! You dont have to fear that boy who says just one toke on just one joint wont hurt you and youll be a sissy if you dont take it! Ah, naw! CAUSE WHEN YOU GOT THE LORD YOU GONNA WALK WITH THE LORD, AM I RIGHT? YEAH!!! OHYEAH! AND WHEN YOU GOT THE LORD YOU GONNA TALK WITH THE LORD, AM I RIGHT? YEAH! I CANT HEAR YOU, AM I RIGHT? YEAH!!! They screamed it out, many of them rocking back and forth in a frenzy now. IF IM RIGHT SAY HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH! IF IM RIGHT SAY OHYEAH! OHYEAH! They rocked back and forth; Jack and Wolf were rocked with them, helplessly. Jack saw that some of the boys were actually weeping. Now tell me this, Gardener said, looking toward them warmly and confidentially. Is there any place for the evildoer here in the Sunlight Home? Huh? What do you think? No sir! cried out the thin boy with the buck teeth. Thats right, Sunlight Gardener said, approaching the podium again. He gave the mike a quick, professional flick to clear the cord out from under his feet and then he slipped it back into the clamp again. Thats the ticket. No room here for tattletale liars and workers of iniquity, say hallelujah. Hallelujah, the boys replied. Amen, Sunlight Gardener agreed. The Lord saysin the Book of Isaiah he says itthat if you lean on the Lord, youre gonna mount upohyeah!with wings as eagles, and your strength shall be the strength of ten and I say to you, boys, THAT THE SUNLIGHT HOME IS A NEST FOR EAGLES, CAN YOU SAY OHYEAH! OHYEAH! There was another caesura. Sunlight Gardener gripped the sides of the podium, head down as if in prayer, gorgeous white hair hanging in disciplined waves. When he spoke again, his voice was low and brooding. He did not look up. The boys listened breathlessly. But we have enemies, Sunlight Gardener said at last. This was little more than a whisper, but the mike picked it up and transmitted it perfectly. The boys sigheda rustle of wind through autumn leaves. Heck Bast was looking around truculently, eyes rolling, pimples glowing such a deep red that he looked like a boy in the grip of a tropical illness. Show me an enemy, Heck Basts face said. Yeah, you go on, show me an enemy and just see what happens to him! Gardener looked up. Now his mad eyes appeared filled with tears. Yes, we have enemies, he repeated. Twice now the State of Indiana has tried to shut me down. Do you know what? The radical humanists can barely stand to think of me down here at the Sunlight Home, teaching my boys to love Jesus and their country. It makes em mad, and do you want to know something, boys? Do you want to know a deep old dark secret? They leaned forward, eyes on Sunlight Gardener. We dont just make em mad, Gardener said in a hoarse conspirators whisper. We make em scaaaaaared. Hallelujah! Ohyeah! Amen! In a flash, Sunlight Gardener grabbed the mike again, and he was off! Up and down! back and forth! sometimes he jigged a twostep neat as a minstrel in a 1910 cakewalk! He bopped the word to them, pumping one arm first at the boys, then up toward heaven, where God had presumably dragged up His armchair to listen. We scare em, ohyeah! Scare em so bad they got to have another cocktail, or another joint, or another sniff of cocaine! We scare em, because even smart old Goddenying, Jesushating radical humanists like them can smell righteousness and the love of God, and when they smell that they can smell the brimstone coming out of their own pores, and they dont like that smell, oh no! So they send down an extra inspector or two to plant garbage under the kitchen counters, or to let loose some cockaroaches in the flour! They start a lot of vile rumors about how my boys are beaten. Are you beaten? NO! they roared indignantly, and Jack was dumbfounded to see Morton roaring the negative out as enthusiastically as all the rest, even though a bruise was already beginning to form on Mortons cheek. Why, they sent down a bunch of smart news reporters from some smart radical humanist news show! Sunlight Gardener cried in a kind of disgusted wonder. They came down here and they said, Okay, who are we supposed to do the hatchetjob on? Weve done a hundred and fifty already, were experts at smearing the righteous, dont worry about us, just give us a few joints and a few cocktails and point us in the right direction. But we fooled em, didnt we, boys? Rumbling, almost vicious assent. They didnt find no one chained to a beam in the barn, did they? Didnt find no boys in straitjackets, like they heard down in town from some of these hellbound School Board jackals, did they? Didnt find no boys getting their fingernails pulled, or all their hair shaved off, or nothing like that! Most they could find was some boys who said they got spanked, and they DID get spanked, ohyeah, they was spanked and Id testify on that matter myself before the Throne of Almighty God, with a liedetector strapped to each arm, because the book says if you SPARE that rod, you gonna SPOIL that child, and if you believe that, boys, you gimme hallelujah! HALLELUJAH! Even the Indiana Board of Education, much as theyd like to get rid of me and leave a clear field for the devil, even they had to admit that when it comes to spanking, Gods law and the State of Indianas law runs just about the same that if you SPARE that rod, you gonna SPOIL that child! They found HAPPY boys! They found HEALTHY boys! They found boys who were willing to WALK the Lord and TALK the Lord, oh can you say hallelujah? They could. Can you say ohyeah? They could do that, too. Sunlight Gardener came back to the podium. The Lord protects those that love Him, and the Lord is not gonna see a bunch of dopesmoking, communistloving radical humanists take away this resting place for tired, confused boys. There were a few boys who told tattletale lies to those socalled newspeople, Gardener said. I heard the lies repeated on that TV news show, and although the boys slinging that mud were too cowardly to show their own faces on the screen, I knewohyeah!I knew those voices. When youve fed a boy, when youve held his head tenderly against your breast when he cries for his momma in the night, why, I guess then you know his voice. Those boys are gone now. God may forgive themI hope He does, ohyeahbut Sunlight Gardener is just a man. He hung his head to show what a shameful admission this was. But when he raised it again, his eyes were still hot, sparkling with fury. Sunlight Gardener cannot forgive them. So Sunlight Gardener set them out on the road again. They have been sent out into the Territories, but there they shall not be fed; there even the trees may eat them up, like beasts which walk in the night. Terrified silence in the room. Behind the glass panel, even Casey looked pallid and strange. The Book says that God sent Cain out to the East of Eden, into the land of Nod. Being cast out onto the road is like that, my boys. You have a safe haven here. He surveyed them. But if you weaken . . . if you lie . . . then woe unto you! Hell awaits the backslider just as it awaits the boy or man who dives into it on purpose. Remember, boys. Remember. Let us pray. 23 Ferd Janklow 1 It took Jack less than a week to decide that a detour into the Territories was the only way they could possibly escape the Sunlight Home. He was willing to try that, but he found he would do almost anything, run any risk, if only he could avoid flipping from the Sunlight Home itself. There was no concrete reason for this, only the voice of his undermind whispering that what was bad here would be worse over there. This was, perhaps, a bad place in all worlds . . . like a bad spot in an apple which goes all the way to the core. Anyway, the Sunlight Home was bad enough; he had no urge to see what its Territories counterpart looked like unless he had to. But there might be a way. Wolf and Jack and the other boys not lucky enough to be on the Outside Staffand that was most of themspent their days in what the longtimers called Far Field. It was about a mile and half down the road, at the edge of Gardeners property, and there the boys spent their days picking rocks. There was no other fieldwork to be done at this time of year. The last of the crops had been harvested in midOctober, but as Sunlight Gardener had pointed out each morning in Chapel Devotions, rocks were always in season. Sitting in the back of one of the Homes two dilapidated farmtrucks each morning, Jack surveyed Far Field while Wolf sat beside him, head down, like a boy with a hangover. It had been a rainy fall in the midwest, and Far Field was a gluey, sticky, muddy mess. Day before yesterday one of the boys had cursed it under his breath and called it a real bootsucker. Suppose we just take off? Jack thought for the fortieth time. Suppose I just yell Go for it! at Wolf and we start busting our buns? Where? North end, where those trees are, and the rock wall. Thats where his land ends. There might be a fence. Well climb over it. For that matter, Wolf can throw me over it, if he has to. Might be barbed wire. Wiggle under it. Or Or Wolf could tear it apart with his bare hands. Jack didnt like to think of it, but he knew Wolf had the strength . . . and if he asked, Wolf would do it. It would rip up the big guys hands, but he was getting ripped up in worse ways right now. And then what? Flip, of course. That was what. If they could just get off the land that belonged to the Sunlight Home, that undervoice whispered, they would have a fighting chance all the way clear. And Singer and Bast (whom Jack had come to think of as the Thuggsy Twins) would not be able to use one of the trucks to run them down; the first truck to turn wheels into Far Field before the deep frosts of December would mire itself rockerpanel deep. Itd be a footrace, pure and simple. Got to try it. Better than trying it back there, at the Home. And And it wasnt just Wolfs growing distress that was driving him; he was now nearly frantic about Lily, who was back in New Hampshire dying by inches while Jack said hallelujah under duress. Go for it. Magic juice or no magic juice. Got to try. But before Jack was quite ready, Ferd Janklow tried. Great minds run in the same channel, can you say amen. 2 When it happened, it happened fast. At one moment Jack was listening to Ferd Janklows usual line of cynical, amusing bullshit. At the next, Ferd was pelting north across the murky field toward the stone wall. Until Ferd went for it, the day had seemed as drearily ordinary as any other at the Sunlight Home. It was cold and overcast; there was a smell of rain, possibly even snow in the air. Jack looked up to ease his aching back, and also to see if Sonny Singer was around. Sonny enjoyed harassing Jack. Most of the harassment was of the nuisance variety. Jack had his feet stepped on, he was pushed on the stairs, his plate had been knocked out of his hands for three meals runninguntil he had learned to simultaneously cradle it on the inner side of his body and hold it in a deathgrip. Jack wasnt completely sure why Sonny hadnt organized a mass stomping. Jack thought maybe it was because Sunlight Gardener was interested in the new boy. He didnt want to think that, it scared him to think that, but it made sense. Sonny Singer was holding off because Sunlight Gardener had told him to, and that was another reason to get out of here in a hurry. He looked to his right. Wolf was about twenty yards away, grubbing rocks with his hair in his face. Closer by was a gantrythin boy with buck teethDonald Keegan, his name was. Donny grinned at him worshipfully, baring those amazing buck teeth. Spit dribbled from the end of his lolling tongue. Jack looked away quickly. Ferd Janklow was on his leftthe boy with the narrow Delftware hands and the deep widows peak. In the week since Jack and Wolf had been incarcerated in the Sunlight Home, he and Ferd had become good friends. Ferd was grinning cynically. Donnys in love with you, he said. Blow it out, Jack said uncomfortably, feeling a flush rise in his cheeks. I bet Donnyd blow it out if you let him, Ferd said. Wouldnt you, Donny? Donny Keegan laughed his big, rusty yuckyuck, not having the slightest idea of what they were talking about. I wish youd quit it, Jack said. He felt more uncomfortable than ever. Donnys in love with you. The bloody hell of it was, he thought that maybe poor, retarded Donny Keegan really was in love with him . . . and Donny was maybe not the only one. Oddly, Jack found himself thinking of the nice man who had offered to take him home and who had then settled for dropping him off at the mall exit near Zanesville. He saw it first, Jack thought. Whatevers new about me, that man saw it first. Ferd said, Youve gotten very popular around here, Jack. Why, I think even old Heck Bast would blow it out for you, if you asked him. Man, thats sick, Jack said, flushing. I mean Abruptly, Ferd dropped the rock he had been working at and stood up. He looked swiftly around, saw none of the white turtlenecks were looking at him, and then turned back to Jack. And now, my darling, he said, its been a very dull party, and I really must be going. Ferd made kissing noises at Jack, and then a grin of amazing radiance lit and broadened Ferds narrow, pale face. A moment later he was in full flight, running for the rock wall at the end of Far Field, running in big gangling storklike strides. He did indeed catch the guards nappingat least to a degree. Pedersen was talking about girls with Warwick and a horsefaced boy named Peabody, an Outside Staffer who had been rotated back to the Home for a while. Heck Bast had been granted the supreme pleasure of accompanying Sunlight Gardener to Muncie on some errand. Ferd got a good headstart before a startled cry went up Hey! Hey, someones takin off! Jack gaped after Ferd, who was already six rows over and humping like hell. In spite of seeing his own plan coopted, Jack felt a moment of triumphant excitement, and in his heart he wished him nothing but well. Go! Go, you sarcastic son of a bitch! Go, for Jasons sake! Its Ferd Janklow, Donny Keegan gurgled, and then laughed his big, whooping laugh. 3 The boys gathered for confession in the common room that night as they always did, but confession was cancelled. Andy Warwick strode in, announced the cancellation with abrupt baldness, and told them they could have an hour of fellowship before dinner. Then he strode out. Jack thought Warwick had looked, under his patina of goosestepping authority, frightened. And Ferd Janklow was not here. Jack looked around the room and thought with glum humor that if this was fellowship one with the other, he would hate to see what would happen if Warwick had told them to have a quiet hour. They sat around the big long room, thirtynine boys between age twelve and age seventeen, looking at their hands, picking at scabs, morosely biting their nails. They all shared a common lookjunkies robbed of their fix. They wanted to hear confessions; even more, they wanted to make confessions. No one mentioned Ferd Janklow. It was as though Ferd, with his grimaces at Sunlight Gardeners sermons and his pale Delftware hands, had never existed. Jack found himself barely able to restrain an impulse to stand and scream at them. Instead, he began to think as hard as he ever had in his life. Hes not here because they killed him. Theyre all mad. You think madness isnt catching? Just look what happened at that nutty place down in South Americawhen the man in the reflector sunglasses told them to drink the purple grape drink, they said yassuh, boss, and drank it. Jack looked around at the dreary, indrawn, tired, blank facesand thought how they would light, how they would kindle, if Sunlight Gardener strode in hereif he strode in here right here and now. Theyd do it, too, if Sunlight Gardener asked them to. Theyd drink it, and then theyd hold me and Wolf, and theyd pour it down our throats as well. Ferd was rightthey see something on my face, or in it, something that came into me in the Territories, and maybe they do love me a little . . .

I guess thats what pulled Heck Basts bellrope anyway. That slob isnt used to loving anything or anyone. So, yeah, maybe they do love me a little . . . but they love him a lot more. Theyd do it. Theyre mad. Ferd could have told him that, and, sitting there in the common room, Jack supposed that Ferd had told him. He told Jack he had been committed to the Sunlight Home by his parents, bornagain Christians who fell down on their knees in the living room whenever anyone on The 700 Club began to say a prayer. Neither of them had understood Ferd, who was cut from an entirely different bolt of cloth. They thought Ferd must be a child of the devila communistic, radical humanist changeling. When he ran away for the fourth time and was bagged by none other than Franky Williams, his parents came to the Sunlight Homewhere Ferd had of course been stashedand fell in love with Sunlight Gardener on sight. Here was the answer to all the problems their bright, troublesome, rebellious son had caused them. Sunlight Gardener would educate their son toward the Lord. Sunlight Gardener would show him the error of his ways. Sunlight Gardener would take him off their hands and get him off the streets of Anderson. They saw that story about the Sunlight Home on Sunday Report, Ferd told Jack. They sent me a postcard saying God would punish liars and false prophets in a lake of fire. I wrote them backRudolph in the kitchen smuggled the letter out for me. Dolphs a pretty good guy. He paused. You know what the Ferd Janklow definition of a good guy is, Jack? No. One who stays bought, Ferd said, and laughed a cynical, hurt laugh. Two bucks buys Dolphs mailman services. So I wrote them a letter and said that if God punished liars the way they said, then I hoped Sunlight Gardener could find a set of asbestos longjohns in the other world, because he was lying about what goes on here faster than a horse can trot. Everything they had on Sunday Reportthe rumors about the straitjackets and about the Boxit was all true. Oh, they couldnt prove it. The guys a nut, Jack, but hes a smart nut. If you ever make a mistake about that, hell put a real hurt on you and on Phil the Fearless WolfBoy for good measure. Jack said, Those Sunday Report guys are usually pretty good at catching people with their hands in the pork barrel. At least, thats what my mom says. Oh, he was scared. He got real shrill and shrieky. Ever see Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny? He was like that for a week before they showed up. When they finally got here he was all sweetness and reason, but the week before was a living hell. Mr. Ice Cream was shitting in his pants. That was the week he kicked Benny Woodruff down the stairs from the third floor because he caught him with a Superman comic. Benny was out cold for three hours, and he couldnt quite get it straight who he was or where he was until that night. Ferd paused. He knew they were coming. Same as he always knows when the state inspectors are going to pull a surprise inspection. He hid the straitjackets in the attic and made believe the Box was a haydrying shed. Ferds cynical, hurt laugh again. Know what my folks did, Jack? They sent Sunny Gardener a Xerox of my letter to them. For my own good, my pop says in his next letter to me. And guess what? Its Ferds turn in the Box, courtesy of my own folks! The hurt laugh again. Tell you one other thing. He wasnt kidding at nightchapel. The kids that talked to the Sunday Report people all disappearedthe ones he could get hold of, anyway. The way Ferd himself has disappeared now, Jack thought, watching Wolf brood across the room. He shivered. His hands felt very, very cold. Your friend Phil the Fearless WolfBoy. Was Wolf starting to look hairier again? So soon? Surely not. But that was coming of courseit was as relentless as the tides. And by the way, Jack, while were just sitting around here worrying about the dangers of just sitting around here, hows your mother? Hows Darling Lil, Queen of the Bs? Losing weight? Having pain? Is she finally starting to feel it eat into her with its sharp, ratty little teeth as you sit here growing roots in this weird prison? Is Morgan maybe getting ready to wind up the lightning and give the cancer a hand? He had been shocked at the idea of straitjackets, and although he had seen the Boxa big ugly iron thing which sat in the Homes back yard like a weird abandoned refrigeratorhe couldnt believe that Gardener actually put boys in it. Ferd had slowly convinced him, talking in a low voice as they harvested rocks in Far Field. Hes got a great setup here, Ferd had said. Its a license to coin money. His religious shows play all over the midwest on the radio and over most of the country on cable TV and the indy stations. Were his captive audience. We sound great on the radio and we look great on the tubewhen Roy Owdersfelt isnt milking that fucking pimple on the end of his nose, that is. Hes got Casey, his pet radio and TV producerCasey videotapes every morningchapel and audiotapes every nightchapel. He cuts all the sound and picture together and hypes everything until Gardener looks like Billy Graham and us guys sound like the crowd in Yankee Stadium during the seventh game of the World Series. That isnt all Casey does, either. Hes the house genius. You see the bug in your room? Casey set up the bugs. Everything feeds into his control room, and the only way into that control room is through Gardeners private office. The bugs are voiceactuated, so he doesnt waste any tape. Anything juicy he saves for Sunlight Gardener. Ive heard Casey put a blue box on Gardeners phone so he can make longdistance phone calls free, and I know damned well hes spliced a line into the payTV cable that goes by out front. You like the idea of Mr. Ice Cream settling back and watching a big double feature on Cinemax after a hard day of selling Jesus to the masses? I like it. This guy is as American as spinner hubcaps, Jack, and here in Indiana they love him almost as much as they love highschool basketball. Ferd hawked back snot, grimaced, twisted his head, and spat into the dirt. Youre kidding, Jack said. Ferd Janklow never kids about the Marching Morons of the Sunlight Home, Ferd said solemnly. Hes rich, he doesnt have to declare any of it to the Internal Revenue, hes got the local school board buffaloedI mean, theyre scared to death of him; theres this one woman who practically skitters every time shes out here, looks like shed like to give him the sign against the evil eye, or somethingand like I said, he always seems to know when someone from the State Education Board is going to pay us a surprise visit. We clean this place from top to bottom, Bast the Bastard takes the canvas overcoats up to the attic, and the Box gets filled with hay from the barn. And when they come, were always in class. How many classes you been in since you landed here in Indianas version of the Love Boat, Jack? None, Jack said. None! Ferd agreed, delighted. He laughed his cynical, hurt laugh againthat laugh said, Guess what I found out when I turned eight or so? I found out that I was getting a royal fucking from life, and that things werent going to change in a hurry. Or maybe they were never going to change. And although it bums me out, it also has its funny side. You know what I mean, jellybean? 4 Such was the run of Jacks thoughts when hard fingers suddenly grasped the back of his neck at the pressurepoints below the ears and lifted him out of his chair. He was turned around into a cloud of foul breath and treatedif that was the wordto the sterile moonscape of Heck Basts face. Me and the Reverend was still in Muncie when they brought your queer troublemaker friend into the hospital, he said. His fingers pulsed and squeezed, pulsed and squeezed. The pain was excruciating. Jack moaned and Heck grinned. The grin allowed bad breath to escape his mouth in even greater quantities. Reverend got the news on his beeper. Janklow looked like a taco that spent about fortyfive minutes in a microwave oven. Its gonna be a while before they put that boy back together again. Hes not talking to me, Jack thought. Hes talking to the whole room. Were supposed to get the message that Ferds still alive. Youre a stinking liar, he said. Ferds Heck Bast hit him. Jack went sprawling on the floor. Boys scattered away from him. From somewhere, Donny Keegan heehawed. There was a roar of rage. Jack looked up, dazed, and shook his head in an effort to clear it. Heck turned and saw Wolf standing protectively over Jack, his upper lip pulled back, the overhead lights sending weird orange glints off his round glasses. So the dumbhead finally wants to dance, Heck said, beginning to grin. Hey, all right! I love to dance. Come on, snotface. Come on over here and lets dance. Still growling, saliva now coating his lower lip, Wolf began to move forward. Heck moved to meet him. Chairs scraped across linoleum as people moved back hurriedly to give them room. Whats going on h From the door. Sonny Singer. No need to finish his question; he saw what was going on here. Smiling, he pulled the door shut and leaned against it, watching, arms crossed over his narrow chest, his dark narrow face now alight. Jack switched his gaze back to Wolf and Heck. Wolf, be careful! he shouted. Ill be careful, Jack, Wolf said, his voice little more than a growl. Ill Lets dance, asshole, Heck Bast grunted, and threw a whistling, countryboy roundhouse. It hit Wolf high on the right cheekbone, driving him backward three or four steps. Donny Keegan laughed his high, whinnying laugh, which Jack now knew was as often a signal of dismay as of glee. The roundhouse was a good, heavy blow. Under other circumstances, the fight would probably have ended right there. Unfortunately for Hector Bast, it was also the only blow he landed. He advanced confidently, big fists up at chest height, and drove the roundhouse again. This time Wolfs arm moved upward and outward to meet it. Wolf caught Hecks fist. Hecks hand was big. Wolfs hand was bigger. Wolfs fist swallowed Hecks. Wolfs fist clenched. From within it came a sound like small dry sticks first cracking, then breaking. Hecks confident smile first curdled, then froze solid. A moment later he began to shriek. Shouldnt have hurt the herd, you bastard, Wolf whispered. Oh your Bible this and oh your Bible thatWolf!and all you have to do is hear six verses of The Book of Good Farming to know you never . . . Crackle! . . . never . . . Crunch! NEVER hurt the herd. Heck Bast fell to his knees, howling and weeping. Wolf still held Hecks fist in his own, and Hecks arm angled up. Heck looked like a Fascist giving a Heil Hitler salute on his knees. Wolfs arm was as rigid as stone, but his face showed no real effort; it was, except for the blazing eyes, almost serene. Blood began to drip out of Wolfs fist. Wolf, stop! Thats enough! Jack looked around swiftly and saw that Sonny was gone, the door standing open. Almost all of the boys were on their feet now. They had drawn away from Wolf as far as the rooms walls would allow, their faces awed and fearful. And still the tableau held in the center of the room Heck Bast on his knees, arms up and out, his fist swallowed in Wolfs, blood pouring onto the floor from Wolfs fist. People crowded back into the doorway. Casey, Warwick, Sonny Singer, three more big guys. And Sunlight Gardener, with a small black case, like a glassescase, in one hand. Thats enough, I said! Jack took one look at the newcomers and raced toward Wolf. Right here and now! Right here and now! All right, Wolf said quietly. He let go of Hecks hand, and Jack saw a horrible crushed thing that looked like a mangled pinwheel. Hecks fingers stuck off at jagged angles. Heck mewled and held his destroyed hand against his chest. All right, Jack. The six of them grabbed Wolf. Wolf made a halfturn, slipped one arm free, pushed, and suddenly Warwick went rattling against the wall. Someone screamed. Hold him! Gardener yelled. Hold him! Hold him, for Jesus sake! He was opening the flat black case. No, Wolf! Jack shouted. Quit it! For a moment Wolf went on struggling, and then he slumped back, allowing them to push him to the wall. To Jack they looked like Lilliputians clinging to Gulliver. Sonny looked afraid of Wolf at last. Hold him, Gardener repeated, taking a glittering hypodermic out of the flat case. That mincing, almost coy smile had come onto his face. Hold him, praise Jesus! You dont need that, Jack said. Jack? Wolf looked suddenly frightened. Jack? Jack? Gardener, headed for Wolf, pushed Jack as he went by. There was good whipcord muscle in that push. Jack went reeling into Morton, who squealed and shrank away as if Jack were contaminated. Belatedly, Wolf began to struggle againbut they were six, and that was too many. Perhaps, when the Change was on him, it wouldnt have been. Jack! he howled. Jack! Jack! Hold him, praise God, Gardener whispered, his lips skinned back brutally from his teeth, and plunged the hypodermic into Wolfs arm. Wolf went rigid, threw his head back, and howled. Kill you, you bastard, Jack thought incoherently. Kill you, kill you, kill you. Wolf struggled and thrashed. Gardener stood back, watching coldly. Wolf got a knee up into Caseys expansive gut. Casey whoofed air out, staggered backward, then came back. A minute or two later, Wolf began first to flag . . . then to sag. Jack got to his feet, weeping with rage. He tried to plunge toward the knot of white turtlenecks holding his friendas he watched he saw Casey swing a fist into Wolfs drooping face, and saw blood begin to pour from Wolfs nose. Hands held him back. He struggled, then looked around and saw the frightened faces of the boys he picked rocks with in Far Field. I want him in the Box, Gardener said as Wolfs knees finally buckled. He looked slowly around at Jack. Unless . . . perhaps youd like to tell me where weve met before, Mr. Parker? Jack stood looking down at his feet, saying nothing. His eyes stung and burned with hot, hateful tears. The Box, then, Gardener said. You may feel different when he starts to vocalize, Mr. Parker. Gardener strode out. 5 Wolf was still screaming in the Box when Jack and the other boys were marched down to morningchapel. Sunlight Gardeners eyes seemed to dwell ironically on Jacks pale, strained face. Perhaps now, Mr. Parker? Wolf, its my mother, my mother Wolf was still screaming when Jack and the other boys scheduled for fieldwork were split into two groups and marched out to the trucks. As he passed near the Box, Jack had to suppress an urge to jam his hands over his ears. Those growls, those gibbering sobs. All at once Sonny Singer was at his shoulder. Reverend Gardeners in his office waiting to take your confession right this minute, snotface, he said. Told me to tell you hell let the dummy out of the Box the minute you tell him what he wants to know. Sonnys voice was silky, his face dangerous. Wolf, screaming and howling to be let out, pounding the homeriveted iron sides of the Box with a fury of blows. Ah, Wolf, shes my MOTHER I cant tell him what he wants to know, Jack said. He turned suddenly toward Sonny, turning the force of whatever had come into him in the Territories upon Sonny. Sonny took two giant steps backward, his face dismayed and sickly scared. He tripped over his own feet and stumbled into the side of one of the idling trucks. If it hadnt been there, he would have fallen down. All right, Sonny said . . . the words came out in a breathy rush that was close to a whine. All right, all right, forget it. His thin face grew arrogant again. Reverend Gardener told me if you said no that I should tell you that your friends screaming for you. Do you get it? I know who hes screaming for. Get in the truck! Pedersen said grimly, barely looking at them as he passed by . . . but when he passed Sonny, Pedersen grimaced as though he had smelled something rotten. Jack could hear Wolf screaming even after the trucks got rolling, though the mufflers on both were little more than scallops of iron lace and the engines blatted stridently. Nor did Wolfs screams fade. He had made some sort of connection with Wolfs mind now, and he could hear Wolf screaming even after the work parties had reached Far Field. The understanding that these screams were only in his mind did nothing at all to improve matters. Around lunchtime, Wolf fell silent, and Jack knew, suddenly and with no doubt at all, that Gardener had ordered him taken out of the Box before his screams and howls attracted the wrong sort of attention. After what had happened to Ferd, he wouldnt want any attention at all focused on the Sunlight Home. When the work parties returned that late afternoon, the door of the Box was standing open and the Box was empty. Upstairs in the room they shared, Wolf was lying on the lower bunk. He smiled wanly as Jack came in. Hows your head, Jack? Bruise looks a little better. Wolf! Wolf, are you all right? Screamed, didnt I? Couldnt help it. Wolf, Im sorry, Jack said. Wolf looked strangetoo white, somehow diminished. Hes dying, Jack thought. No, his mind corrected; Wolf had been dying ever since they had flipped into this world to escape Morgan. But now he was dying faster. Too white . . . diminished . . . but . . . Jack felt a creeping chill. Wolfs bare legs and arms werent really bare; they were downed with a fine pelt of hair. It hadnt been there two nights ago, he was sure of that. He felt an urge to rush over to the window and stare out, searching for the moon, trying to make sure he hadnt somehow misplaced about seventeen days. Its not the time of the Change, Jacky, Wolf said. His voice was dry, somehow huskedout. The voice of an invalid. But I started to change in that dark smelly place they put me in. Wolf! I did. Because I was so mad and scared. Because I was yelling and screaming. Yelling and screaming can make the Change all by themselves, if a Wolf does it long enough. Wolf brushed at the hair on his legs. Itll go away. Gardener set a price for letting you out, Jack said, but I couldnt pay it. I wanted to, but . . . Wolf . . . my mother . . . His voice blurred and wavered toward tears. Shhh, Jacky. Wolf knows. Right here and now. Wolf smiled his terrible wan smile again, and took Jacks hand. 24 Jack Names the Planets 1 Another week in the Sunlight Home, praise God. The moon put on weight. On Monday, a smiling Sunlight Gardener asked the boys to bow their heads and give thanks to God for the conversion of their brother Ferdinand Janklow. Ferd had made a souldecision for Christ while recuperating in Parkland Hospital, Sunlight said, his smile radiant. Ferd had made a collect call to his parents and told them he wanted to be a soulwinner for the Lord, and they prayed for guidance right there over the longdistance line, and his parents had come to pick him up that very day. Dead and buried under some frosty Indiana field . . . or over in the Territories, perhaps, where the Indiana State Patrol could never go. Tuesday was too coldly rainy for fieldwork. Most of the boys had been allowed to stay in their rooms and sleep or read, but for Jack and Wolf, the period of harassment had begun. Wolf was lugging load after load of garbage from the barn and the sheds out to the side of the road in the driving rain. Jack had been set to work cleaning toilets. He supposed that Warwick and Casey, who had assigned him this duty, thought they were giving him a really nasty job to do. It was obvious that theyd never seen the mens room of the worldfamous Oatley Tap. Just another week at the Sunlight Home, can you say ohyeah. Hector Bast returned on Wednesday, his right arm in a cast up to the elbow, his big, doughy face so pallid that the pimples on it stood out like garish dots of rouge. Doctor says I may never get the use of it back, Heck Bast said. You and your numbnuts buddy have got a lot to answer for, Parker. You aiming to have the same thing happen to your other hand? Jack asked him . . . but he was afraid. It was not just a desire for revenge he saw in Hecks eyes; it was a desire to commit murder. Im not afraid of him, Heck said. Sonny says they took most of the mean out of him in the Box. Sonny says hell do anything to keep from going back in. As for you Hecks left fist flashed out. He was even clumsier with his left hand than with his right, but Jack, stunned by the big boys pallid rage, never saw it coming. His lips spread into a weird smile under Hecks fist and broke open. He reeled back against the wall. A door opened and Billy Adams looked out. Shut that door or Ill see you get a helping! Heck screamed, and Adams, not anxious for a dose of assault and battery, complied in a hurry. Heck started toward Jack. Jack pushed groggily away from the wall and raised his fists. Heck stopped. Youd like that, wouldnt you, Heck said. Fighting with a guy thats only got one good hand. Color rushed up into his face. Footsteps rattled on the third floor, heading toward the stairs. Heck looked at Jack. Thats Sonny. Go on. Get out of here. Were gonna get you, my friend. You and the dummy both. Reverend Gardener says we can, unless you tell him whatever it is he wants to know. Heck grinned. Do me a favor, snotface. Dont tell him. 2 They had taken something out of Wolf in the Box, all right, Jack thought. Six hours had passed since his hallway confrontation with Heck Bast. The bell for confession would ring soon, but for now Wolf was sleeping heavily in the bunk below him. Outside, rain continued to rattle off the sides of the Sunlight Home. It wasnt meanness, and Jack knew it wasnt just the Box that had taken it. Not even just the Sunlight Home. It was this whole world. Wolf was, simply, pining for home. He had lost most of his vitality. He smiled rarely and laughed not at all. When Warwick yelled at him at lunch for eating with his fingers, Wolf cringed. It has to be soon, Jacky. Because Im dying. Wolfs dying. Heck Bast said he wasnt afraid of Wolf, and indeed there seemed nothing left to be afraid of; it seemed that crushing Hecks hand had been the last strong act of which Wolf was capable. The confession bell rang. That night, after confession and dinner and chapel, Jack and Wolf came back to their room to find both of their beds dripping wet and reeking of urine. Jack went to the door, yanked it open, and saw Sonny, Warwick, and a big lunk named Van Zandt standing in the hall, grinning. Guess we got the wrong room, snotface, Sonny said. Thought it had to be the toilet, on account of the turds we always see floating around in there. Van Zandt almost ruptured himself laughing at this sally. Jack stared at them for a long moment, and Van Zandt stopped laughing. Who you looking at, turd? You want your fucking nose broke off? Jack closed the door, looked around, and saw Wolf asleep in his wet bunk with all his clothes on. Wolfs beard was coming back, but still his face looked pale, the skin stretched and shiny. It was an invalids face. Leave him alone, then, Jack thought wearily. If hes that tired, let him sleep in it. No. You will not leave him alone to sleep in that fouled bed. You will not! Tiredly, Jack went to Wolf, shook him halfawake, got him off the wet, stinking mattress, and out of his biballs. They slept curled up together on the floor. At four in the morning, the door opened and Sonny and Heck marched in. They yanked Jack up and halfcarried him down to Sunlight Gardeners basement office. Gardener was sitting with his feet up on the corner of his desk. He was fully dressed in spite of the hour. Behind him was a picture of Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee while his disciples gawped in wonder. To his right was a glass window looking into the darkened studio where Casey worked his idiotsavant wonders. There was a heavy keychain attached to one of Gardeners beltloops. The keys, a heavy bunch of them, lay in the palm of his hand. He played with them while he spoke. You havent given us a single confession since you got here, Jack, Sunlight Gardener said, his tone one of mild reproof. Confession is good for the soul. Without confession we cannot be saved. Oh, I dont mean the idolatrous, heathenish confession of the Catholics. I mean confession before your brothers and your Saviour. Ill keep it between me and my Saviour, if its all the same to you, Jack said evenly, and in spite of his fear and disorientation, he could not help relishing the expression of fury which overspread Gardeners face. Its not all the same to me! Gardener screamed. Pain exploded in Jacks kidneys. He fell to his knees. Watch what you say to Reverend Gardener, snotface, Sonny said. Some of us around here stand up for him. God bless you for your trust and your love, Sonny, Gardener said gravely, and turned his attention to Jack again. Get up, son. Jack managed to get up, holding on to the edge of Sunlight Gardeners expensive blondewood desk. Whats your real name? Jack Parker. He saw Gardener nod imperceptibly, and tried to turn, but it was a moment too late. Fresh pain exploded in his kidneys. He screamed and went down again, knocking the fading bruise on his forehead against the edge of Gardeners desk. Where are you from, you lying, impudent, devils spawn of a boy? Pennsylvania. Pain exploded in the meaty upper part of his left thigh. He rolled into a fetal position on the white Karastan carpet, huddled with his knees against his chest. Get him up. Sonny and Heck got him up. Gardener reached into the pocket of his white jacket and took out a Zippo lighter. He flicked the wheel, produced a big yellow flame, and brought the flame slowly toward Jacks face. Nine inches. He could smell the sweet, pungent reek of lighter fluid. Six inches. Now he could feel heat. Three inches. Another inchmaybe just half thatand discomfort would turn to pain. Sunlight Gardeners eyes were hazyhappy. His lips trembled on the edge of a smile. Yeah! Hecks breath was hot, and it smelled like mouldy pepperoni. Yeah, do it! Where do I know you from? I never met you before! Jack gasped. The flame moved closer. Jacks eyes began to water, and he could feel his skin beginning to sear. He tried to pull his head back. Sonny Singer pushed it forward. Where have I met you? Gardener rasped. The lighters flame danced deep in his black pupils, each deep spark a twinner of the other. Last chance! Tell him, for Gods sake tell him! If we ever met I dont remember it, Jack gasped. Maybe California The Zippo clicked closed. Jack sobbed with relief. Take him back, Gardener said. They yanked Jack toward the door. It wont do you any good, you know, Sunlight Gardener said. He had turned around and appeared to be meditating on the picture of Christ walking on water. Ill get it out of you. If not tonight, then tomorrow night. If not tomorrow night, then the night after. Why not make it easy on yourself, Jack? Jack said nothing. A moment later he felt his arm twisted up to his shoulder blades. He moaned. Tell him! Sonny whispered. And part of Jack wanted to, not because he was hurt but becausebecause confession was good for the soul. He remembered the muddy courtyard, he remembered this same man in a different envelope of skin asking who he was, he remembered thinking Ill tell you anything you want to know if only youll stop looking at me with those freakedout eyes of yours, sure, because Im only a kid, and thats what kids do, they tell, they tell everything Then he remembered his mothers voice, that tough voice, asking him if he was going to spill his guts to this guy. I cant tell you what I dont know, he said. Gardeners lips parted in a small, dry smile. Take him back to his room, he said. 3 Just another week in the Sunlight Home, can you say amen, brothers and sisters. Just another long, long week. Jack lingered in the kitchen after the others had taken in their breakfast dishes and left. He knew perfectly well that he was risking another beating, more harassment . . . but by this time, that seemed a minor consideration. Only three hours before, Sunlight Gardener had come within an ace of burning his lips off. He had seen it in the mans crazy eyes, and felt it in the mans crazy heart. After something like that, the risk of a beating seemed a very minor consideration indeed. Rudolphs cooks whites were as gray as the lowering November sky outside. When Jack spoke his name in a nearwhisper, Rudolph turned a bloodshot, cynical gaze on him. Cheap whiskey was strong on his breath. You better get outta here, new fish. Theyre keepin an eye on you pretty good. Tell me something I dont know. Jack glanced nervously toward the antique dishwasher, which thumped and hissed and gasped its steamy dragons breath at the boys loading it. They seemed not to be looking at Jack and Rudolph, but Jack knew that seemed was really the operant word. Tales would be carried. Oh yes. At the Sunlight Home they took away your dough, and carried tales became a kind of replacement currency. I need to get out of here, Jack said. Me and my big friend. How much would you take to look the other way while we went out that back door? More than you could pay me even if you could get your hands on what they took from you when they hod you in here, buddyroo, Rudolph said. His words were hard but he looked at Jack with a bleary sort of kindness. Yes, of courseit was all gone, everything. The guitarpick, the silver dollar, the big croaker marble, his six dollars . . . all gone. Sealed in an envelope and held somewhere, probably in Gardeners office downstairs. But Look, Id give you an IOU. Rudolph grinned. Comin from someone in this den of thieves and dopeaddicts, thats almost funny, he said. Piss on your fuckin IOU, old hoss. Jack turned all the new force that was in him upon Rudolph. There was a way to hide that force, that new beautyto a degree, at leastbut now he let it all come out, and saw Rudolph step back from it, his face momentarily confused and amazed. My IOU would be good and I think you know it, Jack said quietly. Give me an address and Ill mail you the cash. How much? Ferd Janklow said that for two bucks youd mail a letter for someone. Would ten be enough to look the other way just long enough for us to take a walk? Not ten, not twenty, not a hundred, Rudolph said quietly. He now looked at the boy with a sadness that scared Jack badly. It was that look as much as anything elsemaybe morethat told him just how badly he and Wolf were caught. Yeah, Ive done it before. Sometimes for five bucks. Sometimes, believe it or not, for free. I would have done it free for Ferdie Janklow. He was a good kid. These fuckers Rudolph raised one water and detergentreddened fist and shook it toward the greentiled wall. He saw Morton, the accused pudpuller, looking at him, and Rudolph glared horribly at him. Morton looked away in a hurry. Then why not? Jack asked desperately. Because Im scared, hoss, Rudolph said. What do you mean? The night I came here, when Sonny started to give you some trouble Singer! Rudolph flapped one hand contemptuously. I aint scared of Singer, and I aint scared of Bast, no matter how big he is. Its him Im afraid of. Gardener? Hes a devil from hell, Rudolph said. He hesitated and then added, Ill tell you something I never told nobody else. One week he was late givin me my pay envelope and I went downstairs to his office. Most times I dont, I dont like to go down there, but this time I had to . . . well, I had to see a man. I needed my money in a hurry, you know what I mean? And I seen him go down the hall and into his office, so I knew he was there. I went down and knocked on the door, and it swung open when I did, because it hadnt completely latched. And you know what, kid? He wasnt there. Rudolphs voice had lowered steadily as he told this story, until Jack could barely hear the cook over the thump and wheeze of the dishwasher. At the same time, his eyes had widened like the eyes of a child reliving a scary dream.

I thought maybe he was in that recordinstudio thing they got, but he wasnt. And he hadnt gone into the chapel because theres no direct connectin door. Theres a door to the outside from his office, but it was locked and bolted on the inside. So where did he go, buddyroo? Where did he go? Jack, who knew, could only look at Rudolph numbly. I think hes a devil from hell and he took some weird elevator down to report to fuckin HQ, Rudolph said. Id like to help you but I cant. There aint enough money in Fort Knox for me to cross the Sunlight Man. Now you get out of here. Maybe they aint noticed youre missin. But they had, of course. As he came out through the swinging doors, Warwick stepped up behind him and clubbed Jack in the middle of the back with hands interlaced to form one gigantic fist. As he went stumbling forward through the deserted cafeteria, Casey appeared from nowhere like an evil jackinthebox and stuck out a foot. Jack couldnt stop. He tripped over Caseys foot, his own feet went out from under him, and he sprawled in a tangle of chairs. He got up, fighting back tears of rage and shame. You dont want to be so slow taking in your dishes, snotface, Casey said. You could get hurt. Warwick grinned. Yeah. Now get on upstairs. The trucks are waiting to leave. 4 At four the next morning he was awakened and taken down to Sunlight Gardeners office again. Gardener looked up from his Bible as if surprised to see him. Ready to confess, Jack Parker? I have nothing The lighter again. The flame, dancing a bare inch from the tip of his nose. Confess. Where have we met? The flame danced a little closer yet. I mean to have it out of you, Jack. Where? Where? Saturn! Jack screamed. It was all he could think of. Uranus! Mercury! Somewhere in the asteroid belt! Io! Ganymede! Dei Pain, thick and leaden and excruciating, exploded in his lower belly as Hector Bast reached between his legs with his good hand and squeezed Jacks testes. There, Heck Bast said, smiling cheerfully. Didnt you just have that coming, you hellbound mocker. Jack collapsed slowly to the floor, sobbing. Sunlight Gardener leaned slowly down, his face patientalmost beatific. Next time, it will be your friend down here, Sunlight Gardener said gently. And with him I will not hesitate. Think about it, Jack. Until tomorrow night. But tomorrow night, Jack decided, he and Wolf would not be here. If only the Territories were left, then the Territories it would be . . . . . . if he could get them back there. 25 Jack and Wolf Go to Hell 1 They had to flip from downstairs. He concentrated on that rather than on the question of whether or not they would be able to flip at all. It would be simpler to go from the room, but the miserable little cubicle he and Wolf shared was on the third floor, forty feet above the ground. Jack didnt know how exactly the Territories geography and topography corresponded to the geography and topography of Indiana, but he wasnt going to take a chance that could get their necks broken. He explained to Wolf what they would do. You understand? Yes, Wolf said listlessly. Give it back to me, anyway, pal. After breakfast, I go into the bathroom across from the common room. I go into the first stall. If no one notices Im gone, youll come in. And well go back to the Territories. Is that right, Jacky? Thats it, Jack said. He put a hand on Wolfs shoulder and squeezed it. Wolf smiled wanly. Jack hesitated and said, Im sorry I got you into this. Its all my fault. No, Jack, Wolf said kindly. Well try this. Maybe . . . A small, wistful hope seemed to glimmer briefly in Wolfs eyes. Yes, Jack said. Maybe. 2 Jack was too scared and excited to want breakfast, but he thought he might attract attention by not eating. So he shovelled in eggs and potatoes that tasted like sawdust, and even managed one fatty piece of bacon. The weather had finally cleared. There had been frost the night before, and the rocks in Far Field would be like chunks of slag embedded in hardened plastic. Plates taken out to the kitchen. Boys allowed to go back to the common room while Sonny Singer, Hector Bast, and Andy Warwick got their dayrosters. They sat around, looking blank. Pedersen had a fresh copy of the magazine the Gardener organization published, The Sunlight of Jesus. He turned the pages idly, glancing up every once in a while to look at the boys. Wolf looked a question at Jack. Jack nodded. Wolf got up and lumbered from the room. Pedersen glanced up, saw Wolf cross the hall and go into the long, narrow bathroom across the way, and then went back to his magazine. Jack counted to sixty, then forced himself to count to sixty again. They were the two longest minutes of his life. He was dreadfully afraid that Sonny and Heck would come back into the common room and order all the boys out to the trucks, and he wanted to get into the bathroom before that happened. But Pedersen wasnt stupid. If Jack followed Wolf too closely, Pedersen might suspect something. At last Jack got up and walked across the room toward the door. It seemed impossibly far away, and his heavy feet seemed to bring him no closer; it was like an optical illusion. Pederson looked up. Where are you going, snotface? Bathroom, Jack said. His tongue was dry. He had heard of peoples mouths getting dry when they were afraid, but their tongues? Theyll be upstairs in a minute, Pedersen said, nodding toward the end of the hall, where the stairs led down to the chapel, the studio, and Gardeners office. You better hold it and water Far Field. I got to take a crap, Jack said desperately. Sure. And maybe you and your big stupid friend like to pull each others dorks a little before you start the day. Just to sort of perk yourselves up. Go sit down. Well, go on, then, Pedersen said crossly. Dont just stand there and whine about it. He looked back at his magazine. Jack crossed the hall and stepped into the bathroom. 3 Wolf had picked the wrong stallhe was halfway down the line, his big, clunky workshoes unmistakable under the door. Jack pushed in. It was cramped with the two of them, and he was very aware of Wolfs strong, clearly animal odor. Okay, Jack said. Lets try it. Jack, Im scared. Jack laughed shakily. Im scared, too. How do we I dont know. Give me your hands. That seemed like a good start. Wolf put his hairy handspaws, almostin Jacks hands, and Jack felt an eerie strength flow from them into him. Wolfs strength wasnt gone after all, then. It had simply gone underground, as a spring will sometimes go underground in a savagely hot season. Jack closed his eyes. Want to get back, he said. Want to get back, Wolf, Help me! I do, Wolf breathed. I will if I can! Wolf! Here and now. Right here and now! Jack squeezed Wolfs pawhands tighter. He could smell Lysol. Somewhere he could hear a car passing. A phone rang. He thought, I am drinking the magic juice. In my mind Im drinking it, right here and now Im drinking it, I can smell it, so purple and so thick and new, I can taste it, I can feel my throat closing on it As the taste filled his throat, the world swayed under them, around them. Wolf cried out, Jacky, its working! It startled him out of his fierce concentration and for a moment he became aware that it was only a trick, like trying to get to sleep by counting sheep, and the world steadied again. The smell of the Lysol flooded back. Faintly he heard someone answer the phone querulously Yes, hello, who is it? Never mind, its not a trick, not a trick at allits magic. Its magic and I did it before when I was little and I can do it again, Speedy said so that blind singer Snowball said so, too, THE MAGIC JUICE IS IN MY MIND He bore down with all his force, all his effort of will . . . and the ease with which they flipped was stupefying, as if a punch aimed at something which looked like granite hit a cleverly painted papiermch shell instead, so that the blow you thought would break all your knuckles instead encountered no resistance at all. 4 To Jack, with his eyes screwed tightly shut, it felt as if the floor had first crumbled under his feet . . . and then disappeared completely. Oh shit were going to fall anyway, he thought dismally. But it wasnt really a fall, only a minor sideslip. A moment later he and Wolf were standing firmly, not on hard bathroom tile but on dirt. A reek of sulphur mingled with what smelled like raw sewage flooded in. It was a deathly smell, and Jack thought it meant the end of all hope. Jason! Whats that smell? Wolf groaned. Oh Jason that smell, cant stay here, Jacky, cant stay Jacks eyes snapped open. At the same moment Wolf let go of Jacks hands and blundered forward, his own eyes still tightly shut. Jack saw that Wolfs illfitting chinos and checked shirt had been replaced by the Oshkosh biballs in which Jack had originally seen the big herdsman. The John Lennon glasses were gone. And and Wolf was blundering toward the edge of a precipice less than four feet away. Wolf! He lunged at Wolf and wrapped his arms around Wolfs waist. Wolf, no! Jacky, cant stay, Wolf moaned. Its a Pit, one of the Pits, Morgan made these places, oh I heard that Morgan made them, I can smell it Wolf, theres a cliff, youll fall! Wolfs eyes opened. His jaw dropped as he saw the smokey chasm which spread at their feet. In its deepest, cloudy depths, red fire winked like infected eyes. A Pit, Wolf moaned. Oh Jacky, its a Pit. Furnaces of the Black Heart down there. Black Heart at the middle of the world. Cant stay, Jacky, its the worst bad there is. Jacks first cold thought as he and Wolf stood at the edge of the Pit, looking down into hell, or the Black Heart at the middle of the world, was that Territories geography and Indiana geography werent the same. There was no corresponding place in the Sunlight Home to this cliff, this hideous Pit. Four feet to the right, Jack thought with sudden, sickening horror. Thats all it would have takenjust four feet to the right. And if Wolf had done what I told him If Wolf had done just what Jack had told him, they would have flipped from that first stall. And if they had done that, they would have come into the Territories just over this cliffs edge. The strength ran out of his legs. He groped at Wolf again, this time for support. Wolf held him absently, his eyes wide and glowing a steady orange. His face was a grue of dismay and fear. Its a Pit, Jacky. It looked like the huge openpit molybdenum mine he had visited with his mother when they had vacationed in Colorado three winters agothey had gone to Vail to ski but one day it had been too bitterly cold for that and so they had taken a bus tour to the Continental Minerals molybdenum mine outside the little town of Sidewinder. It looks like Gehenna to me, JackO, she had said, and her face as she looked out the frostbordered bus window had been dreamy and sad. I wish theyd shut those places down, every one of them. Theyre pulling fire and destruction out of the earth. Its Gehenna, all right. Thick, choking vines of smoke rose from the depths of the Pit. Its sides were veined with thick lodes of some poisonous green metal. It was perhaps half a mile across. A road leading downward spiraled its inner circumference. Jack could see figures toiling both upward and downward upon this road. It was a prison of some kind, just as the Sunlight Home was a prison, and these were the prisoners and their keepers. The prisoners were naked, harnessed in pairs to carts like rickshawscarts filled with huge chunks of that green, greasylooking ore. Their faces were drawn in rough woodcuts of pain. Their faces were blackened with soot. Their faces ran with thick red sores. The guards toiled beside them, and Jack saw with numb dismay that they were not human; in no sense at all could they be called human. They were twisted and humped, their hands were claws, their ears pointed like Mr. Spocks. Why, theyre gargoyles! he thought. All those nightmare monsters on those cathedrals in FranceMom had a book and I thought we were going to have to see every one in the whole country but she stopped when I had a bad dream and wet the beddid they come from here? Did somebody see them here? Somebody from the Middle Ages who flipped over, saw this place, and thought hed had a vision of hell? But this was no vision. The gargoyles had whips, and over the rumble of the wheels and the sounds of rock cracking steadily under some steady, baking heat, Jack heard their pop and whistle. As he and Wolf watched, one team of men paused near the very top of the spiral road, their heads down, tendons on their necks standing out in harsh relief, their legs trembling with exhaustion. The monstrosity who was guarding thema twisted creature with a breechclout twisted around its legs and a patchy line of stiff hair growing from the scant flesh over the knobs of its spinebrought its whip down first on one and then on the other, howling at them in a high, screeching language that seemed to drive silver nails of pain into Jacks head. Jack saw the same silver beads of metal that had decorated Osmonds whip, and before he could blink, the arm of one prisoner had been torn open and the nape of the others neck lay in ruined flaps. The men wailed and leaned forward even farther, their blood the deepest color in the yellowish murk. The thing screeched and gibbered and its grayish, plated right arm flexed as it whirled the whip over the slaves heads. With a final staggering jerk, they yanked the cart up and onto the level. One of them fell forward onto his knees, exhausted, and the forward motion of the cart knocked him sprawling. One of the wheels rolled over his back. Jack heard the sound of the downed prisoners spine as it broke. It sounded like a track referees startergun. The gargoyle shrieked with rage as the cart tottered and then fell over, dumping its load onto the split, cracked, arid ground at the top of the Pit. He reached the fallen prisoner in two lunging steps and raised his whip. As he did, the dying man turned his head and looked into Jack Sawyers eyes. It was Ferd Janklow. Wolf saw, too. They groped for each other. And flipped back. 5 They were in a tight, closed placea bathroom stall, in factand Jack could barely breathe because Wolfs arms were wrapped around him in a crushing embrace. And one of his feet was sopping wet. He had somehow managed to flip back with one foot in a toiletbowl. Oh, great. Things like this never happen to Conan the Barbarian, Jack thought dismally. Jack no, Jack no, the Pit, it was the Pit, no, Jack Quit it! Quit it, Wolf! Were back! No, no, n Wolf broke off. He opened his eyes slowly. Back? You bet, right here and now, so let go of me, youre breaking my ribs, and besides, my foots stuck in the damn The door between the bathroom and the hall burst open with a bang. It struck the inner tile wall with enough force to shatter the frostedglass panel. The stall door was torn open. Andy Warwick took one look and spoke three furious, contemptuous words You fucking queers. He grabbed the dazed Wolf by the front of his checked shirt and pulled him out. Wolfs pants caught on the steel hood over the toiletpaper dispenser and pulled the whole works off the wall. It went flying. The toiletpaper roll broke free and went unspooling across the floor. Warwick sent Wolf crashing into the sinks, which were just the right height to catch him in the privates. Wolf fell to the floor, holding himself. Warwick turned to Jack, and Sonny Singer appeared at the stall door. He reached in and grabbed Jack by the front of his shirt. All right, you fag Sonny began, and that was as far as he got. Ever since he and Wolf had been dragooned into this place, Sonny Singer had been in Jacks face. Sonny Singer with his sly dark face that wanted to look just like Sunlight Gardeners face (and as soon as it could). Sonny Singer who had coined the charming endearment snotface. Sonny Singer whose idea it had undoubtedly been to piss in their beds. Jack pistoned his right fist out, not swinging wildly in the Heck Bast style but driving strong and smooth from the elbow. His fist connected with Sonnys nose. There was an audible crunch. Jack felt a moment of satisfaction so perfect it was sublime. There, Jack cried. He pulled his foot out of the john. A great grin suffused his face, and he shot a thought at Wolf just as hard as he could We aint doing that bad, Wolfyou broke one bastards hand, and I broke one bastards nose. Sonny stumbled backward, screaming, blood spouting through his fingers. Jack came out of the stall, his fists held up in front of him in a pretty fair imitation of John L. Sullivan. I told you to watch out for me, Sonny. Now Im gonna teach you to say hallelujah. Heck! Sonny screamed. Andy! Casey! Somebody! Sonny, you sound scared, Jack said. I dont know why And then somethingsomething that felt like a full hod of bricksfell on the back of his neck, driving him forward into one of the mirrors over the sinks. If it had been glass, it would have broken and cut Jack badly. But all the mirrors here were polished steel. There were to be no suicides in the Sunlight Home. Jack was able to get one arm up and cushion the blow a little, but he still felt woozy as he turned around and saw Heck Bast grinning at him. Heck Bast had hit him with the cast on his right hand. As he looked at Heck, an enormous, sickening realization suddenly dawned on Jack. It was you! That hurt like hell, Heck said, holding his plastered right hand in his left, but it was worth it, snotface. He started forward. It was you! It was you standing over Ferd in that other world, whipping him to death. It was you, you were the gargoyle, it was your Twinner! A rage so hot it was like shame swept through Jack. As Heck came in range, Jack leaned back against the sink, grasped its edge tightly in both hands, and shot both of his feet out. They caught Heck Bast squarely in the chest and sent him reeling back into the open stall. The shoe that had come back to Indiana planted in a toiletbowl left a clear wet print on Hecks white turtleneck sweater. Heck sat down in the toilet with a splash, looking stunned. His cast clunked on porcelain. Others were bursting in now. Wolf was trying to get up. His hair hung in his face. Sonny was advancing on him, one hand still clapped over his squirting nose, obviously meaning to kick Wolf back down. Yeah, you go ahead and touch him, Sonny, Jack said softly, and Sonny cringed away. Jack caught one of Wolfs arms and helped him up. He saw as if in a dream that Wolf had come back hairier than ever. Its putting him under too much stress, all of this. Its bringing on his Change and Christ this is never going to end, never . . . never. . . . He and Wolf backed away from the othersWarwick, Casey, Pedersen, Peabody, Singerand toward the rear of the bathroom. Heck was coming out of the stall Jack had kicked him into, and Jack saw something else. They had flipped from the fourth stall down the line. Heck Bast was coming out of the fifth. They had moved just far enough in that other world to come back into a different stall. They was buggering each other in there! Sonny cried, his words muffled and nasal. The retard and the pretty boy! Warwick and me caught em with their dicks out! Jacks buttocks touched cold tile. Nowhere else to run. He let go of Wolf, who slumped, dazed and pitiful, and put up his fists. Come on, he said. Whos first? You gonna take us all on? Pedersen asked. If I have to, I will, Jack said. What are you going to do, put me in traction for Jesus? Come on! A flicker of unease on Pedersens face; a cramp of outright fear on Caseys. They stopped . . . they actually stopped. Jack felt a moment of wild, stupid hope. The boys stared at him with the unease of men looking at a mad dog which can be brought down . . . but which may bite someone badly first. Stand aside, boys, a powerful, mellow voice said, and they moved aside willingly, relief lighting their faces. It was Reverend Gardener. Reverend Gardener would know how to handle this. He came toward the cornered boys, dressed this morning in charcoal slacks and a white satin shirt with full, almost Byronic, sleeves. In his hand he held that black hypodermic case. He looked at Jack and sighed. Do you know what the Bible says about homosexuality, Jack? Jack bared his teeth at him. Gardener nodded sadly, as if this were no more than he had expected. Well, all boys are bad, he said. Its axiomatic. He opened the case. The hypo glittered. I think that you and your friend have been doing something even worse than sodomy, however, Gardener went on in his mellow, regretful voice. Going to places better left to your elders and betters, perhaps. Sonny Singer and Hector Bast exchanged a startled, uneasy look. I think that some of this evil . . . this perversity . . . has been my own fault. He took the hypo out, glanced at it, and then took out a vial. He handed the case to Warwick and filled the hypo. I have never believed in forcing my boys to confess, but without confession there can be no decision for Christ, and with no decision for Christ, evil continues to grow. So, although I regret it deeply, I believe that the time to ask has ended and the time to demand in Gods name has come. Pedersen. Peabody. Warwick. Casey. Hold them! The boys surged forward on his command like trained dogs. Jack got in one blow at Peabody, and then his hands were grabbed and pinned. Led me hid imb! Sonny cried in his new, muffled voice. He elbowed through the crowd of goggling boys, his eyes glittering with hate. I wand to hid imb! Not now, Gardener said. Later, perhaps. Well pray on it, wont we, Sonny? Yeah. The glitter in Sonnys eyes had become positively feverish. Imb going to bray on id all day. Like a man who is finally waking up after a very long sleep, Wolf grunted and looked around. He saw Jack being held, saw the hypodermic needle, and peeled Pedersens arm off Jack as if it had been the arm of a child. A surprisingly strong roar came from his throat. No! Let him GO! Gardener danced in toward Wolfs blind side with a fluid grace that reminded Jack of Osmond turning on the carter in that muddy stableyard. The needle flashed and plunged. Wolf wheeled, bellowing as if he had been stung . . . which, in a way, was just what had happened to him. He swept a hand at the hypo, but Gardener avoided the sweep neatly. The boys, who had been looking on in their dazed Sunlight Home way, now began to stampede for the door, looking alarmed. They wanted no part of big, simple Wolf in such a rage. Let him GO! Let . . . him . . . let him . . . Wolf! Jack . . . Jacky . . . Wolf looked at him with puzzled eyes that shifted like strange kaleidoscopes from hazel to orange to a muddy red. He held his hairy hands out to Jack, and then Hector Bast stepped up behind him and clubbed him to the floor. Wolf! Wolf! Jack stared at him with wet, furious eyes. If you killed him, you son of a bitch Shhh, Mr. Jack Parker, Gardener whispered in his ear, and Jack felt the needle sting his upper arm. Just be quiet now. Were going to get a little sunlight in your soul. And maybe then well see how you like pulling a loaded wagon up the spiral road. Can you say hallelujah? That one word followed him down into dark oblivion. Hallelujah . . . hallelujah . . . hallelujah . . . 26 Wolf in the Box 1 Jack was awake for quite a long time before they knew he was awake, but he became aware of who he was and what had happened and what his situation was now only by degreeshe was, in a way, like the soldier who has survived a fierce and prolonged artillery barrage. His arm throbbed where Gardener had punched the hypodermic into it. His head ached so badly that his very eyeballs seemed to pulse. He was ragingly thirsty. He advanced a step up the ladder of awareness when he tried to touch the hurt place on his upper right arm with his left hand. He couldnt do it. And the reason he couldnt do it was that his arms were somehow wrapped around himself. He could smell old, mouldy canvasit was the smell of a Boy Scout tent found in an attic after many dark years. It was only then (although he had been looking at it stupidly through his mostly lidded eyes for the last ten minutes) that he understood what he was wearing. It was a straitjacket. Ferd would have figured that out quicker, JackO, he thought, and thinking of Ferd had a focusing effect on his mind in spite of the crushing headache. He stirred a little and the bolts of pain in his head and the throb in his arm made him moan. He couldnt help it. Heck Bast Hes waking up. Sunlight Gardener No, hes not. I gave him a shot big enough to paralyze a bull alligator. Hell be out until nine tonight at the earliest. Hes just dreaming a little. Heck, I want you to go up and hear the boys confessions tonight. Tell them there will be no night chapel; Ive got a plane to meet, and thats just the start of whats probably going to be a very long night. Sonny, you stay and help me do the bookwork. Heck It sure sounded like he was waking up. Sunlight Go on, Heck. And have Bobby Peabody check on Wolf. Sonny (snickering) He doesnt like it in there much, does he? Ah, Wolf, they put you back in the Box, Jack mourned. Im sorry . . . my fault . . . all of this is my fault. . . . The hellbound rarely care much for the machinery of salvation, Jack heard Sunlight Gardener say. When the devils inside them start to die, they go out screaming. Go on now, Heck. Yes sir, Reverend Gardener. Jack heard but did not see Heck as he lumbered out. He did not as yet dare to look up. 2 Stuffed into the crudely made, homewelded and homebolted Box like a victim of premature burial in an iron coffin, Wolf had howled the day away, battering his fists bloody against the sides of the Box, kicking with his feet at the doublebolted, Dutchoventype door at the coffins foot until the jolts of pain travelling up his legs made his crotch ache. He wasnt going to get out battering with his fists or kicking with his feet, he knew that, just as he knew they werent going to let him out just because he screamed to be let out. But he couldnt help it. Wolfs hated being shut up above all things. His screams carried through the Sunlight Homes immediate grounds and even into the near fields. The boys who heard them glanced at each other nervously and said nothing. I seen him in the bathroom this morning, and he turned mean, Roy Owdersfelt confided to Morton in a low, nervous voice. Was they queerin off, like Sonny said? Morton asked. Another Wolfhowl rose from the squat iron Box, and both boys glanced toward it. And how! Roy said eagerly. I didnt exactly see it because Im short, but Buster Oates was right up front and he said that big retarded boy had him a whanger the size of a Akron fireplug. Thats what he said. Jesus! Morton said respectfully, thinking perhaps of his own substandard whanger. Wolf howled all day, but as the sun began to go down, he stopped. The boys found the new silence ominous. They looked at one another often, and even more often, and with more unease, toward that rectangle of iron standing in the center of a bald patch in the Homes back yard. The Box was six feet long and three feet highexcept for the crude square cut in the west side and covered with heavygauge steel mesh, an iron coffin was exactly what it looked like. What was going on in there? they wondered. And even during confession, during which time the boys were usually held rapt, every other consideration forgotten, eyes turned toward the common rooms one window, even though that window looked on the side of the house directly opposite the Box. Whats going on in there? Hector Bast knew that their minds were not on confession and it exasperated him, but he was unable to bring them around because he did not know what precisely was wrong. A feeling of chilly expectation had gripped the boys in the Home. Their faces were paler than ever; their eyes glittered like the eyes of dopefiends. Whats going on in there? What was going on was simple enough. Wolf was going with the moon. He felt it happen as the patch of sun coming in through the ventilation square began to rise higher and higher, as the quality of the light became reddish. It was too early to go with the moon; she was not fully pregnant yet and it would hurt him. Yet it would happen, as it always happened to Wolfs eventually, in season or out of it, when they were pressed too long and too hard. Wolf had held himself in check for a long time because it was what Jacky wanted. He had performed great heroisms for Jack in this world. Jack would dimly suspect some of them, yet never come close to apprehending their incredible depth and breadth. But now he was dying, and he was going with the moon, and because the latter made the former seem more than bearablealmost holy, and surely ordainedWolf went in relief, and in gladness. It was wonderful not to have to struggle anymore. His mouth, suddenly deep with teeth. 3 After Heck left, there were office sounds the soft scrape of chairs being moved, a jingle of the keys on Sunlight Gardeners belt, a filecabinet door running open and then closed. Abelson. Two hundred and forty dollars and thirtysix cents. Sounds of keys being punched. Peter Abelson was one of the boys on OS. Like all of the OS boys, he was bright, personable, and had no physical defects. Jack had seen him only a few times, but he thought Abelson looked like Dondi, that homeless waif with the big eyes in the comic strips. Clark. Sixtytwo dollars and seventeen cents. Keys being punched. The machine rumbled as Sonny hit the TOTAL key. Thats a real falloff, Sonny remarked. Ill talk to him, never fear. Now please dont chatter at me, Sonny. Mr. Sloat arrives in Muncie at tenfifteen and its a long drive. I dont want to be late. Sorry, Reverend Gardener. Gardener made some reply Jack didnt even hear. At the name Sloat, a great shock had walloped himand yet part of him was unsurprised. Part of him had known this might be in the cards. Gardener had been suspicious from the first. He had not wanted to bother his boss with trivialities, Jack figured. Or maybe he had not wanted to admit he couldnt get the truth out of Jack without help. But at last he had calledwhere? East? West? Jack would have given a great lot just then to know. Had Morgan been in Los Angeles, or New Hampshire? Hello, Mr. Sloat. I hope Im not disturbing you, but the local police have brought me a boytwo boys, actually, but its only the intelligent one Im concerned with. I seem to know him. Or perhaps its my . . . ah, my other self who knows him. He gives his name as Jack Parker, but . . . what? Describe him? All right. . . . And the balloon had gone up. Please dont chatter at me, Sonny. Mr. Sloat arrives in Muncie at tenfifteen . . . Time had almost run out. I told you to get your ass home, Jack . . . too late now. All boys are bad. Its axiomatic. Jack raised his head a tiny bit and looked across the room. Gardener and Sonny Singer sat together on the far side of the desk in Gardeners basement office. Sonny was punching the keys of an adding machine as Gardener gave him set after set of figures, each figure following the name of an Outside Staffer, each name neatly set in alphabetical order. In front of Sunlight Gardener was a ledger, a long steel filebox, and an untidy stack of envelopes. As Gardener held one of these envelopes up to read the amount scribbled on the front, Jack was able to see the back. There was a drawing of two happy children, each carrying a Bible, skipping down the road toward a church, handinhand. Written below them was ILL BE A SUNBEAM FOR JESUS. Temkin. A hundred and six dollars even. The envelope went into the steel filebox with the others that had been recorded. I think hes been skimming again, Sonny said. God sees the truth but waits, Gardener said mildly. Victors all right. Now shut up and lets get this done before six. Sonny punched the keys.

The picture of Jesus walking on the water had been swung outward, revealing a safe behind it. The safe was open. Jack saw that there were other things of interest on Sunlight Gardeners desk two envelopes, one marked JACK PARKER and the other PHILIP JACK WOLFE. And his good old pack. The third thing was Sunlight Gardeners bunch of keys. From the keys, Jacks eyes moved to the locked door on the lefthand side of the roomGardeners private exit to the outside, he knew. If only there was a way Yellin. Sixtytwo dollars and nineteen cents. Gardener sighed, put the last envelope into the long steel tray, and closed his ledger. Apparently Heck was right. I believe our dear friend Mr. Jack Parker has awakened. He got up, came around the desk, and walked toward Jack. His mad, hazy eyes glittered. He reached into his pocket and came out with a lighter. Jack felt a panic rise inside him at the sight of it. Only your name isnt really Parker at all, is it, my dear boy? Your real name is Sawyer, isnt it? Oh yes, Sawyer. And someone with a great interest in you is going to arrive very, very soon. And well have all sorts of interesting things to tell him, wont we? Sunlight Gardener tittered and flicked back the Zippos hood, revealing the blackened wheel, the smokedarkened wick. Confession is so good for the soul, he whispered, and struck a light. 4 Thud. What was that? Rudolph asked, looking up from his bank of doubleovens. Supperfifteen large turkey pieswas coming along nicely. What was what? George Irwinson asked. At the sink, where he was peeling potatoes, Donny Keegan uttered his loud yuckyuck of a laugh. I didnt hear anything, Irwinson said. Donny laughed again. Rudolph looked at him, irritated. You gonna peel those goddam potatoes down to nothing, you idiot? Hyuckhyuckhyuck! Thud! There, you heard it that time, didnt you? Irwinson only shook his head. Rudolph was suddenly afraid. Those sounds were coming from the Boxwhich, of course, he was supposed to believe was a haydrying shed. Some fat chance. That big boy was in the Boxthe one they were saying had been caught in sodomy that morning with his friend, the one who had tried to bribe their way out only the day before. They said the big boy had shown a mean streak before Bast whopped him one . . . and some of them were also saying that the big boy hadnt just broken Basts hand; they were saying he had squeezed it to a pulp. That was a lie, of course, had to be, but THUD! This time Irwinson looked around. And suddenly Rudolph decided he needed to go to the bathroom. And that maybe he would go all the way up to the third floor to do his business. And not come out for two, maybe three hours. He felt the approach of black workvery black work. THUDTHUD! Fuck the turkey pies. Rudolph took off his apron, tossed it on the counter over the salt cod he had been freshening for tomorrow nights supper, and started out of the room. Where are you going? Irwinson asked. His voice was suddenly too high. It trembled. Donny Keegan went right on furiously peeling potatoes the size of Nerf footballs down to potatoes the size of Spalding golfballs, his dank hair hanging in his face. THUD! THUD! THUD THUDTHUD! Rudolph didnt answer Irwinsons question, and by the time he hit the secondfloor stairs, he was nearly running. It was hard times in Indiana, work was scarce, and Sunlight Gardener paid cash. All the same, Rudolph had begun to wonder if the time to look for a new job had not come, could you say get me outta here. 5 THUD! The bolt at the top of the Boxs Dutchoventype door snapped in two. For a moment there was a dark gap between the Box and the door. Silence for a time. Then THUD! The bottom bolt creaked, bent. THUD! It snapped. The door of the box creaked open on its big, clumsy homemade hinges. Two huge, heavily pelted feet poked out, soles up. Long claws dug into the dust. Wolf started to work his way out. 6 Back and forth the flame went in front of Jacks eyes; back and forth, back and forth. Sunlight Gardener looked like a cross between a stage hypnotist and some oldtime actor playing the lead in the biography of a Great Scientist on The Late Late Show. Paul Muni, maybe. It was funnyif he hadnt been so terrified, Jack would have laughed. And maybe he would laugh, anyway. Now I have a few questions for you, and you are going to answer them, Gardener said. Mr. Morgan could get the answers out of you himselfoh, easily, indubitably!but I prefer not to put him to the trouble. So . . . how long have you been able to Migrate? I dont know what you mean. How long have you been able to Migrate to the Territories? I dont know what youre talking about. The flame came closer. Wheres the nigger? Who? The nigger, the nigger! Gardener shrieked. Parker, Parkus, whatever he calls himself! Where is he? I dont know who youre talking about. Sonny! Andy! Gardener screamed. Unlace his left hand. Hold it out to me. Warwick bent over Jacks shoulder and did something. A moment later they were peeling Jacks hand away from the small of his back. It tingled with pins and needles, waking up. Jack tried to struggle, but it was useless. They held his hand out. Now spread his fingers open. Sonny pulled Jacks ring finger and his pinky in one direction; Warwick pulled his pointer and middle finger in the other. A moment later, Gardener had applied the Zippos flame to the webbing at the base of the V they had created. The pain was exquisite, bolting up his left arm and from there seeming to fill his whole body. A sweet, charring smell drifted up. Himself. Burning. Himself. After an eternity, Gardener pulled the Zippo back and snapped it shut. Fine beads of sweat covered his forehead. He was panting. Devils scream before they come out, he said. Oh yes indeed they do. Dont they, boys? Yes, praise God, Warwick said. You pounded that nail, Sonny said. Oh yes, I know it. Yes indeed I do. I know the secrets of both boys and devils. Gardener tittered, then leaned forward until his face was an inch from Jacks. The cloying scent of cologne filled Jacks nose. Terrible as it was, he thought it was quite a lot better than his own burning flesh. Now, Jack. How long have you been Migrating? Where is the nigger? How much does your mother know? Who have you told? What has the nigger told you? Well start with those. I dont know what youre talking about. Gardener bared his teeth in a grin. Boys, he said, were going to get sunlight in this boys soul yet. Lace up his left arm again and unlace his right. Sunlight Gardener opened his lighter again and waited for them to do it, his thumb resting lightly on the striker wheel. 7 George Irwinson and Donny Keegan were still in the kitchen. Someones out there, George said nervously. Donny said nothing. He had finished peeling the potatoes and now stood by the ovens for their warmth. He didnt know what to do next. Confession was being held just down the hall, he knew, and thats where he wanted to beconfession was safe, and here in the kitchen he felt very, very nervousbut Rudolph hadnt dismissed them. Best to stay right here. I heard someone, George said. Donny laughed Hyuck! Hyuck! Hyuck! Jesus, that laugh of yours barfs me out, George said. I got a new Captain America funnybook under my mattress. If you take a look out there, Ill let you read it. Donny shook his head and honked his donkeylaugh again. George looked toward the door. Sounds. Scratching. Thats what it sounded like. Scratching at the door. Like a dog that wanted to be let in. A lost, homeless pup. Except what sort of lost, homeless pup scratched near the top of a door that was nearly seven feet tall? George went to the window and looked out. He could see almost nothing in the gloom. The Box was just a darker shadow amid shadows. George moved toward the door. 8 Jack shrieked so loud and so hard he thought that surely his throat would rupture. Now Casey had also joined them, Casey with his big swinging gut, and that was a good thing for them, because now it took three of themCasey, Warwick, and Sonny Singerto grapple with Jacks arm and keep his hand applied to the flame. When Gardener drew it away this time, there was a black, bubbling, blistered patch the size of a quarter on the side of Jacks hand. Gardener got up, took the envelope marked JACK PARKER from his desk, and brought it back. He brought out the guitarpick. Whats this? A guitarpick, Jack managed. His hands were burning agony. What is it in the Territories? I dont know what you mean. Whats this? A marble. What are you, blind? Is it a toy in the Territories? I dont Is it a mirror? know Is it a top that disappears when you spin it fast? what youre YOU DO! YOU DO TOO, YOU FAGGOT HELLBOUND WHELP! talking about. Gardener drove a hand across Jacks face. He brought out the silver dollar. His eyes gleamed. Whats this? Its a lucky piece from my Aunt Helen. What is it in the Territories? Box of Rice Krispies. Gardener held up the lighter. Your last chance, boy. It turns into a vibraphone and plays Crazy Rhythm. Hold out his right hand again, Gardener said. Jack struggled, but at last they got his hand out. 9 In the oven, the turkey pies had begun to burn. George Irwinson had been standing by the door for almost five minutes, trying to get up nerve enough to open it. That scratching noise had not been repeated. Well, Ill show you theres nothing to be afraid of, chickenguts, George said heartily. When youre strong in the Lord, theres never any need to be afraid! With this grand statement, he threw open the door. A huge, shaggy, shadowy thing stood on the threshold, its eyes blazing red from deep sockets. Georges eyes tracked one paw as it rose in the windy autumn dark and whickered down. Sixinch claws gleamed in the kitchens light. They tore George Irwinsons head from his neck and his head flew across the room, spraying blood, to strike the shoes of the laughing Donny Keegan, the madly laughing Donny Keegan. Wolf leaped into the kitchen, dropping down to all fours. He passed Donny Keegan with hardly a look and ran into the hall. 10 Wolf! Wolf! Right here and now! It was Wolfs voice in his mind, all right, but it was deeper, richer, more commanding than Jack had ever heard it. It cut through the haze of pain in his mind like a fine Swedish knife. He thought, Wolf is riding with the moon. The thought brought a mixture of triumph and sorrow. Sunlight Gardener was looking upward, his eyes narrowed. In that moment he looked very much like a beast himselfa beast who has scented danger downwind. Reverend? Sonny asked. Sonny was panting slightly, and the pupils of his eyes were very large. Hes been enjoying himself, Jack thought. If I start to talk, Sonnys going to be disappointed. I heard something, Gardener said. Casey. Go and listen to the kitchen and the common room. Right. Casey took off. Gardener looked back at Jack. Im going to have to leave for Muncie soon, he said, and when I meet Mr. Morgan, I want to be able to give him some information immediately. So you had better talk to me, Jack. Spare yourself further pain. Jack looked at him, hoping the jackhammer beat of his heart didnt show either in his face or as a faster, more noticeable pulse in his neck. If Wolf was out of the Box Gardener held up the pick Speedy had given him in one hand, the coin Captain Farren had given him in the other. What are they? When I flip, they turn into tortoise testicles, Jack said, and laughed wildly, hysterically. Gardeners face darkened with angry blood. Lace up his arms again, he said to Sonny and Andy. Lace up his arms and then pull down this hellbound bastards pants. Lets see what happens when we heat up his testicles. 11 Heck Bast was deathly bored with confession. He had heard them all before, these paltry mailorder sins. I hooked money from my mothers purse, I used to blow joints in the schoolyard, we usta put glue in a paper bag and sniff it, I did this, I did that. Little kids stuff. No excitement. Nothing to take his mind off the steady drone of pain in his hand. Heck wanted to be downstairs, working on that kid Sawyer. And then they could get started on the big retard who had somehow surprised him and destroyed his good right hand. Yes, getting to work on the big retard would be a real pleasure. Preferably with a set of boltcutters. A boy named Vernon Skarda was currently droning away. . . . so me and him, we seen the keys was in her, know what I mean. So he goes, Lets jump in the whore, and drive her around the block, he goes. But I knew it was wrong, and I said it was, so he goes, You aint nothin but a chickenshit. So I go, I aint no chickenshit. Like that. So he goes, Prove it, prove it. I aint doin no joyride, I go, so he goes . . . Oh dear Christ, Heck thought. His hand was really starting to yell at him, and his painpills were up in his room. On the far side of the room, he saw Peabody stretch his jaws in a bonecracking yawn. So we went around the block, and then he goes to me, he goes The door suddenly slammed inward so hard it tore off its hinges. It hit the wall, bounced, struck a boy named Tom Cassidy, drove him to the floor, and pinned him there. Something leaped into the common roomat first Heck Bast thought it was the biggest motherfucking dog he had ever seen. Boys screamed and bolted up from their chairs . . . and then froze, eyes wide and unbelieving, as the grayblack beast that was Wolf stood upright, shreds of chinos and checked shirt still clinging to him. Vernon Skarda stared, eyes bulging, jaws hanging. Wolf bellowed, eyes glaring around as the boys fell back from him. Pedersen made for the door. Wolf, towering so high his head almost brushed the ceiling, moved with liquid speed. He swung an arm as thick as a barnbeam. Claws tore a channel through Pedersens back. For a moment his spine was clearly visibleit looked like a bloody extension cord. Gore splashed the walls. Pedersen took one great, shambling step out into the hall and then collapsed. Wolf turned back . . . and his blazing eyes fastened on Heck Bast. Heck got up suddenly on nerveless legs, staring at this shaggy, redeyed horror. He knew who it was . . . or, at least, who it had been. Heck would have given anything in the world just then to be bored again. 12 Jack was sitting in the chair again, his burned and throbbing hands once more pressed against the small of his backSonny had laced the straitjacket cruelly tight and then unbuttoned Jacks chinos and pushed them down. Now, Gardener said, holding his Zippo up where Jack could see it. You listen to me, Jack, and listen well. Im going to begin asking you questions again. And if you dont answer them well and truly, then buggery is one temptation you will never have to worry about being led into again. Sonny Singer giggled wildly at this. That muddy, halfdead look of lust was back in his eyes again. He stared at Jacks face with a kind of sickly greed. Reverend Gardener! Reverend Gardener! It was Casey, and Casey sounded distressed. Jack opened his eyes again. Some kind of hooraw going on upstairs! I dont want to be bothered now. Donny Keegans laughing like a loon in the kitchen! And He said he didnt want to be bothered now, Sonny said. Didnt you hear him? But Casey was too dismayed to stop. and it sounds like theres a riot going on in the common room! Yelling! Screaming! And it sounds like Suddenly, Jacks mind filled with a bellow of incredible force and vitality Jacky! Where are you? Wolf! Where are you right here and now? theres a dogpack or something loose up there! Gardener was looking at Casey now, eyes narrow, lips pressed tightly together. Gardeners office! Downstairs! Where we were before! DOWNside, Jacky? Stairs! DownSTAIRS, Wolf! Right here and now! That was it; Wolf was gone from his head. From upstairs, Jack heard a thump and a scream. Reverend Gardener? Casey asked. His normally flushed face was deeply pale. Reverend Gardener, what is it? What Shut up! Gardener said, and Casey recoiled as if slapped, eyes wide and hurt, considerable jowls trembling. Gardener brushed past him and went to the safe. From it he took an outsized pistol which he stuck in his belt. For the first time, the Reverend Sunlight Gardener looked scared and baffled. Upstairs, there was a dim shattering sound, followed by a screech. The eyes of Singer, Warwick, and Casey all turned nervously upwardthey looked like nervous bombshelter occupants listening to a growing whistle above them. Gardener looked at Jack. A grin surfaced on his face, the corners of his mouth twitching irregularly, as if strings were attached to them, strings that were being pulled by a puppeteer who wasnt particularly good at his job. Hell come here, wont he? Sunlight Gardener said. He nodded as if Jack had answered. Hell come . . . but I dont think hell leave. 13 Wolf leaped. Heck Bast was able to get his right hand in its plaster cast up in front of his throat. There was a hot flash of pain, a brittle crunch, and a puff of plasterdust as Wolf bit the castand what was left of the hand inside itoff. Heck looked stupidly down at where it had been. Blood jetted from his wrist. It soaked his white turtleneck with bright, hot warmth. Please, Heck whined. Please, please, dont Wolf spat out the hand. His head moved forward with the speed of a striking snake. Heck felt a dim pulling sensation as Wolf tore his throat open, and then he knew no more. 14 As he bolted out of the common room, Peabody skidded in Pedersens blood, went down to one knee, got up, and then ran down the firstfloor hall as fast as he could go, vomiting all over himself as he went. Kids were running everywhere, shrieking in panic. Peabodys own panic was not quite that complete. He remembered what he was supposed to do in extreme situationsalthough he didnt think anyone had ever envisioned a situation as extreme as this; he had an idea that Reverend Gardener had been thinking in terms of a kid going bugfuck and cutting another kid up, something like that. Beyond the parlor where new boys were brought when they first came to the Sunlight Home was a small upstairs office used only by the thugs Gardener referred to as his student aides. Peabody locked himself in this room, picked up the phone, and dialled an emergency number. A moment later he was talking to Franky Williams. Peabody, at the Sunlight Home, he said. You ought to get up here with as many police as you can get, Officer Williams. All hell has Outside he heard a wailing shriek followed by a crash of breaking wood. There was a snarling, barking roar, and the shriek was cut off. has busted loose up here, he finished. What kind of hell? Williams asked impatiently. Lemme talk to Gardener. I dont know where the Reverend is, but hed want you up here. Theres people dead. Kids dead. What? Just get up here with a lot of men, Peabody said. And a lot of guns. Another scream. The crashthud of something heavythe old highboy in the front hall, probablybeing overturned. Machineguns, if you can find them. A crystalline jangle as the big chandelier in the hall came down. Peabody cringed. It sounded like that monster was tearing the whole place apart with its bare hands. Hell, bring a nuke if you can, Peabody said, beginning to blubber. What Peabody hung up before Williams could finish. He crawled into the kneehole under the desk. Wrapped his arms around his head. And began to pray assiduously that all of this should prove to be only a dreamthe worst fucking nightmare he had ever had. 15 Wolf raged along the firstfloor hall between the common room and the front door, pausing only to overturn the highboy, then to leap easily up and grab the chandelier. He swung on it like Tarzan until it tore out of the ceiling and spilled diamonds of crystal all over the hallway runner. DOWNside. Jacky was on the DOWNside. Now . . . which side was that? A boy who was no longer able to stand the agonizing tension of waiting for the thing to be gone jerked open the door of the closet where he had been hiding and bolted for the stairs. Wolf grabbed him and threw him the length of the hall. The boy struck the closed kitchen door with a bonebreaking thud and fell in a heap. Wolfs head swam with the intoxicating odor of freshspilled blood. His hair hung in bloody dreadlocks around his jaw and muzzle. He tried to hold on to thought, but it was hardhard. He had to find Jacky very quickly now, before he lost the ability to think completely. He raced back toward the kitchen, where he had come in, dropping to all fours again because movement was faster and easier that way . . . and suddenly, passing a closed door, he remembered. The narrow place. It had been like going down into a grave. The smell, wet and heavy in his throat DOWNside. Behind that door. Right here and now! Wolf! he cried, although the boys cringing in their hiding places on the first and second floors heard only a rising, triumphant howl. He raised both of the heavily muscled battering rams that had been his arms and drove them into the door. It burst open in the middle, vomiting splinters down the stairwell. Wolf drove his way through, and yes, here was the narrow place, like a throat; here was the way to the place where the White Man had told his lies while Jack and the Weaker Wolf had to sit and listen. Jack was down there now. Wolf could smell him. But he also smelled the White Man . . . and gunpowder. Careful . . . Oh yes. Wolfs knew careful. Wolfs could run and tear and kill, but when they had to be . . . Wolfs knew careful. He went down the stairs on all fours, silent as oiled smoke, eyes as red as brake lights. 16 Gardener was becoming steadily more nervous; to Jack he looked like a man who was entering the freakout zone. His eyes moved jerkily in a triple play, from the studio where Casey was frantically listening to Jack, and then to the closed door which gave on the hall. Most of the noises from upstairs had stopped some time ago. Now Sonny Singer started for the door. Ill go up and see whats Youre not going anywhere! Come back here! Sonny winced as if Gardener had struck him. What the matter, Reverend Gardener? Jack asked. You look a little nervous. Sonny rocked him with a slap. You want to watch the way you talk, snotface! You just want to watch it! You look nervous, too, Sonny. And you, Warwick. And Casey in there Shut him up! Gardener suddenly screamed. Cant you do anything? Do I have to do everything around here myself? Sonny slapped Jack again, much harder. Jacks nose began to bleed, but he smiled. Wolf was very close now . . . and Wolf was being careful. Jack had begun to have a crazy hope that they might get out of this alive. Casey suddenly straightened up and then tore the cans off his head and flicked the intercom switch. Reverend Gardener! I hear sirens on the outside mikes! Gardeners eyes, now too wide, skidded back to Casey. What? How many? How far away? Sounds like a lot, Casey said. Not close yet. But theyre coming here. No doubt about that. Gardeners nerve broke then; Jack saw it happen. The man sat, indecisive, for a moment, and then he wiped his mouth delicately with the side of his hand. It isnt whatever happened upstairs, not just the sirens, either. He knows that Wolf is close, too. In his own way he smells him . . . and he doesnt like it. Wolf, we might have a chance! We just might! Gardener handed the pistol to Sonny Singer. I havent time to deal with the police, or whatever mess there might be upstairs, right now, he said. The important thing is Morgan Sloat. Im going to Muncie. You and Andy are coming with me, Sonny. You keep this gun on our friend Jack here while I get the car out of the garage. When you hear the horn, come on out. What about Casey? Andy Warwick rumbled. Yes, yes, all right, Casey, too, Gardener agreed at once, and Jack thought, Hes running out on you, you stupid assholes. Hes running out on you, its so obvious that he might as well take out a billboard on the Sunset Strip and advertise the fact, and your brains are too blown to even know it. Youd go on sitting down here for ten years waiting to hear that horn blow, if the food and toilet paper held out that long. Gardener got up. Sonny Singer, his face flushed with new importance, sat down behind his desk and pointed the gun at Jack. If his retarded friend shows up, Gardener said, shoot him. How could he show up? Sonny asked. Hes in the Box. Never mind, Gardener said. Hes evil, theyre both evil, its indubitable, its axiomatic, if the retard shows up, shoot him, shoot them both. He fumbled through the keys on his ring and selected one. When you hear the horn, he said. He opened the door and went out. Jack strained his ears for the sound of sirens but heard nothing. The door closed behind Sunlight Gardener. 17 Time, stretching out. A minute that felt like two; two that felt like ten; four that felt like an hour. The three of Gardeners student aides who had been left with Jack looked like boys who had been caught in a game of Statue Tag. Sonny sat boltupright behind Sunlight Gardeners deska place he both relished and coveted. The gun pointed steadily at Jacks face. Warwick stood by the door to the hall. Casey sat in the brightly lighted booth with the cans on his ears again, staring blankly out through the other glass square, into the darkness of the chapel, seeing nothing, only listening. Hes not going to take you with him, you know, Jack said suddenly. The sound of his voice surprised him a little. It was even and unafraid. Shut up, snotface, Sonny snapped. Dont hold your breath until you hear him honk that horn, Jack said. Youll turn pretty blue. Next thing he says, Andy, break his nose, Sonny said. Thats right, Jack said. Break my nose, Andy. Shoot me, Sonny. The cops are coming, Gardeners gone, and theyre going to find the three of you standing over a corpse in a straitjacket. He paused, and amended A corpse in a straitjacket with a broken nose. Hit him, Andy, Sonny said. Andy Warwick moved from the door to where Jack sat, straitjacketed, his pants and underpants puddled around his ankles. Jack turned his face openly up to Warwicks. Thats right, Andy, he said. Hit me. Ill hold still. Hell of a target. Andy Warwick balled up his fist, drew it back . . . and then hesitated. Uncertainty flickered in his eyes. There was a digital clock on Gardeners desk. Jacks eyes shifted to it for a moment, and then back to Warwicks face. Its been four minutes, Andy. How long does it take a guy to back a car out of the garage? Especially when hes in a hurry? Sonny Singer bolted out of Sunlight Gardeners chair, came around the desk, and charged at Jack. His narrow, secretive face was furious. His fists were balled up. He made as if to hit Jack. Warwick, who was bigger, restrained him. There was trouble on Warwicks face nowdeep trouble. Wait, he said. I dont have to listen to this! I dont Why dont you ask Casey how close those sirens are getting? Jack asked, and Warwicks frown deepened. Youve been left in the lurch, dont you know that? Do I have to draw you a picture? Its going bad here. He knew ithe smelled it! Hes leaving you with a bag. From the sounds upstairs Singer broke free of Warwicks halfhearted hold and clouted Jack on the side of the face. His head rocked to one side, then came slowly back. its a big, messy bag, Jack finished. You shut up or Ill kill you, Sonny hissed. The digits on the clock had changed. Five minutes now, Jack said. Sonny, Warwick said with a catch in his voice. Lets get him out of that thing. No! Sonnys cry was wounded, furious . . . ultimately frightened. You know what the Revrend said, Warwick said rapidly. Before. When the TV people came. Nobody can see the straitjackets. They wouldnt understand. They Click! The intercom. Sonny! Andy! Casey sounded panicky. Theyre closer! The sirens! Christ! What are we supposed to do? Let him out now! Warwicks face was pallid, except for two red spots high on his cheekbones. Reverend Gardener also said I dont give a fuck what he also said! Warwicks voice dropped, and now he voiced the childs deepest fear Were gonna get caught, Sonny! Were gonna get caught! And Jack thought that now he could hear sirens, or perhaps it was only his imagination. Sonnys eyes rolled toward Jack with horrible, trapped indecision. He halfraised the gun and for one moment Jack believed Sonny was really going to shoot him. But it was six minutes now, and still no honk from the Godhead, announcing that the deus ex machina was now boarding for Muncie. You let him loose, Sonny said sulkily to Andy Warwick. I dont even want to touch him. Hes a sinner. And hes a queer. Sonny retreated to the desk as Andy Warwicks fingers fumbled with the straitjackets lacings. You better not say anything, he panted. You better not say anything or Ill kill you myself. Right arm free. Left arm free. They collapsed bonelessly into his lap. Pins and needles coming back. Warwick hauled the hateful restraint off him, a horror of duncolored canvas and rawhide lacings. Warwick looked at it in his hands and grimaced. He darted across the room and began to stuff it into Sunlight Gardeners safe. Pull up your pants, Sonny said. You think I want to look at your works? Jack fumbled up his shorts, got the waistband of his pants, dropped them, and managed to pull them up. Click! The intercom. Sonny! Andy! Caseys voice, panicked. I hear something! Are they turning in? Sonny almost screamed. Warwick redoubled his efforts to stuff the straitjacket into the safe. Are they turning in the front No! In the chapel! I cant see nothing but I can hear something in the There was an explosion of shattering glass as Wolf leaped from the darkness of the chapel and into the studio. 18 Caseys screams as he pushed back from the control board in his wheelfooted chair were hideously amplified. Inside the studio there was a brief storm of glass. Wolf landed fourfooted on the slanted control board and halfclimbed, halfslid down it, his eyes throwing a red glare. His long claws turned dials and flicked switches at random. The big reeltoreel Sony tape recorder started to turn. COMMUNISTS! the voice of Sunlight Gardener bellowed. He was cranked to maximum volume, drowning out Caseys shrieks and Warwicks screams to shoot it, Sonny, shoot it, shoot it! But the voice of Gardener was not alone. In the background, like music from hell, came the mingled warble of many sirens as Caseys mikes picked up a caravan of police cruisers turning into the Sunlight Homes drive. OH, THEYRE GONNA TELL YOU ITS ALL RIGHT TO LOOK AT THOSE DIRTY BOOKS! THEYRE GONNA TELL YOU IT DONT MATTER THAT ITS AGAINST THE LAW TO PRAY IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS! THEYRE GONNA TELL YOU IT DONT EVEN MATTER THAT THERE ARE SIXTEEN U.S. REPRESENTATIVES AND TWO U.S. GOVERNORS WHO ARE AVOWED HOMOSEXUALS! THEYRE GONNA TELL YOU Caseys chair rolled back against the glass wall between the studio and Sunlight Gardeners office. His head turned, and for one moment they could all see his agonized, bulging eyes. Then Wolf leaped from the edge of the control panel. His head struck Caseys gut . . . and plowed into it. His jaws began to open and close with the speed of a canecutting machine. Blood flew up and splattered the window as Casey began to convulse. Shoot it, Sonny, shoot the fucking thing! Warwick whooped. Think Im gonna shoot him instead, Sonny said, looking around at Jack. He spoke with the air of a man who has finally arrived at a great conclusion. He nodded, began to grin. DAY IS COMING, BOYS! OH YES, A MIGHTY DAY, AND ON THAT DAY THOSE COMMUNIST HUMANIST HELLBOUND ATHEISTS ARE GONNA FIND OUT THAT THE ROCK WILL NOT SHIELD THEM, THE DEAD TREE WILL NOT GIVE THEM SHELTER! THEYRE GONNA, OH SAY HALLELUJAH, THEYRE GONNA Wolf, snarling and ripping. Sunlight Gardener, ranting about communism and humanism, the hellbound dopepushers who wanted to see that prayer never made it back into the public schools. Sirens from outside; slamming car doors; someone telling someone else to take it slow, the kid had sounded scared.

Yes, youre the one, you made all this trouble. He raised the .45. The muzzle of the .45 looked as big as the mouth of the Oatley tunnel. The glass wall between the studio and the office blew inward with a loud, coughing roar. A grayblack shaggy shape exploded into the room, its muzzle torn nearly in two by a jag of glass, its feet bleeding. It bellowed an almost human sound, and the thought came to Jack so powerfully that it sent him reeling backward YOU WILL NOT HARM THE HERD! Wolf! he wailed. Look out! Look out, he got a g Sonny pulled the trigger of the .45 twice. The reports were defeaning in the closed space. The bullets were not aimed at Wolf; they were aimed at Jack. But they tore into Wolf instead, because at that instant he was between the two boys, in midleap. Jack saw huge, ragged, bloody holes open in Wolfs side as the bullets exited. The paths of both slugs were deflected as they pulverized Wolfs ribs, and neither touched Jack, although he felt one whiff past his left cheek. Wolf! Wolfs dextrous, limber leap had turned awkward. His right shoulder rolled forward and he crashed into the wall, splattering blood and knocking down a framed photograph of Sunlight Gardener in a Shriners fez. Laughing, Sonny Singer turned toward Wolf, and shot him again. He held the gun in both hands and his shoulders jerked with the recoil. Gunsmoke hung in a thick, noxious, unmoving rafter. Wolf struggled up on all fours and then rose somehow to his feet. A shattering, wounded bellow of pain and rage overtopped Sunlight Gardeners thundering recorded voice. Sonny shot Wolf a fourth time. The slug tore a gaping hole in his left arm. Blood and gristle flew. JACKY! JACKY! OH JACKY, HURTS, THAT HURTS ME Jacky shambled forward and grabbed Gardeners digital clock; it was simply the first thing that came to hand. Sonny, look out! Warwick shouted. Look Then Wolf, his entire midsection now a gory tangle of bloodmatted hair, pounced on him. Warwick grappled with Wolf and for a moment they appeared almost to be dancing. IN A LAKE OF FIRE FOREVER! FOR THE BIBLE SAYS Jack brought the digital radio down on Sonnys head with all the force he could muster as Sonny began to turn around. Plastic crunched. The numbers on the front of the clock began to blink randomly. Sonny reeled around, trying to bring the gun up. Jack swung the radio in a flat, rising arc that ended at Sonnys mouth. Sonnys lips flew back in a great funhouse grin. There was a brittle crunch as his teeth broke. His finger jerked the trigger of the gun again. The bullet went between his feet. He hit the wall, rebounded, and grinned at Jack from his bloody mouth. Swaying on his feet, he raised the gun. Hellbound Wolf threw Warwick. Warwick flew through the air with the greatest of ease and struck Sonny in the back as Sonny fired. The bullet went wild, hitting one of the turning tapereels in the soundstudio and pulverizing it. The ranting, screaming voice of Sunlight Gardener ceased. A great bass hum of feedback began to rise from the speakers. Roaring, staggering, Wolf advanced on Sonny Singer. Sonny pointed the .45 at him and pulled the trigger. There was a dry, impotent click. Sonnys wet grin faltered. No, he said mildly, and pulled the trigger again . . . and again . . . and again. As Wolf reached for him, he threw the gun and tried to run around Gardeners big desk. The pistol bounced off Wolfs skull, and with a final, failing burst of strength, Wolf leaped across Sunlight Gardeners desk after Sonny, scattering everything that had been there. Sonny backed away, but Wolf was able to grab his arm. No! Sonny screamed. No, you better not, youll go back in the Box, Im a big man around here, I . . . I . . . IYYYYYYYYYYYY! Wolf twisted Sonnys arm. There was a ripping sound, the sound of a turkey drumstick being torn from the cooked bird by an overenthusiastic child. Suddenly Sonnys arm was in Wolfs big front paw. Sonny staggered away, blood jetting from his shoulder. Jack saw a wet white knob of bone. He turned away and was violently sick. For a moment the whole world swam into grayness. 19 When he looked around again, Wolf was swaying in the middle of the carnage that had been Gardeners office. His eyes guttered pale yellow, like dying candles. Something was happening to his face, to his arms and legshe was becoming Wolf again, Jack saw . . . and then understood fully what that meant. The old legends had lied about how only silver bullets could destroy a werewolf, but apparently about some things they did not lie. Wolf was changing back because he was dying. Wolf, no! he wailed, and managed to get to his feet. He got halfway to Wolf, slipped in a puddle of blood, went to one knee, got up again. No! Jacky The voice was low, guttural, little more than a growl . . . but understandable. And, incredibly, Wolf was trying to smile. Warwick had gotten Gardeners door open. He was backing slowly up the steps, his eyes wide and shocked. Go on! Jack screamed. Go on, get outta here! Andy Warwick fled like a scared rabbit. A voice from the intercomFranky Williamss voicecut through the droning buzz of feedback. It was horrified, but filled with a terrible, sickly excitement. Christ, lookit this! Looks like somebody went bullshit with a meatcleaver! Some of you guys check the kitchen! Jacky Wolf collapsed like a falling tree. Jack knelt, turned him over. The hair was melting away from Wolfs cheeks with the eerie speed of timelapse photography. His eyes had gone hazel again. And to Jack he looked horribly tired. Jacky Wolf raised a bloody hand and touched Jacks cheek. Shoot . . . you? Did he . . . No, Jack said, cradling his friends head. No, Wolf, never got me. Never did. I . . . Wolfs eyes closed and then opened slowly again. He smiled with incredible sweetness and spoke carefully, enunciating each word, obviously needing to convey this if nothing else. I . . . kept . . . my herd . . . safe. Yes, you did, Jack said, and his tears began to flow. They hurt. He cradled Wolfs shaggy, tired head and wept. You sure did, good old Wolf Good . . . good old Jacky. Wolf, Im gonna go upstairs . . . there are cops . . . an ambulance . . . No! Wolf once again seemed to rouse himself to a great effort. Go on . . . you go on . . . Not without you, Wolf! All the lights had blurred double, treble. He held Wolfs head in his burned hands. Not without you, huhuh, no way Wolf . . . doesnt want to live in this world. He pulled a great, shuddering breath into his broad, shattered chest and tried another smile. Smells . . . smells too bad. Wolf . . . listen, Wolf Wolf took his hands gently; as he held them, Jack could feel the hair melting from Wolfs palms. It was a ghostly, terrible sensation. I love you, Jacky. I love you, too, Wolf, Jack said. Right here and now. Wolf smiled. Going back, Jacky . . . I can feel it. Going back . . . Suddenly Wolfs very hands felt insubstantial in Jacks grip. Wolf! he screamed. Going back home . . . Wolf, no! He felt his heart stagger and wrench in his chest. It would break, oh yes, hearts could break, he felt that. Wolf, come back, I love you! There was a sensation of lightness in Wolf now, a feeling that he was turning into something like a milkweed pod . . . or a shimmer of illusion. A Daydream. . . . goodbye . . . Wolf was fading glass. Fading . . . fading . . . Wolf! . . .love you J . . . Wolf was gone. There was only a bloody outline on the floor where he had been. Oh God, Jack moaned. Oh God, oh God. He hugged himself and began to rock back and forth in the demolished office, moaning. 27 Jack Lights Out Again 1 Time passed. Jack had no idea how much or how little. He sat with his arms wrapped around himself as if he were in the straitjacket again, rocking back and forth, moaning, wondering if Wolf could really be gone. Hes gone. Oh yes, hes gone. And guess who killed him, Jack? Guess who? At some point the feedback hum took on a rasping note. A moment later there was a highgain crackle of static and everything shorted outfeedback hum, upstairs chatter, idling engines out front. Jack barely noticed. Go on. Wolf said to go on. I cant. I cant. Im tired, and whatever I do is the wrong thing. People get killed Quit it, you selfpitying jerk! Think about your mother, Jack. No! Im tired. Let me be. And the Queen. Please, just leave me alone At last he heard the door at the top of the stairs open, and that roused him. He did not want to be found here. Let them take him outside, in the back yard, but not in this stinking, bloodspattered, smokey room where he had been tortured and his friend killed. Barely thinking about what he was doing, Jack took up the envelope with JACK PARKER written across the front. He looked inside and saw the guitarpick, the silver dollar, his beatup wallet, the Rand McNally road atlas. He tilted the envelope and saw the marble. He stuck everything in the pack and slipped it on, feeling like a boy in a state of hypnosis. Footfalls on the stairs, slow and cautious. wheres the damn lights funny smell, like a zoo watch it, boys Jacks eyes happened on the steel filetray, neatly stacked with envelopes reading ILL BE A SUNBEAM FOR JESUS. He helped himself to two of them. Now when they grab you coming out, they can get you for robbery as well as murder. Didnt matter. He was moving now for the simple sake of movement, no more than that. The back yard appeared completely deserted. Jack stood at the top of the stairs that exited through a bulkhead and looked around, hardly able to believe it. There were voices from the front, and pulses of light, and occasional smears of static and dispatchers voices from police radios that had been cranked up all the way to high gain, but the back yard was empty. It made no sense. But he supposed if they were confused enough, rattled enough by what they had found inside . . . Then a voice, muffled, less than twenty feet away on Jacks left, said, Christ! Do you believe this? Jacks head snapped around. There, squatting on the beaten dirt like a crude Iron Age coffin, was the Box. A flashlight was moving around inside. Jack could see shoesoles sticking out. A dim figure was crouching by the mouth of the Box, examining the door. Looks like this thing was ripped right offn its hinges, the fellow looking at the door called into the Box. I dont know how anyone coulda done it, though. Hinges are steel. But theyre just . . . twisted. Never mind the damn hinges, the muffled voice came back. This goddam thing . . . they kept kids in here, Paulie! I really think they did! Kids! Theres initials on the walls . . . The light moved. . . . and Bible verses . . . The light moved again. . . . and pictures. Little pictures. Little stickmen and women, like kids draw . . . Christ, do you think Williams knew about this? Must have, Paulie said, still examining the torn and twisted steel hinges on the Boxs door. Paulie was bending in; his colleague was backing out. Making no special attempt at concealment, Jack walked across the open yard behind them. He went along the side of the garage and came out on the shoulder of the road. From here he had an angle on the careless jam of police cars in the Sunlight Homes front yard. As Jack stood watching, an ambulance came tearing up the road, flashers whirling, siren warbling. Loved you, Wolf, Jack muttered, and wiped an arm across his wet eyes. He set off down the road into darkness, thinking he would most likely be picked up before he got a mile west of the Sunlight Home. But three hours later he was still walking; apparently the cops had more than enough to occupy them back there. 2 There was a highway up ahead, over the next rise or the rise after that. Jack could see the orangey glow of highintensity sodium arcs on the horizon, could hear the whine of the big rigs. He stopped in a trashlittered ravine and washed his face and hands in the trickle of water coming out of a culvert. The water was almost paralyzing cold, but at least it silenced the throbbing in his hands for a while. The old cautions were coming back almost unbidden. Jack stood for a moment where he was, under the dark night sky of Indiana, listening to the whine of the big trucks. The wind, murmuring in the trees, lifted his hair. His heart was heavy with the loss of Wolf, but even that could not change how good, how very good it was to be free. An hour later a trucker slowed for the tired, pallid boy standing in the breakdown lane with his thumb cocked. Jack climbed in. Where you headed, kiddo? the trucker asked. Jack was too tired and too sick at heart to bother with the Storyhe barely remembered it, anyway. He supposed it would come back to him. West, he said. Far as youre going. Thatd be Midstate. Fine, Jack said, and fell asleep. The big Diamond Reo rolled through the chilly Indiana night; Charlie Daniels on the tapeplayer, it rolled west, chasing its own headlights toward Illinois. 28 Jacks Dream 1 Of course he carried Wolf with him. Wolf had gone home, but a big loyal shadow rode beside Jack in all the trucks and Volkswagen vans and dusty cars pounding along the Illinois highways. This smiling ghost pierced Jacks heart. Sometimes he could seecould almost seeWolfs huge hairy form bounding alongside, romping through the stripped fields. Free, Wolf beamed at him with pumpkincolored eyes. When he jerked his eyes away, Jack felt the absence of a Wolfhand folding itself around his. Now that he missed his friend so completely, the memory of his impatience with Wolf shamed him, brought the blood to his face. He had thought about abandoning Wolf more times than he could count. Shameful, shameful. Wolf had been . . . it took Jack a long time to take it in, but the word was noble. And this noble being, so out of place in this world, had died for him. I kept my herd safe. Jack Sawyer was the herd no longer. I kept my herd safe. There were times when the truckdrivers or insurance salesmen who had picked up this strange, compelling boy on the side of the roadpicked him up even though the boy was roaddirty and shaggy, even though they might never have taken on a hitchhiker before in their liveslooked over and saw him blinking back tears. Jack mourned Wolf as he sped across Illinois. He had somehow known that he would have no trouble getting rides once in that state, and it was true that often all he had to do was stick out his thumb and look an oncoming driver in the eyeinstant ride. Most of the drivers did not even demand the Story. All he had to do was give some minimal explanation for travelling alone. Im going to see a friend in Springfield. I have to pick up a car and drive it back home. Great, great, the drivers saidhad they even heard? Jack could not tell. His mind riffled through a milehigh stack of images of Wolf splashing into a stream to rescue his Territories creatures, Wolf nosing into a fragrant box that had held a hamburger, Wolf pushing food into his shed, bursting into the recording studio, taking the bullets, melting away. . . . Jack did not want to see these things again and again, but he had to and they made his eyes burn with tears. Not far out of Danville, a short, fiftyish man with irongray hair and the amused but stern expression of one who has taught fifth grade for two decades kept darting sly looks at him from behind the wheel, then finally said, Arent you cold, buster? You ought to have more than that little jacket. Maybe a little, Jack said. Sunlight Gardener had thought the denim jackets warm enough for fieldwork right through the winter, but now the weather licked and stabbed right through its pores. I have a coat on the back seat, the man said. Take it. No, dont even try to talk your way out of it. That coats yours now. Believe me, I wont freeze. But You have no choice at all in the matter. That is now your coat. Try it on. Jack reached over the back of the seat and dragged a heavy length of material onto his lap. At first it was shapeless, anonymous. A big patch pocket surfaced, then a toggle button. It was a loden coat, fragrant with pipe tobacco. My old one, the man said. I just keep it in the car because I dont know what to do with itlast year, the kids gave me this goosedown thing. So you have it. Jack struggled into the big coat, putting it on right over the denim jacket. Oh boy, he said. It was like being embraced by a bear with a taste for Borkum Riff. Good, the man said. Now if you ever find yourself standing out on a cold and windy road again, you can thank Myles P. Kiger of Ogden, Illinois, for saving your skin. Your Myles P. Kiger looked as though he were going to say more the word hung in the air for a second, the man was still smiling; then the smile warped into goofy embarrassment and Kiger snapped his head forward. In the gray morning light, Jack saw a mottled red pattern spread out across the mans cheeks. Your (something) skin? Oh, no. Your beautiful skin. Your touchable, kissable, adorable . . . Jack pushed his hands deep into the loden coats pockets and pulled the coat tightly around him. Myles P. Kiger of Ogden, Illinois, stared straight ahead. Ahem, Kiger said, exactly like a man in a comic book. Thanks for the coat, Jack said. Really. Ill be grateful to you whenever I wear it. Sure, okay, Kiger said, forget it. But for a second his face was oddly like poor Donny Keegans, back in the Sunlight Home. Theres a place up ahead, Kiger said. His voice was choppy, abrupt, full of phony calm. We can get some lunch, if you like. I dont have any money left, Jack said, a statement exactly two dollars and thirtyeight cents shy of the truth. Dont worry about it. Kiger had already snapped on his turn indicator. They drove into a windswept, nearly empty parking lot before a low gray structure that looked like a railway car. A neon sign above the central door flashed EMPIRE DINER. Kiger pulled up before one of the diners long windows and they left the car. This coat would keep him warm, Jack realized. His chest and arms seemed protected by woolen armor. Jack began to move toward the door under the flashing sign, but turned around when he realized that Kiger was still standing beside the car. The grayhaired man, only an inch or two taller than Jack, was looking at him over the cars top. Say, Kiger said. Look, Id be happy to give you your coat back, Jack said. No, thats yours now. I was just thinking Im not really hungry after all, and if I keep on going I can make pretty good time, get home a little earlier. Sure, Jack said. Youll get another ride here. Easy. I promise. I wouldnt drop you here if you were going to be stranded. Fine. Hold on. I said Id get you lunch, and I will. He put his hand in his trouser pocket, then held a bill out across the top of the car to Jack. The chill wind ruffled his hair and flattened it against his forehead. Take it. No, honest, Jack said. Its okay. I have a couple dollars. Get yourself a good steak, Kiger said, and was leaning across the top of the car holding out the bill as if offering a life preserver, or reaching for one. Jack reluctantly came forward and took the bill from Kigers extended fingers. It was a ten. Thanks a lot. I mean it. Here, why dont you take the paper, too, have something to read? You know, if you have to wait a little or something. Kiger had already opened his door, and leaned inside to pluck a folded tabloid newspaper off the back seat. Ive already read it. He tossed it over to Jack. The pockets of the loden coat were so roomy that Jack could slip the folded paper into one of them. Myles P. Kiger stood for a moment beside his open car door, squinting at Jack. If you dont mind my saying so, youre going to have an interesting life, he said. Its pretty interesting already, Jack said truthfully. Salisbury steak was five dollars and forty cents, and it came with french fries. Jack sat at the end of the counter and opened the newspaper. The story was on the second pagethe day before, he had seen it on the first page of an Indiana newspaper. ARRESTS MADE, RELATED TO SHOCK HORROR DEATHS. Local Magistrate Ernest Fairchild and Police Officer Frank B. Williams of Cayuga, Indiana, had been charged with misuse of public monies and acceptance of bribes in the course of the investigation of the deaths of six boys at the Sunlight Gardener Scripture Home for Wayward Boys. The popular evangelist Robert Sunlight Gardener had apparently escaped from the grounds of the Home shortly before the arrival of the police, and while no warrants had as yet been issued for his arrest he was urgently being sought for questioning. WAS HE ANOTHER JIM JONES? asked a caption beneath a picture of Gardener at his most gorgeous, arms outspread, hair falling in perfect waves. Dogs had led the State Police to an area near the electrified fences where boys bodies had been buried without ceremonyfive bodies, it appeared, most of them so decomposed that identification was not possible. They would probably be able to identify Ferd Janklow. His parents would be able to give him a real burial, all the while wondering what they had done wrong, exactly; all the while wondering just how their love for Jesus had condemned their brilliant, rebellious son. When the Salisbury steak came, it tasted both salty and woolly, but Jack ate every scrap. And soaked up all the thick gravy with the Empire Diners underdone fries. He had just about finished his meal when a bearded trucker with a Detroit Tigers cap shoved down over long black hair, a parka that seemed to be made from wolfskins, and a thick cigar in his mouth paused beside him and asked, You need a ride west, kid? Im going to Decatur. Halfway to Springfield, just like that. 2 That night, in a threedollaranight hotel the trucker had told him about, Jack had two distinct dreams or he later remembered these two out of many that deluged his bed, or the two were actually one long joined dream. He had locked his door, peed into the stained and cracked sink in the corner, put his knapsack under his pillow, and fallen asleep holding the big marble that in the other world was a Territories mirror. There had been a suggestion of music, an almost cinematic touchfiery alert bebop, at a volume so low Jack could just pick out that the lead instruments were a trumpet and an alto saxophone. Richard, Jack drowsily thought, tomorrow I should be seeing Richard Sloat, and fell down the slope of the rhythm into brimming unconsciousness. Wolf was trotting toward him across a blasted, smoking landscape. Strings of barbed wire, now and then coiling up into fantastic and careless barbedwire intricacies, separated them. Deep trenches, too, divided the spoiled land, one of which Wolf vaulted easily before nearly tumbling into one of the ranks of wire. Watch out, Jack called. Wolf caught himself before falling into the triple strands of wire. He waved one big paw to show Jack that he was unhurt, and then cautiously stepped over the wires. Jack felt an amazing surge of happiness and relief pass through him. Wolf had not died; Wolf would join him again. Wolf made it over the barbed wire and began trotting forward again. The land between Jack and Wolf seemed mysteriously to double in lengthgray smoke hanging over the many trenches almost obscured the big shaggy figure coming forward. Jason! Wolf shouted. Jason! Jason! Im still here, Jack shouted back. Cant make it, Jason! Wolf cant make it! Keep trying, Jack bawled. Damn it, dont give up! Wolf paused before an impenetrable tangle of wire, and through the smoke Jack saw him slip down to all fours and trot back and forth, nosing for an open place. From side to side Wolf trotted, each time going out a greater distance, with every second becoming more evidently disturbed. Finally Wolf stood up again and placed his hands on the thick tangle of wire and forced a space he could shout through. Wolf cant! Jason, Wolf cant! I love you, Wolf, Jack shouted across the smouldering plain. JASON! Wolf bawled back. BE CAREFUL! They are COMING for you! There are MORE of them! More what, Jack wanted to shout, but could not. He knew. Then either the whole character of the dream changed or another dream began. He was back in the ruined recording studio and office at the Sunlight Home, and the smells of gunpowder and burned flesh crowded the air. Singers mutilated body lay slumped on the floor, and Caseys dead form drooped through the shattered glass panel. Jack sat on the floor cradling Wolf in his arms, and knew again that Wolf was dying. Only Wolf was not Wolf. Jack was holding Richard Sloats trembling body, and it was Richard who was dying. Behind the lenses of his sensible black plastic eyeglasses, Richards eyes skittered aimlessly, painfully. Oh no, oh no, Jack breathed out in horror. Richards arm had been shattered, and his chest was a pulp of ruined flesh and bloodstained white shirt. Fractured bones glinted whitely here and there like teeth. I dont want to die, Richard said, every word a superhuman effort. Jason, you should not . . . you should not have . . . You cant die, too, Jack pleaded, not you, too. Richards upper body lurched against Jacks arms, and a long, liquid sound escaped Richards throat, and then Richard found Jacks eyes with his own suddenly clear and quiet eyes. Jason. The sound of the name, which was almost appropriate, hung softly in the stinking air. You killed me, Richard breathed out, or you killed e, since his lips could not meet to form one of the letters. Richards eyes swam out of focus again, and his body seemed to grow instantly heavier in Jacks arms. There was no longer life in that body. Jason DeLoessian stared up in shock 3 and Jack Sawyer snapped upright in the cold, unfamiliar bed of a flophouse in Decatur, Illinois, and in the yellowish murk shed by a streetlamp outside saw his breath plume out as luxuriantly as if exhaled from two mouths at once. He kept himself from screaming only by clasping his hands, his own two hands, and squeezing them together hard enough to crack a walnut. Another enormous white feather of air steamed out of his lungs. Richard. Wolf running across that dead world, calling out . . . what? Jason. The boys heart executed a quick, decided leap, with the kick of a horse clearing a fence. 29 Richard at Thayer 1 At eleven oclock the next morning an exhausted Jack Sawyer unshouldered his pack at the end of a long playing field covered with crisp brown dead grass. Far away, two men in plaid jackets and baseball caps labored with leafblower and rake down on the stretch of lawn surrounding the most distant group of buildings. To Jacks left, directly behind the redbrick backside of the Thayer library, was the faculty parking lot. In the front of Thayer School a great gate opened onto a treelined drive which circled around a large quad crisscrossed with narrow paths. If anything stood out on the campus, it was the librarya Bauhaus steamship of glass and steel and brick. Jack had already seen that a secondary gate opened onto another access road before the library. This ran twothirds the length of the school and ended at the garbage Dumpsters nested in the round culdesac just before the land climbed up to form the plateau of the football field. Jack began to move across the top of the field toward the rear of the classroom buildings. When the Thayerites began to go to dining hall, he could find Richards roomEntry 5, Nelson House. The dry winter grass crunched beneath his feet. Jack pulled Myles P. Kigers excellent coat tightly about himthe coat at least looked preppy, if Jack did not. He walked between Thayer Hall and an Upper School dormitory named Spence House, in the direction of the quad. Lazy preluncheon voices came through the Spence House windows. 2 Jack glanced toward the quad and saw an elderly man, slightly stooped and of a greenishbronze, standing on a plinth the height of a carpenters bench and examining the cover of a heavy book. Elder Thayer, Jack surmised. He was dressed in the stiff collar, flowing tie, and frock coat of a New England Transcendentalist. Elder Thayers brass head inclined over the volume, pointed generally in the direction of the classroom buildings. Jack took the rightangle at the end of the path. Sudden noise erupted from an upstairs window aheadboys shouting out the syllables of a name that sounded like Etheridge! Etheridge! Then an irruption of wordless screams and shouts, accompanied by the sounds of heavy furniture moving across a wooden floor. Etheridge! Jack heard a door closing behind his back, and looked over his shoulder to see a tall boy with dirtyblond hair rushing down the steps of Spence House. He wore a tweed sport jacket and a tie and a pair of L. L. Bean Maine hunting shoes. Only a long yellowandblue scarf wound several times around his neck protected him from the cold. His long face looked both haggard and arrogant, and just now was the face of a senior in a selfrighteous rage. Jack pushed the hood of the loden coat over his head and moved down the path. I dont want anybody to move! the tall boy shouted up at the closed window. You freshmen just stay put! Jack drifted toward the next building. Youre moving the chairs! the tall boy screamed behind him. I can hear you doing it! STOP! Then Jack heard the furious senior call out to him. Jack turned around, his heart beating loudly. Get over to Nelson House right now, whoever you are, on the double, posthaste, immediately. Or Ill go to your house master. Yes sir, Jack said, and quickly turned away to move in the direction the prefect had pointed. Youre at least seven minutes late! Etheridge screeched at him, and Jack was startled into jogging. On the double, I said! Jack turned the jog into a run. When he started downhill (he hoped it was the right way; it was, anyway, the direction in which Etheridge had seemed to be looking), he saw a long black cara limousinejust beginning to swing through the main front gates and whisper up the long drive to the quad. He thought that maybe whatever sat behind the tinted windows of the limousine was nothing so ordinary as the parent of a Thayer School sophomore. The long black car eased forward, insolently slow. No, Jack thought, Im spooking myself. Still he could not move. Jack watched the limousine pull up to the bottom of the quad and stop, its motor running. A black chauffeur with the shoulders of a running back got out of the front seat and opened the rear passenger door. An old whitehaired man, a stranger, effortfully got out of the limousines back seat. He wore a black topcoat which revealed an immaculate white shirtfront and a solid dark tie. The man nodded to his chauffeur and began to toil across the quad in the direction of the main building. He never even looked in Jacks direction. The chauffeur elaborately craned his neck and looked upward, as if speculating about the possibility of snow. Jack stepped backward and watched while the old man made it to the steps of Thayer Hall. The chauffeur continued his specious examination of the sky. Jack melted backward down the path until the side of the building shielded him, and then he turned around and began to trot. Nelson House was a threestory brick building on the other side of the quadrangle. Two windows on the ground floor showed him a dozen seniors exercising their privileges reading while sprawled on couches, playing a desultory game of cards on a coffee table; others stared lazily at what must have been a television set parked beneath the windows. An unseen door slammed shut a little farther up the hill, and Jack caught a glimpse of the tall blond senior, Etheridge, stalking back to his own building after dealing with the freshmens crimes. Jack cut across the front of the building and a gust of cold wind smacked up against him as soon as he reached its side. And around the corner was a narrow door and a plaque (wooden this time, white with Gothic black lettering) saying ENTRY 5. A series of windows stretched down to the next corner. And here, at the third windowrelief.

For here was Richard Sloat, his eyeglasses firmly hooked around his ears, his necktie knotted, his hands only slightly stained with ink, sitting erect at his desk and reading some fat book as if for dear life. He was positioned sideways to Jack, who had time to take in Richards dear, wellknown profile before he rapped on the glass. Richards head jerked up from the book. He stared wildly about him, frightened and surprised by the sudden noise. Richard, Jack said softly, and was rewarded by the sight of his friends astonished face turning toward him. Richard looked almost moronic with surprise. Open the window, Jack said, mouthing the words with exaggerated care so that his friend could read his lips. Richard stood up from his desk, still moving with the slowness of shock. Jack mimed pushing the window up. When Richard reached the window he put his hands on the frame and looked down severely at Jack for a momentin that short and critical glance was a judgment about Jacks dirty face and unwashed, lank hair, his unorthodox arrival, much else. What on earth are you up to now? Finally he pushed up the window. Well, Richard said. Most people use the door. Great, Jack said, almost laughing. When Im like most people, I probably will, too. Stand back, okay? Looking very much as though he had been caught offguard, Richard stepped a few paces back. Jack hoisted himself up onto the sill and slid through the window headfirst. Oof. Okay, hi, Richard said. I suppose its even sort of nice to see you. But I have to go to lunch pretty soon. You could take a shower, I guess. Everybody elsell be down in the dining room. He stopped talking, as if startled that he had said so much. Richard, Jack saw, would require delicate handling. Could you bring some food back for me? Im really starving. Great, Richard said. First you get everybody crazy, including my dad, by running away, then you break in here like a burglar, and now you want me to steal food for you. Fine, sure. Okay. Great. We have a lot to talk about, Jack said. If, Richard said, leaning slightly forward with his hands in his pockets, if youll start going back to New Hampshire today, or if youll let me call my dad and get him here to take you back, Ill try to grab some extra food for you. Im willing to talk about anything with you, Richieboy. Anything. Ill talk about going back, sure. Richard nodded. Where in the world have you been, anyhow? His eyes burned beneath their thick lenses. Then a big, surprising blink. And how in the world can you justify the way you and your mother are treating my father? Shit, Jack. I really think you ought to go back to that place in New Hampshire. I will go back, Jack said. Thats a promise. But I have to get something first. Is there anyplace I can sit down? Im sort of dead tired. Richard nodded at his bed, thentypicallyflapped one hand at his desk chair, which was nearer Jack. Doors slammed in the hallway. Loud voices passed by Richards door, a crowds shuffling feet. You ever read about the Sunlight Home? Jack asked. I was there. Two of my friends died at the Sunlight Home, and get this, Richard, the second one was a werewolf. Richards face tightened. Well, thats an amazing coincidence, because I really was at the Sunlight Home, Richard. So I gather, said Richard. Okay. Ill be back with some food in about half an hour. Then Ill have to tell you who lives next door. But this is Seabrook Island stuff, isnt it? Tell me the truth. Yeah, I guess it is. Jack let Myles P. Kigers coat slip off his shoulders and fold itself over the back of the chair. Ill be back, Richard said. He waved uncertainly to Jack on his way out the door. Jack kicked off his shoes and closed his eyes. 3 The conversation to which Richard had alluded as Seabrook Island stuff, and which Jack remembered as well as his friend, took place in the last week of their final visit to the resort of that name. The two families had taken joint vacations nearly every year while Phil Sawyer was alive. The summer after his death, Morgan Sloat and Lily Sawyer had tried to keep the tradition going, and booked the four of them into the vast old hotel on Seabrook Island, South Carolina, which had been the site of some of their happiest summers. The experiment had not worked. The boys were accustomed to being in each others company. They were also accustomed to places like Seabrook Island. Richard Sloat and Jack Sawyer had scampered through resort hotels and down vast tanned beaches all through their childhoodbut now the climate had mysteriously altered. An unexpected seriousness had entered their lives, an awkwardness. The death of Phil Sawyer had changed the very color of the future. Jack began to feel that final summer at Seabrook that he might not want to sit in the chair behind his fathers deskthat he wanted more in his life. More what? He knewthis was one of the few things he did truly knowthat this powerful moreness was connected to the Daydreams. When he had begun to see this in himself, he became aware of something else that his friend Richard was not only incapable of sensing this quality of moreness, but that in fact he quite clearly wanted its opposite. Richard wanted less. Richard did not want anything he could not respect. Jack and Richard had sloped off by themselves in that slowbreathing time composed at good resorts by the hours between lunch and cocktails. In fact they had not gone faronly up at the side of a pinetreecovered hill overlooking the rear of the inn. Beneath them sparkled the water of the inns huge rectangular pool, through which Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer smoothly and efficiently swam length after length. At one of the tables set back from the pool sat Richards father, wrapped in a bulging, fuzzy terrycloth robe, flipflops on his white feet, simultaneously eating a club sandwich and wheeling and dealing on the plugin telephone in his other hand. Is this sort of stuff what you want? he asked Richard, who was seated neatly beside his own sprawl and heldno surprisea book. The Life of Thomas Edison. What I want? When I grow up, you mean? Richard seemed a little nonplussed by the question Its pretty nice, I guess. I dont know if I want it or not. Do you know what you want, Richard? You always say you want to be a research chemist, Jack said. Why do you say that? What does it mean? It means that I want to be a research chemist. Richard smiled. You know what I mean, dont you? Whats the point of being a research chemist? Do you think that would be fun? Do you think youll cure cancer and save millions of peoples lives? Richard looked at him very openly, his eyes slightly magnified by the glasses he had begun to wear four months earlier. I dont think Ill ever cure cancer, no. But thats not even the point. The point is finding out how things work. The point is that things actually really do work in an orderly way, in spite of how it looks, and you can find out about it. Order. Yeah, so why are you smiling? Jack grinned. Youre going to think Im crazy. Id like to find something that makes all thisall these rich guys chasing golfballs and yelling into telephonesthat makes all this look sick. It already looks sick, Richard said, with no intention of being funny. Dont you sometimes think theres more to life than order? He looked over at Richards innocent, skeptical face. Dont you want just a little magic, Richard? You know, sometimes I think you just want chaos, Richard said, flushing a bit. I think youre making fun of me. If you want magic, you completely wreck everything I believe in. In fact you wreck reality. Maybe there isnt just one reality. In Alice in Wonderland, sure! Richard was losing his temper. He stomped off through the pines, and Jack realized for the first time that the talk released by his feelings about the Daydreams had infuriated his friend. Jacks longer legs brought him alongside Richard in seconds. I wasnt making fun of you, he said. Its just, I was sort of curious about why you always say you want to be a chemist. Richard stopped short and looked soberly up at Jack. Just stop driving me crazy with that kind of stuff, Richard said. Thats just Seabrook Island talk. Its hard enough being one of the six or seven sane people in America without having my best friend flip out totally. From then on, Richard Sloat bristled at any signs of fancifulness in Jack, and immediately dismissed it as Seabrook Island stuff. 4 By the time Richard returned from the dining room, Jack, freshly showered and with his wet hair adhering to his scalp, was idly turning over books at Richards desk. Jack was wondering, as Richard swung through the door carrying a greasestained paper napkin clearly wrapped around a substantial quantity of food, whether the conversation to come might be easier if the books on the desk were The Lord of the Rings and Watership Down instead of Organic Chemistry and Mathematical Puzzles. What was lunch? Jack asked. You got lucky. Southern fried chickenone of the few things they serve here that dont make you sorry for the animal who died to become part of the food chain. He handed the greasy napkin over to Jack. Four thick, richly battered sections of chicken sent up an aroma of almost unbelievable goodness and density. Jack waded in. How long have you been eating as though you oinked? Richard pushed his glasses up on his nose and sat down on his narrow bed. Beneath his tweed jacket he wore a patterned brown Vneck sweater, the bottom of which had been tucked into the waistband of his trousers. Jack had an uneasy moment, wondering if it were really possible to talk about the Territories with someone so tightly buttoned that he tucked his sweaters beneath his belts. The last time I ate, he said mildly, was yesterday, around noon. Im a little hungry, Richard. Thanks for bringing me the chicken. Its great. Its the best chicken I ever ate. Youre a great guy, risking expulsion like this. You think thats a joke, do you? Richard yanked at the sweater, frowning. If anybody finds you in here, I probably will get expelled. So dont get too funny. We have to figure out how were going to get you back to New Hampshire. Silence then, for a moment an appraising look from Jack, a stern look from Richard. I know you want me to explain what Im doing, Richard, Jack said around a mouthful of chicken, and believe me, its not going to be easy. You dont look the same, you know, Richard said. You look . . . older. But thats not all. Youre changed. I know Ive changed. Youd be a little different, too, if youd been with me since September. Jack smiled, looked at scowling Richard in his goodboy clothes, and knew that he would never be able to tell Richard about his father. He simply was not capable of that. If events did it for him, so be it; but he himself did not possess the assassins heart required for that particular disclosure. His friend continued to frown at Jack, clearly waiting for the story to begin. Perhaps to stall the moment when he would have to try to convince Rational Richard of the unbelievable, Jack asked, Is the kid in the next room quitting school? I saw his suitcases on his bed from outside. Well, yes, thats interesting, Richard said. I mean, interesting in the light of what you said. He is leavingin fact, hes already gone. Someone is supposed to come for his things, I guess. God knows what kind of a fairy tale youll make of this, but the kid next door was Reuel Gardener. The son of that preacher who ran that home you claim you escaped from. Richard ignored Jacks sudden fit of coughing. In most senses, I should say, Reuel was anything but the normal kid next door, and probably nobody here was too sorry to see him go. Just when the story came out about kids dying at that place his father ran, he got a telegram ordering him to leave Thayer. Jack had gotten down the wad of chicken that had tried to choke him. Sunlight Gardeners son? That guy had a son? And he was here? He came at the start of the term, Richard said simply. Thats what I was trying to tell you before. Suddenly Thayer School was menacing to Jack in a way that Richard could not begin to comprehend. What was he like? A sadist, Richard said. Sometimes I heard really peculiar noises coming out of Reuels room. And once I saw a dead cat on the garbage thing out in back that didnt have any eyes or ears. When you saw him, youd think he was the kind of person who might torture a cat. And he sort of smelled like rancid English Leather, I thought. Richard was silent for a carefully timed moment, and then asked, Were you really in the Sunlight Home? For thirty days. It was hell, or hells nextdoor neighbor. He inhaled, looking at Richards scowling but now at least halfconvinced face. This is hard for you to swallow, Richard, and I know that, but the guy with me was a werewolf. And if he hadnt been killed while he was saving my life hed be here right now. A werewolf. Hair on the palms of his hands. Changes into a bloodthirsty monster every full moon. Richard looked musingly around the little room. Jack waited until Richards gaze returned to him. Do you want to know what Im doing? Do you want me to tell you why Im hitchhiking all the way across the country? Im going to start screaming if you dont, Richard said. Well, Jack said, Im trying to save my mothers life. As he uttered it, this sentence seemed to him filled with a wondrous clarity. How the hell are you going to do that? Richard exploded. Your mother probably has cancer. As my father has been pointing out to you, she needs doctors and science . . . and you hit the road? What are you going to use to save your mother, Jack? Magic? Jacks eyes began to burn. You got it, Richard old chum. He raised his arm and pressed his already damp eyes into the fabric at the crook of his elbow. Oh hey, calm down, hey really . . . Richard said, tugging frantically at his sweater. Dont cry, Jack, come on, please, I know its a terrible thing, I didnt mean to . . . it was just that Richard had crossed the room instantly and without noise, and was now awkwardly patting Jacks arm and shoulder. Im okay, Jack said. He lowered his arm. Its not some crazy fantasy, Richard, no matter how it looks to you. He sat up straight. My father called me Travelling Jack, and so did an old man in Arcadia Beach. Jack hoped he was right about Richards sympathy opening internal doors; when he looked at Richards face, he saw that it was true. His friend looked worried, tender, foursquare. Jack began his story. 5 Around the two boys the life of Nelson House went on, both calm and boisterous in the manner of boarding schools, punctuated with shouts and roars and laughter. Footsteps padded past the door but did not stop. From the room above came regular thumps and an occasional drift of music Jack finally recognized as a record by Blue Oyster Cult. He began by telling Richard about the Daydreams. From the Daydreams he went to Speedy Parker. He described the voice speaking to him from the whirling funnel in the sand. And then he told Richard of how he had taken Speedys magic juice and first flipped into the Territories. But I think it was just cheap wine, wino wine, Jack said. Later, after it was all gone, I found out that I didnt need it to flip. I could just do it by myself. Okay, Richard said noncommittally. He tried to truly represent the Territories to Richard the carttrack, the sight of the summer palace, the timelessness and specificity of it. Captain Farren; the dying Queen, which brought him to Twinners; Osmond. The scene at AllHands Village; the Outpost Road which was the Western Road. He showed Richard his little collection of sacred objects, the guitarpick and marble and coin. Richard merely turned these over in his fingers and gave them back without comment. Then Jack relived his wretched time in Oatley. Richard listened to Jacks tales of Oatley silent but wideeyed. Jack carefully omitted Morgan Sloat and Morgan of Orris from his account of the scene at the Lewisburg rest area on I70 in western Ohio. Then Jack had to describe Wolf as he had first seen him, that beaming giant in Oshkosh BGosh bib overalls, and he felt his tears building again behind his eyes. He did actually startle Richard by weeping while he told about trying to get Wolf into cars, and confessed his impatience with his companion, fighting not to weep again, and was fine for a long timehe managed to get through the story of Wolfs first Change without tears or a constricted throat. Then he struck trouble again. His rage kept him talking freely until he got to Ferd Janklow, and then his eyes grew hot again. Richard said nothing for a long time. Then he stood up and fetched a clean handkerchief from a bureau drawer. Jack noisily, wetly blew his nose. Thats what happened, Jack said. Most of it, anyhow. What have you been reading? What movies have you been seeing? Fuck you, Jack said. He stood up and walked across the room to get his pack, but Richard reached out and put his hand around Jacks wrist. I dont think you made it all up. I dont think you made any of it up. Dont you? No. I dont know what I do think, actually, but Im sure youre not telling me deliberate lies. He dropped his hand. I believe you were in the Sunlight Home, I believe that, all right. And I believe that you had a friend named Wolf, who died there. Im sorry, but I cannot take the Territories seriously, and I cannot accept that your friend was a werewolf. So you think Im nuts, Jack said. I think youre in trouble. But Im not going to call my father, and Im not going to make you leave now. Youll have to sleep in the bed here tonight. If we hear Mr. Haywood coming around to do bed checks, youll be able to hide under the bed. Richard had taken on a faintly executive air, and he put his hands on his hips and glanced critically around his room. You have to get some rest. Im sure thats part of the problem. They worked you half to death in that horrible place, and your mind got twisted, and now you need to rest. I do, Jack admitted. Richard rolled his eyes upward. I have to go to intramural basketball pretty soon, but you can hide in here, and Ill bring some more food back from the dining room later on. The important thing is, you need rest and you need to get back home. Jack said, New Hampshire isnt home. 30 Thayer Gets Weird 1 Through the window Jack could see boys in coats, hunched against the cold, crossing to and fro between the library and the rest of the school. Etheridge, the senior who had spoken to Jack that morning, bustled by, his scarf flying out behind him. Richard took a tweed sport jacket from the narrow closet beside the bed. Nothing is going to make me think that you should do anything but go back to New Hampshire. I have to go to basketball now, because if I dont Coach Frazerll make me do ten punishment laps as soon as he comes back. Some other coach is taking our practice today, and Frazer said hed run us into the ground if we cut out. Do you want to borrow some clean clothes? I at least have a shirt thatll fit youmy father sent it to me from New York, and Brooks Brothers got the size wrong. Lets see it, Jack said. His clothes had become definitely disreputable, so stiff with filth that whenever he noticed it Jack felt like Pigpen, the Peanuts character who lived in a mist of dirt and disapproval. Richard gave him a white buttondown still in its plastic bag. Great, thanks, Jack said. He took it out of the bag and began removing the pins. It would almost fit. Theres a jacket you might try on, too, Richard said. The blazer hanging at the end of the closet. Try it on, okay? And you might as well use one of my ties, too. Just in case anyone comes in. Say youre from Saint Louis Country Day, and youre on a Newspaper Exchange. We do two or three of those a yearkids from here go there, kids from there come here, to work on the other schools paper. He went toward the door. Ill come back before dinner and see how you are. Two ballpoints were clipped to a plastic insert in his jacket pocket, Jack noticed, and all the buttons of the jacket were buttoned. Nelson House grew perfectly quiet within minutes. From Richards window Jack saw boys seated at desks in the big library windows. Nobody moved on the paths or over the crisp brown grass. An insistent bell rang, marking the beginning of fourth period. Jack stretched his arms out and yawned. A feeling of security returned to hima school around him, with all those familiar rituals of bells and classes and basketball practices. Maybe he would be able to stay another day; maybe he would even be able to call his mother from one of the Nelson House phones. He would certainly be able to catch up on his sleep. Jack went to the closet and found the blazer hanging where Richard had said it would be. A tag still hung from one of the sleeves Sloat had sent it from New York, but Richard had never worn it. Like the shirt, the blazer was one size too small for Jack and clung too tightly to his shoulders, but the cut was roomy and the sleeves allowed the white shirt cuffs to peek out half an inch. Jack lifted a necktie from the hook just inside the closetred, with a pattern of blue anchors. Jack slipped the tie around his neck and laboriously knotted it. Then he examined himself in the mirror and laughed out loud. Jack saw that he had made it at last. He looked at the beautiful new blazer, the club tie, his snowy shirt, his rumpled jeans. He was there. He was a preppy. 2 Richard had become, Jack saw, an admirer of John McPhee and Lewis Thomas and Stephen Jay Gould. He picked The Pandas Thumb from the row of books on Richards shelves because he liked the title and returned to the bed. Richard did not return from his basketball practice for what seemed an impossibly long time. Jack paced back and forth in the little room. He could not imagine what would keep Richard from returning to his room, but his imagination gave him one calamity after another. After the fifth or sixth time Jack checked his watch, he noticed that he could see no students on the grounds. Whatever had happened to Richard had happened to the entire school. The afternoon died. Richard too, he thought, was dead. Perhaps all Thayer School was deadand he was a plaguebearer, a carrier of death. He had eaten nothing all day since the chicken Richard had brought him from the dining room, but he wasnt hungry. Jack sat in numb misery. He brought destruction wherever he went. 3 Then there were footfalls in the corridor once more. From the floor above, Jack now dimly heard the thud thud thud of a bass pattern, and then again recognized it as being from a record by Blue Oyster Cult. The footsteps paused outside the door. Jack hurried to the door. Richard stood in the doorway. Two boys with cornsilk hair and halfmast ties glanced in and kept moving down the corridor. The rock music was much more audible in the corridor. Where were you all afternoon? Jack demanded. Well, it was sort of freaky, Richard said. They cancelled all the afternoon classes. Mr. Dufrey wouldnt even let kids go back to their lockers. And then we all had to go to basketball practice, and that was even weirder. Whos Mr. Dufrey? Richard looked at him as if hed just tumbled out of a bassinette. Whos Mr. Dufrey? Hes the headmaster. Dont you know anything at all about this school? No, but Im getting a few ideas, Jack said. What was so weird about practice? Remember I told you that Coach Frazer got some friend of his to handle it today? Well, he said wed all get punishment laps if we tried to cut out, so I thought his friend would be some Al Maguire type, you know, some real hotshot. Thayer School doesnt have a very good athletic tradition. Anyhow, I thought his replacement must be somebody really special. Let me guess. The new guy didnt look like he had anything to do with sports. Richard lifted his chin, startled. No, he said. No, he didnt. He gave Jack a considering look. He smoked all the time. And his hair was really long and greasyhe didnt look anything like a coach. He looked like somebody most coaches would like to step on, to tell you the truth. Even his eyes looked funny. I bet you he smokes pot. Richard tugged at his sweater. I dont think he knew anything about basketball. He didnt even make us practice our patternsthats what we usually do, after the warmup period. We sort of ran around and threw baskets and he shouted at us. Laughing. Like kids playing basketball was the most ridiculous thing hed seen in his whole life. You ever see a coach who thought sports was funny? Even the warmup period was strange. He just said, Okay, do pushups, and smoked his cigarette. No count, no cadence, everybody just doing them by themselves. After that it was Okay, run around a little bit. He looked . . . really wild. I think Im going to complain to Coach Frazer tomorrow. I wouldnt complain to him or the headmaster either, Jack said. Oh, I get it, Richard said. Mr. Dufreys one of them. One of the Territories people. Or he works for them, Jack said. Dont you see that you could fit anything into that pattern? Anything that goes wrong? Its too easyyou could explain everything that way. Thats how craziness works. You make connections that arent real. And see things that arent there. Richard shrugged, and despite the insouciance of the gesture, his face was miserable. You said it. Wait a minute, Jack said. You remember me telling you about the building that collapsed in Angola, New York? The Rainbird Towers. What a memory. I think that accident was my fault. Jack, youre Jack said Crazy, I know. Look, would anyone blow the whistle on me if we went out and watched the evening news? I doubt it. Most kids are studying now, anyway. Why? Because I want to know whats been happening around here, Jack thought but did not say. Sweet little fires, nifty little earthquakessigns that theyre coming through. For me. For us. I need a change of scenery, Richard old chum, Jack said, and followed Richard down the watery green corridor. 31 Thayer Goes to Hell 1 Jack became aware of the change first and recognized what had happened; it had happened before, while Richard was out, and he was sensitized to it. The screaming heavy metal of Blue Oyster Cults Tattoo Vampire was gone. The TV in the common room, which had been cackling out an episode of Hogans Heroes instead of the news, had fallen dormant. Richard turned toward Jack, opening his mouth to speak. I dont like it, Gridley, Jack said first. The native tomtoms have stopped. Its too quiet. Haha, Richard said thinly. Richard, can I ask you something? Yes, of course. Are you scared? Richards face said that he wanted more than anything to say No, of course notit always gets quiet around Nelson House this time of the evening. Unfortunately, Richard was utterly incapable of telling a lie. Dear old Richard. Jack felt a wave of affection. Yes, Richard said. Im a little scared. Can I ask you something else? I guess so. Why are we both whispering? Richard looked at him for a long time without saying anything. Then he started down the green corridor again. The doors of the other rooms on the other corridor were either open or ajar. Jack smelled a very familiar odor wafting through the halfopen door of Suite 4, and pushed the door all the way open with tented fingers. Which one of them is the pothead? Jack asked. What? Richard replied uncertainly. Jack sniffed loudly. Smell it? Richard came back and looked into the room. Both study lamps were on. There was an open history text on one desk, an issue of Heavy Metal on the other. Posters decorated the walls the Costa del Sol, Frodo and Sam trudging across the cracked and smoking plains of Mordor toward Saurons castle, Eddie Van Halen. Earphones lay on the open issue of Heavy Metal, giving out little tinny squeaks of music. If you can get expelled for letting a friend sleep under your bed, I doubt if they just slap your wrist for smoking pot, do they? Jack said. They expel you for it, of course. Richard was looking at the joint as if mesmerized, and Jack thought he looked more shocked and bewildered than he had at any other time, even when Jack had shown him the healing burns between his fingers. Nelson House is empty, Jack said. Dont be ridiculous! Richards voice was sharp. It is, though. Jack gestured down the hall. Were the only ones left. And you dont get thirtysome boys out of a dorm without a sound. They didnt just leave; they disappeared. Over into the Territories, I suppose. I dont know, Jack said. Maybe theyre still here, but on a slightly different level. Maybe theyre there. Maybe theyre in Cleveland. But theyre not where we are. Close that door, Richard said abruptly, and when Jack didnt move quickly enough to suit him, Richard closed it himself. Do you want to put out the I dont even want to touch it, Richard said. I ought to report them, you know. I ought to report them both to Mr. Haywood. Would you do that? Jack asked, fascinated. Richard looked chagrined. No . . . probably not, he said. But I dont like it. Not orderly, Jack said. Yeah. Richards eyes flashed at him from behind his spectacles, telling him that was exactly right, he had hit the nail on the head, and if Jack didnt like it, he could lump it. He started down the hall again. I want to know whats going on around here, he said, and believe me, Im going to find out. That might be a lot more hazardous to your health than marijuana, Richieboy, Jack thought, and followed his friend. 2 They stood in the lounge, looking out. Richard pointed toward the quad. In the last of the dying light, Jack saw a bunch of boys grouped loosely around the greenishbronze statue of Elder Thayer. Theyre smoking! Richard cried angrily. Right on the quad, theyre smoking! Jack thought immediately of the potsmell in Richards hall. Theyre smoking, all right, he said to Richard, and not the kind of cigarettes you get out of a cigarette machine, either. Richard rapped his knuckles angrily on the glass. For him, Jack saw, the weirdly deserted dorm was forgotten; the leatherjacketed, chainsmoking substitute coach was forgotten; Jacks apparent mental aberration was forgotten. That look of outraged propriety on Richards face said When a bunch of boys stand around like that, smoking joints within touching distance of the statue of the founder of this school, its as if someone were trying to tell me that the earth is flat, or that prime numbers may sometimes be divisible by two, or something equally ridiculous. Jacks heart was full of pity for his friend, but it was also full of admiration for an attitude which must seem so reactionary and even eccentric to his schoolmates. He wondered again if Richard could stand the shocks which might be on the way. Richard, he said, those boys arent from Thayer, are they? God, you really have gone crazy, Jack. Theyre Uppers. I recognize every last one of them. The guy wearing that stupid leather flying hat is Norrington. The one in the green sweatpants is Buckley. I see Garson . . . Littlefield . . . the one with the scarf is Etheridge, he finished. Are you sure its Etheridge? Of course its him! Richard shouted. He suddenly turned the catch on the window, rammed it up, and leaned out into the cold air. Jack pulled Richard back. Richard, please, just listen Richard didnt want to. He turned and leaned out into the cold twilight. Hey! No, dont attract their attention, Richard, for Christs sake Hey, you guys! Etheridge! Norrington! Littlefield! What in the hell is going on out there? The talk and rough laughter broke off. The fellow who was wearing Etheridges scarf turned toward the sound of Richards voice. He tilted his head slightly to look up at them. The lights from the library and the sullen furnace afterglow of the winter sunset fell on his face. Richards hands flew to his mouth.

The right half of the face disclosed was actually a bit like Etheridgesan older Etheridge, an Etheridge who had been in a lot of places nice prepschool boys didnt go and who had done a lot of things nice prepschool boys didnt do. The other half was a twisted mass of scars. A glittery crescent that might have been an eye peered from a crater in the lumpy mess of flesh below the forehead. It looked like a marble that had been shoved deeply into a puddle of halfmelted tallow. A single long fang hooked out of the left corner of the mouth. Its his Twinner, Jack thought with utter calm certainty. Thats Etheridges Twinner down there. Are they all Twinners? A Littlefield Twinner and a Norrington Twinner and a Buckley Twinner and so on and so on? That cant be, can it? Sloat! the Etheridgething cried. It shambled two steps toward Nelson House. The glow from the streetlights on the drive now fell directly onto its ruined face. Shut the window, Richard whispered. Shut the window. I was wrong. It sort of looks like Etheridge but its not, maybe its his older brother, maybe someone threw battery acid or something in Etheridges brothers face and now hes crazy, but its not Etheridge so close the window Jack close it right n Below, the Etheridgething shambled yet another step toward them. It grinned. Its tongue, hideously long, fell out of its mouth like an unrolling party favor. Sloat! it cried. Give us your passenger! Jack and Richard both jerked around, looking at each other with strained faces. A howl shivered in the night . . . for it was night now; twilight was done. Richard looked at Jack, and for a moment Jack saw something like real hate in the other boys eyesa flash of his father. Why did you have to come here, Jack? Huh? Why did you have to bring me this mess? Why did you have to bring me all this goddam Seabrook Island stuff? Do you want me to go? Jack asked softly. For a moment that look of harried anger remained in Richards eyes, and then it was replaced by Richards old kindness. No, he said, running distracted hands through his hair. No, youre not going anywhere. There are . . . there are wild dogs out there. Wild dogs, Jack, on the Thayer campus! I mean . . . did you see them? Yeah, I saw em, Richieboy, Jack said softly, as Richard ran his hands through his formerly neat hair again, mussing it into ever wilder tangles. Jacks neat and orderly friend was starting to look a little bit like Donald Ducks amiably mad inventor cousin, Gyro Gearloose. Call Boynton, hes Security, thats what I have to do, Richard said. Call Boynton, or the town police, or A howl rose from the trees on the far side of the quad, from the gathered shadows therea rising, wavering howl that was really almost human. Richard looked toward it, mouth trembling in an infirm old persons way, and then he looked pleadingly at Jack. Close the window, Jack, okay? I feel feverish. I think maybe Ive gotten a chill. You bet, Richard, Jack said, and closed it, shutting the howl out as best he could. 32 Send Out Your Passenger! 1 Help me with this, Richard, Jack grunted. I dont want to move the bureau, Jack, Richard said in a childish, lecturing voice. Those dark circles under his eyes were even more pronounced now than they had been in the lounge. Thats not where it belongs. Out on the quad, that howl rose in the air again. The bed was in front of the door. Richards room was now pulled entirely out of shape. Richard stood looking around at this, blinking. Then he went to his bed and pulled off the blankets. He handed one to Jack without speaking, then took his and spread it on the floor. He took his change and his billfold out of his pockets, and put them neatly on the bureau. Then he lay down in the middle of his blanket, folded the sides over himself and then just lay there on the floor, his glasses still on, his face a picture of silent misery. The silence outside was thick and dreamlike, broken only by the distant growls of the big rigs on the turnpike. Nelson House itself was eerily silent. I dont want to talk about whats outside, Richard said. I just want that up front. Okay, Richard, Jack said soothingly. We wont talk about it. Good night, Jack. Good night, Richard. Richard gave him a smile that was wan, and terribly tired; yet there was enough sweet friendliness in it to both warm Jacks heart and wrench it. Im still glad you came, Richard said, and well talk about all of this in the morning. Im sure it will make more sense then. This little fever I have will be gone then. Richard rolled over on his right side and closed his eyes. Five minutes later, in spite of the hard floor, he was deeply asleep. Jack sat up for a long time, looking out into the darkness. Sometimes he could see the lights of passing cars on Springfield Avenue; at other times both the headlights and the streetlamps themselves seemed to be gone, as if the entire Thayer School kept sideslipping out of reality and hanging in limbo for a while before slipping back in again. A wind was rising. Jack could hear it rattling the last frozen leaves from the trees on the quad; could hear it knocking the branches together like bones, could hear it shrieking coldly in the spaces between the buildings. 2 That guys coming, Jack said tensely. It was an hour or so later. Etheridges Twinner. Huzzzat? Never mind, Jack said. Go back to sleep. You dont want to see. But Richard was sitting up. Before his eye could fix on the slumped, somehow twisted form walking toward Nelson House, it was abducted by the campus itself. He was profoundly shocked, deeply frightened. The ivy on the Monkson Field House, which had that morning been skeletal but still faintly green, had now gone an ugly, blighted yellow. Sloat! Give us your passenger! Suddenly all Richard wanted to do was to go back to sleepgo to sleep until his flu was all gone (he had awakened deciding it must be the flu; not just a chill or fever but a real case of the flu); the flu and the fever that was giving him such horrid, twisted hallucinations. He should never have stood by that open window . . . or, earlier, allowed Jack through the window of his room. Richard thought this, and was then deeply and immediately ashamed. 3 Jack shot a quick sideways glance at Richardbut his pallid face and bulging eyes suggested to Jack that Richard was edging farther and farther into The Magical Land of Overload. The thing out there was short. It stood on the frostwhitened grass like a troll that had crawled out from under some bridge, its longclawed hands hanging almost to its knees. It wore an Army duffel coat with ETHERIDGE stencilled above the left pocket. The jacket hung unzipped and open. Beneath it, Jack could see a torn and rumpled Pendleton shirt. A dark stain which might have been either blood or vomit was splashed over one side. It was wearing a rumpled blue tie with tiny gold uppercase Es woven into the rep fabric; a couple of burrs were stuck on it like grotesque tietacks. Only half of this new Etheridges face worked right. There was dirt in its hair and leaves on its clothes. Sloat! Give us your passenger! Jack looked down at Etheridges freakish Twinner again. He was caught and held by its eyes, which were somehow vibrating in their sockets, like tuning forks moving rapidly in their labmounts. He had to work to drag his eyes away. Richard! he grunted. Dont look in its eyes. Richard didnt reply; he was staring down at the grinning trollversion of Etheridge with drugged and pallid interest. Scared, Jack butted his friend with his shoulder. Oh, Richard said. Abruptly he snatched up Jacks hand and pressed it against his forehead. How hot do I feel? he demanded. Jack pulled his hand away from Richards forehead, which was a bit warm but no more. Pretty hot, he lied. I knew it, Richard said with real relief. Im going to the infirmary pretty soon, Jack. I think I need an antibiotic. Give him to us, Sloat! Lets get the bureau in front of the window, Jack said. Youre in no danger, Sloat! Etheridge called. It grinned reassuringlythe right half of its face grinned reassuringly, anyway; the left half only continued its corpselike gape. How can it look so much like Etheridge? Richard asked with unsettling, eerie calmness. How can its voice come through the glass so clearly? Whats wrong with its face? His voice sharpened a little and recovered some of its earlier dismay as he asked a final question, one which seemed to be at that moment the most vital question of all, at least to Richard Sloat Where did it get Etheridges tie, Jack? I dont know, Jack said. Were back on Seabrook Island for sure, Richieboy, and I think were gonna boogy till you puke. Give him to us, Sloat, or well come in and get him! The Etheridgething showed its single fang in a ferocious cannibals grin. Send your passenger out, Sloat, hes dead! Hes dead and if you dont send him out soon, youll smell him when he starts to stink! Help me move the frigging bureau! Jack hissed. Yes, Richard said. Yes, okay. Well move the bureau and then Ill lie down, and maybe later Ill go over to the infirmary. What do you think, Jack? What do you say? Is that a good plan? His face begged Jack to say it was a good plan. Well see, Jack said. First things first. The bureau. They might throw stones. 4 Soon after, Richard began to mutter and moan in the sleep which had overtaken him again. That was bad enough; then tears began to squeeze from the corners of his eyes and that was worse. I cant give him up, Richard moaned in the weepy, bewildered voice of a fiveyearold. Jack stared at him, his skin cold. I cant give him up, I want my daddy, please someone tell me where my daddy is, he went into the closet but hes not in the closet now, I want my daddy, hell tell me what to do, please A rock came crashing through the window. Jack screamed. It boomed against the back of the bureau in front of the window. A few splinters of glass flew through the gaps to the left and right of the bureau and shattered into smaller pieces on the floor. Give us your passenger, Sloat! Cant, Richard moaned, writhing inside the blanket. Give him to us! another laughing, howling voice from outside screamed. Well take him back to Seabrook Island, Richard! Back to Seabrook Island, where he belongs! Another rock. Jack ducked instinctively, although this rock also bounced off the back of the bureau. Dogs howled and yapped and snarled. No Seabrook Island, Richard was muttering in his sleep. Wheres my daddy? I want him to come out of that closet! Please, please, no Seabrook Island stuff, PLEASE Then Jack was on his knees, shaking Richard as hard as he dared, telling him to wake up, it was just a dream, wake up, for Christs sake, wake up! Pleezepleezepleeze. A hoarse, inhuman chorus of voices rose outside. The voices sounded like a chorus of manimals from Wellss Island of Dr. Moreau. Waygup, waygup, waygup! a second chorus responded. Dogs howled. A flurry of stones flew, knocking more glass from the window, bonking against the back of the bureau, making it rock. DADDYS IN THE CLOSET! Richard screamed. DADDY, COME OUT, PLEASE COME OUT, IM AFRAID! Pleezepleezepleeze! Waygup, waygup, waygup! Richards hands waving in the air. Stones flying, striking the bureau; soon a rock big enough to either punch straight through the cheap piece of furniture or to simply knock it over on top of them would come through the window, Jack thought. Outside, they laughed and bellowed and chanted in their hideous trollvoices. Dogspacks of them now, it seemedhowled and growled. DADEEEEEEEEE!! Richard screamed in a chilling, rising voice. Jack slapped him. Richards eyes jerked open. He stared up at Jack for a moment with a dreadful lack of recognition, as if the dream hed been having had burned away his sanity. Then he pulled in a long, shaking breath and let it out in a sigh. Nightmare, he said. Part of the fever, I guess. Horrible. But I dont remember exactly what it was! he added sharply, as if Jack might ask him this at any moment. Richard, I want us to get out of this room, Jack said. Out of this? Richard looked at Jack as though he must be crazy. I cant do that, Jack. Im running a fever of . . . it must be a hundred and three at least, might be a hundred and four or five. I cant Youve got a degree of fever at most, Richard, Jack said calmly. Probably not even that Im burning up! Richard protested. Theyre throwing stones, Richard. Hallucinations cant throw stones, Jack, Richard said, as if explaining some simple but vital fact to a mental defective. Thats Seabrook Island stuff. Its Another volley of rocks flew through the window. Send out your passenger, Sloat! Come on, Richard, Jack said, getting the other boy to his feet. He led him to the door and outside. He felt enormously sorry for Richard nowperhaps not as sorry as he had felt for Wolf . . . but he was getting there. No . . . sick . . . fever . . . I cant . . . More rocks thudded against the bureau behind them. Richard shrieked and clutched at Jack like a boy who is drowning. Wild, cackling laughter from outside. Dogs howled and fought with each other. Jack saw Richards white face grow whiter still, saw him sway, and got up in a hurry. But he was not quite in time to catch Richard before he collapsed in Reuel Gardeners doorway. 5 It was a simple fainting spell, and Richard came around quickly enough when Jack pinched the delicate webbings between his thumbs and forefingers. He would not talk about what was outsideaffected, in fact, not to know what Jack was talking about. They moved cautiously down the hallway toward the stairs. At the common room Jack poked his head in and whistled. Richard, look at this! Richard looked reluctantly in. The common room was a shambles. Chairs were overturned. The cushions on the couch had been slashed open. The oil portrait of Elder Thayer on the far wall had been defacedsomeone had crayoned a pair of devils horns poking out of his neat white hair, someone else had added a moustache under his nose, and a third had used a nailfile or similar implement to scratch a crude phallus on his crotch. The glass of the trophy case was shattered. Jack didnt much care for the look of drugged, unbelieving horror on Richards face. In some ways, elves trooping up and down the halls in glowing, unearthly platoons or dragons over the quad would have been easier for Richard to take than this constant erosion of the Thayer School he had come to know and love . . . the Thayer School Richard undoubtedly believed to be noble and good, an undisputed bulwark against a world where nothing could be counted on for long . . . not even, Jack thought, that fathers would come back out of the closets they had gone into. Who did this? Richard asked angrily. Those freaks did it, he answered himself. Thats who. He looked at Jack, a great, cloudy suspicion beginning to dawn on his face. They might be Colombians, he said suddenly. They might be Colombians, and this might be some sort of drugwar, Jack. Has that occurred to you? Jack had to throttle an urge to bellow out mad gusts of laughter. Here was an explanation which perhaps only Richard Sloat could have conceived. It was the Colombians. The cocaine rangewars had come to Thayer School in Springfield, Illinois. Elementary, my dear Watson; this problem has a seven and a half percent solution. I guess anythings possible, Jack said. Lets take a look upstairs. What in Gods name for? Well . . . maybe well find someone else, Jack said. He didnt really believe this, but it was something to say. Maybe someones hiding out up there. Someone normal like us. Richard looked at Jack, then back at the shambles of the common room. That look of haunted pain came back into his face again, the look that said I dont really want to look at this, but for some reason it seems to be all I DO want to look at right now; its bitterly compulsive, like biting a lemon, or scratching your fingernails across a blackboard, or scraping the tines of a fork on the porcelain of a sink. Dope is rampant in the country, Richard said in eerie lecturehall tones. I read an article on drug proliferation in The New Republic just last week. Jack, all those people out there could be doped up! They could be freebasing! They could be Come on, Richard, Jack said quietly. Im not sure I can climb the stairs, Richard said, weakly querulous. My fever may be too bad for me to climb stairs. Well, give it the good old Thayer try, Jack said, and continued to lead him in that direction. 6 As they reached the secondfloor landing, sound bled back into the smooth, almost breathless silence that had held inside Nelson House. Dogs snarled and barked outsideit sounded as if there were not just dozens or scores of them now, but hundreds. The bells in the chapel burst into a wild jangle of sound. The bells were driving the mongrel dogs racing back and forth across the quad absolutely nuts. They turned on each other, rolled over and over on the grasswhich was beginning to look ragged, weedy, and unkemptand savaged anything within mouthshot. As Jack watched, one of them attacked an elm tree. Another launched itself at the statue of Elder Thayer. As its biting, snapping muzzle collided with the solid bronze, blood splashed and sprayed. Jack turned away, sickened. Come on, Richard, Jack said. Richard came willingly enough. 7 The second floor was a jumbled confusion of overturned furniture, shattered windows, fistfuls of stuffing, records that had apparently been thrown like Frisbees, clothes that had been tossed everywhere. The third floor was cloudy with steam and as warmly moist as a tropical rainforest. As they got closer to the door marked SHOWERS, the heat went up to sauna levels. The mist they had first encountered creeping down the stairs in thin tendrils grew foglike and opaque. Stay here, Jack said. Wait for me. Sure, Jack, Richard said serenely, raising his voice enough to be heard over the drumming showers. His glasses had fogged up, but he made no effort to wipe them off. Jack pushed the door open and went in. The heat was soggy and thick. His clothes were soaked at once from sweat and the hot, foggy moisture. The tilelined room roared and drummed with water. All twenty of the showers had been turned on, and the driving needlespray from all twenty had been focused on a pile of sports equipment in the middle of the tiled room. The water was able to drain through this crazy pile, but only slowly, and the room was awash. Jack took off his shoes and circled the room, sliding under the showers to keep himself as dry as possible, and also to keep himself from being scaldedwhoever had turned on the showers hadnt bothered with the cold faucets, apparently. He turned all of them off, one by one. There was no reason for him to do this, no reason at all, and he scolded himself for wasting time in such a way, when he should be trying to think of a way for them to get out of hereout of Nelson House and off the Thayer School groundsbefore the axe fell. No reason for it, except that maybe Richard wasnt the only one with a need to create order out of chaos . . . to create order and to maintain it. He went back into the hall and Richard was gone. Richard? He could feel his heartbeat picking up in his chest. There was no answer. Richard! Spilled cologne hung on the air, noxiously heavy. Richard, where the hell are you! Richards hand fell on Jacks shoulder, and Jack shrieked. 8 I dont know why you had to yell like that, Richard said later. It was only me. Im just nervous, Jack said wanly. They were sitting in the thirdfloor room of a boy with the strangely harmonious name of Albert Humbert. Richard told him that Albert Humbert, whose nickname was Albert the Blob, was the fattest boy in school, and Jack could believe it; his room contained an amazing variety of junk foodit was the stash of a kid whose worst nightmare isnt getting cut from the basketball team or flunking a trig test but rather waking up in the night and not being able to find a RingDing or a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup. A lot of the stuff had been thrown around. The glass jar containing the Marshmallow Fluff had been broken, but Jack had never been very wild about Marshmallow Fluff, anyway. He also passed on the licorice whipsAlbert the Blob had a whole carton of them stashed on the upper shelf of his closet. Written across one of the cartonflaps was Happy birthday, dear, from Your Loving Mom. Some Loving Moms send cartons of licorice whips, and some Loving Dads send blazers from Brooks Brothers, Jack thought wearily, and if theres any difference, Jason alone knows what it is. They found enough food in the room of Albert the Blob to make a crazy sort of mealSlim Jims, pepperoni slices, Salt n Vinegar potato chips. Now they were finishing up with a package of cookies. Jack had retrieved Alberts chair from the hall and was sitting by the window. Richard was sitting on Alberts bed. Well, you sure are nervous, Richard agreed, shaking his head in refusal when Jack offered him the last cookie. Paranoid, actually. It comes from spending the last couple of months on the road. Youll be okay once you get home to your mother, Jack. Richard, Jack said, tossing away the empty Famous Amos bag, lets cut the shit. Do you see whats going on outside on your campus? Richard wet his lips. I explained that, he said. I have a fever. Probably none of this is happening at all, and if it is, then perfectly ordinary things are going on and my mind is twisting them, heightening them. Thats one possibility. The other is . . . well . . . drugpushers. Richard sat forward on Albert the Blobs bed. You havent been experimenting with drugs, have you, Jack? While you were on the road? The old intelligent, incisive light had suddenly rekindled in Richards eyes. Heres a possible explanation, a possible way out of this madness, his eyes said. Jack has gotten involved in some crazy drugscam, and all these people have followed him here. No, Jack said wearily. I always used to think of you as the master of reality, Richard, Jack said. I never thought Id live to see youyou!using your brains to twist the facts. Jack, thats just a . . . a crock, and you know it! Drugwars in Springfield, Illinois? Jack asked. Whos talking Seabrook Island stuff now? And that was when a rock suddenly crashed in through Albert Humberts window, spraying glass across the floor. 33 Richard in the Dark 1 Richard screamed and threw an arm up to shield his face. Glass flew. Send him out, Sloat! Jack got up. Dull fury filled him. Richard grabbed his arm. Jack, no! Stay away from the window! Fuck that, Jack almost snarled. Im tired of being talked about like I was a pizza. The Etheridgething stood across the road. It was on the sidewalk at the edge of the quad, looking up at them. Get out of here! Jack shouted at it. A sudden inspiration burst in his head like a sunflare. He hesitated, then bellowed I order you out of here! All of you! I order you to leave in the name of my mother, the Queen! The Etheridgething flinched as if someone had used a whip to lay a stripe across its face. Then the look of pained surprise passed and the Etheridgething began to grin. Shes dead, Sawyer! it shouted upbut Jacks eyes had grown sharper, somehow, in his time on the road, and he saw the expression of twitchy unease under the manufactured triumph. Queen Lauras dead and your mothers dead, too . . . dead back in New Hampshire . . . dead and stinking. Begone! Jack bellowed, and he thought that the Etheridgething flinched back in baffled fury again. Richard had joined him at the window, pallid and distracted. What are you two yelling about? he asked. He looked fixedly at the grinning travesty below them and across the way. How does Etheridge know your mothers in New Hampshire? Sloat! the Etheridgething yelled up. Wheres your tie? A spasm of guilt contracted Richards face; his hands jerked toward the open neck of his shirt. Well let it go this time, if you send out your passenger, Sloat! the Etheridgething yelled up. If you send him out, everything can go back to the way it was! You want that, dont you? Richard was staring down at the Etheridgething, noddingJack was sure of itquite unconsciously. His face was a knotted rag of misery, his eyes bright with unshed tears. He wanted everything to go back to the way it had been, oh yes. Dont you love this school, Sloat? the Etheridgething bellowed up at Alberts window. Yes, Richard muttered, and gulped down a sob. Yes, of course I love it. You know what we do to little punks who dont love this school? Give him to us! Itll be like he was never here! Richard turned slowly and looked at Jack with dreadfully blank eyes. You decide, Richieboy, Jack said softly. Hes carrying drugs, Richard! the Etheridgething called up. Four or five different kinds! Coke, hash, angeldust! Hes been selling all of that stuff to finance his trip west! Where do you think he got that nice coat he was wearing when he showed up on your doorstep? Drugs, Richard said with great, shuddery relief. I knew it. But you dont believe it, Jack said. Drugs didnt change your school, Richard. And the dogs Send him out, Sl . . . the Etheridgethings voice was fading, fading. When the two boys looked down again, it was gone. Where did your father go, do you think? Jack asked softly. Where do you think he went when he didnt come out of the closet, Richard? Richard turned slowly to look at him, and Richards face, usually so calm and intelligent and serene, now began to shiver into pieces. His chest began to hitch irregularly. Richard suddenly fell into Jacks arms, clutching at him with a blind, panicky urgency. It tttouched muhmeeeee! he screamed at Jack. His body trembled under Jacks hands like a winchwire under a nearbreaking strain. It touched me, it ttouched mme, something in there tttouched me AND I DONT NUHNUHKNOW WHAT IT WAS! 2 With his burning forehead pressed against Jacks shoulder, Richard coughed out the story he had held inside him all these years. It came in hard little chunks, like deformed bullets. As he listened, Jack found himself remembering the time his own father had gone into the garage . . . and had come back two hours later, from around the block. That had been bad, but what had happened to Richard had been a lot worse. It explained Richards iron, nocompromise insistence on reality, the whole reality, and nothing but the reality. It explained his rejection of any sort of fantasy, even science fiction . . . and, Jack knew from his own school experience, techies like Richard usually ate and drank sf . . . as long as it was the hard stuff, that was, your basic Heinlein, Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Nivenspare us the metaphysical bullshit of the Robert Silverbergs and Barry Malzbergs, please, but well read the stuff where they get all the stellar quadrants and logarithms right until its running out of our ears. Not Richard, though. Richards dislike of fantasy ran so deep that he would not pick up any novel unless it was an assignmentas a kid, he had let Jack pick out the books he read for freechoice book reports, not caring what they were, chewing them up as if they were cereal. It became a challenge to Jack to find a storyany storywhich would please Richard, divert Richard, carry Richard away as good novels and stories sometimes carried Jack away . . . the good ones, he thought, were almost as good as the Daydreams, and each mapped out its own version of the Territories. But he was never able to produce any frisson, any spark, any reaction at all. Whether it was The Red Pony, Dragstrip Demon, The Catcher in the Rye, or I Am Legend, the reaction was always the samefrowning, dulleyed concentration, followed by a frowning, dulleyed book report that would earn either a hook or, if his English teacher was feeling particularly generous that day, a B. Richards Cs in English were what kept him off the honor roll during the few marking periods when he missed it. Jack had finished William Goldings Lord of the Flies, feeling hot and cold and trembly all overboth exalted and frightened, most of all wishing what he always wished when the story was most particularly goodthat it didnt have to stop, that it could just roll on and on, the way that life did (only life was always so much more boring and so much more pointless than stories). He knew Richard had a book report due and so he had given him the lapeared paperback, thinking that this must surely do it, this would turn the trick, Richard must react to the story of these lost boys and their descent into savagery. But Richard had plodded through Lord of the Flies as he had plodded through all the other novels before it, and wrote another book report which contained all the zeal and fire of a hungover pathologists postmortem on a traffic accident victim. What is it with you? Jack had burst out, exasperated. What in Gods name have you got against a good story, Richard? And Richard had looked at him, flabbergasted, apparently really not understanding Jacks anger. Well, theres really no such thing as a good madeup story, is there? Richard had responded. Jack had gone away that day sorely puzzled by Richards total rejection of makebelieve, but he thought he understood better nowbetter than he really wanted to, perhaps. Perhaps to Richard each opening storybook cover had looked a little like an opening closet door; perhaps each bright paperback cover, illustrating people who never were as if they were perfectly real, reminded Richard of the morning when he had Had Enough, Forever. 3 Richard sees his father go into the closet in the big front bedroom, pulling the folding door shut behind him. He is five, maybe . . . or six . . . surely not as old as seven. He waits five minutes, then ten, and when his father still hasnt come out of the closet he begins to be a little frightened. He calls. He calls (for his pipe he calls for his bowl he calls for his) father and when his father doesnt answer he calls in a louder and louder voice and he goes closer and closer to the closet as he calls and finally, when fifteen minutes have gone by and his father still hasnt come out, Richard pulls the folding door open and goes in. He goes into darkness like a cave. And something happens. After pushing through the rough tweeds and the smooth cottons and the occasional slick silks of his fathers coats and suits and sport jackets, the smell of cloth and mothballs and closedup dark closet air begins to give way to another smella hot, fiery smell. Richard begins to blunder forward, screaming his fathers name, he thinking there must be a fire back here and his father may be burning in it, because it smells like a fire . . . and suddenly he realizes that the boards are gone under his feet, and he is standing in black dirt. Weird black insects with clustered eyes on the ends of long stalks are hopping all around his fuzzy slippers. Daddy! he screams. The coats and suits are gone, the floor is gone, but it isnt crisp white snow underfoot; its stinking black dirt which is apparently the birthing ground for these unpleasant black jumping insects; this place is by no stretch of the imagination Narnia. Other screams answer Richards screamscreams and mad, demented laughter. Smoke drifts around him on a dark idiot wind and Richard turns, stumbling back the way he came, hands outstretched like the hands of a blind man, feeling frantically for the coats, smelling for the faint, acrid reek of mothballs And suddenly a hand slithers around his wrist. Daddy? he asks, but when he looks down he sees not a human hand but a scaly green thing covered with writhing suckers, a green thing attached to a long, rubbery arm which stretches off into the darkness and toward a pair of yellow, upslanted eyes that stare at him with flat hunger. Screeching, he tears free and flings himself blindly into the black . . .

and just as his groping fingers find his fathers sport coats and suits again, as he hears the blessed, rational sound of jangling coathangers, that green, suckerlined hand waltzes dryly across the back of his neck again . . . and is gone. He waits, trembling, as pallid as dayold ashes in a cold stove, for three hours outside that damned closet, afraid to go back in, afraid of the green hand and the yellow eyes, more and more sure that his father must be dead. And when his father comes back into the room near the end of the fourth hour, not from the closet but from the door which communicates between the bedroom and the upstairs hallthe door BEHIND Richardwhen that happens, Richard rejects fantasy for good and all; Richard negates fantasy; Richard refuses to deal with fantasy, or treat with it, or compromise with it. He has, quite simply, Had Enough, Forever. He jumps up, runs to his father, to the beloved Morgan Sloat, and hugs him so tightly that his arms will be sore all that week. Morgan lifts him up, laughs, and asks him why he looks so pale. Richard smiles, and tells him that it was probably something he ate for breakfast, but he feels better now, and he kisses his fathers cheek, and smells the beloved smell of mingled sweat and Raj cologne. And later that day, he takes all of his storybooksthe Little Golden Books, the popup books, the ICanRead books, the Dr. Seuss books, the Green Fairy Book for Young Folks, and he puts them in a carton, and he puts the carton down in the basement, and he thinks I would not care if an earthquake came now and opened a crack in the floor and swallowed up every one of those books. In fact, it would be a relief. In fact, it would be such a relief that I would probably laugh all day and most of the weekend. This does not happen, but Richard feels a great relief when the books are shut in double darknessthe darkness of the carton and the darkness of the cellar. He never looks at them again, just as he never goes in his fathers closet with the folding door again, and although he sometimes dreams that there is something under his bed or in his closet, something with flat yellow eyes, he never thinks about that green, suckercovered hand again until the strange time comes to Thayer School and he bursts into unaccustomed tears in his friend Jack Sawyers arms. He has Had Enough, Forever. 4 Jack had hoped that with the telling of his story and the passing of his tears, Richard would returnmore or lessto his normal, sharply rational self. Jack didnt really care if Richard bought the whole nine yards or not; if Richard could just reconcile himself to accepting the leading edge of this craziness, he could turn his formidable mind to helping Jack find a way out . . . a way off the Thayer campus, anyway, and out of Richards life before Richard went totally bananas. But it didnt work that way. When Jack tried to talk to himto tell Richard about the time his own father, Phil, had gone into the garage and hadnt come outRichard refused to listen. The old secret of what had happened that day in the closet was out (sort of; Richard still clung stubbornly to the idea that it had been a hallucination), but Richard had still Had Enough, Forever. The next morning, Jack went downstairs. He got all of his own things and those things he thought Richard might wanttoothbrush, textbooks, notebooks, a fresh change of clothes. They would spend that day in Albert the Blobs room, he decided. They could keep an eye on the quad and the gate from up there. When night fell again, maybe they could get away. 5 Jack hunted through Alberts desk and found a bottle of baby aspirin. He looked at this for a moment, thinking that these little orange pills said almost as much about the departed Alberts Loving Mom as the carton of licorice whips on the closet shelf. Jack shook out half a dozen pills. He gave them to Richard and Richard took them absently. Come on over here and lie down, Jack said. No, Richard answeredhis tone was cross and restless and terribly unhappy. He returned to the window. I ought to keep a watch. So a full report can be made to . . . to . . . to the trustees. Later. Jack touched Richards brow lightly. And although it was coolalmost chillyhe said Your fevers worse, Richard. Better lie down until that aspirin goes to work. Worse? Richard looked at him with pathetic gratitude. Is it? It is, Jack said gravely. Come on and lie down. Richard was asleep five minutes after he lay down. Jack sat in Albert the Blobs easy chair, its seat nearly as sprung as the middle of Alberts mattress. Richards pale face glowed waxily in the growing daylight. 6 Somehow the day passed, and around four oclock, Jack fell asleep. He awoke to darkness, not knowing how long he had been out. He only knew there had been no dreams, and for that he was grateful. Richard was stirring uneasily and Jack guessed he would be up soon. He stood and stretched, wincing at the stiffness in his back. He went to the window, looked out, and stood motionless, eyes wide. His first thought was I dont want Richard to see this. Not if I can help it. O God, weve got to get out of here, and just as soon as we can, Jack thought, frightened. Even if, for whatever reasons, theyre afraid to come straight at us. But was he really going to take Richard out of here? They didnt think he would do it, he knew thatthey were counting on his refusing to expose his friend to any more of this craziness. Flip, JackO. Youve got to flip over, and you know it. And youve got to take Richard with you because this place is going to hell. I cant. Flipping into the Territories would blow Richards wheels completely. Doesnt matter. You have to do it. Its the best thing, anywaymaybe the only thingbecause they wont be expecting it. Jack? Richard was sitting up. His face had a strange, naked look without his glasses. Jack, is it over? Was it a dream? Jack sat down on the bed and put an arm around Richards shoulders. No, he said, his voice low and soothing. Its not over yet, Richard. I think my fevers worse, Richard announced, pulling away from Jack. He drifted over to the window, one of the bows of his glasses pinched delicately between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. He put his spectacles on and looked out. Shapes with glowing eyes roamed back and forth. He stood there for a long time, and then he did something so unRichardlike that Jack could barely credit it. He took his glasses off again and deliberately dropped them. There was a frigid little crunch as one lens cracked. Then he stepped deliberately back on them, shattering both lenses to powder. He picked them up, looked at them, and then tossed them unconcernedly toward Albert the Blobs wastebasket. He missed by a wide margin. There was now something softly stubborn in Richards face, toosomething that said I dont want to see any more, so I wont see any more, and I have taken care of the problem. I have Had Enough, Forever. Look at that, he said in a flat, unsurprised voice. I broke my glasses. I had another pair, but I broke them in gym two weeks ago. Im almost blind without them. Jack knew this wasnt true, but he was too flabbergasted to say anything. He could think of absolutely no appropriate response to the radical action Richard had just takenit had been too much like a calculated lastditch stand against madness. I think my fevers worse too, Richard said. Have you got any more of those aspirin, Jack? Jack opened the desk drawer and wordlessly handed Richard the bottle. Richard swallowed six or eight of them, then lay down again. 7 As the night deepened, Richard, who repeatedly promised to discuss their situation, repeatedly went back on his word. He couldnt discuss leaving, he said, couldnt discuss any of this, not now, his fever had come back and it felt much, much worse, he thought it might be as high as a hundred and five, possibly a hundred and six. He said he needed to go back to sleep. Richard, for Christs sake! Jack roared. Youre punking out on me! Of all the things I never expected from you Dont be silly, Richard said, falling back onto Alberts bed. Im just sick, Jack. You cant expect me to talk about all these crazy things when Im sick. Richard, do you want me to go away and leave you? Richard looked back over his shoulder at Jack for a moment, blinking slowly. You wont, he said, and then went back to sleep. 8 Around nine oclock, the campus entered another of those mysterious quiet periods, and Richard, perhaps sensing that there would be less strain put on his tottering sanity now, woke up and swung his legs over the bed. Brown spots had appeared on the walls, and he stared at them until he saw Jack coming toward him. I feel a lot better, Jack, he said hastily, but it really wont do us any good to talk about leaving, its dark, and We have to leave tonight, Jack said grimly. All they have to do is wait us out. Theres fungus growing on the walls, and dont tell me you dont see that. Richard smiled with a blind tolerance that nearly drove Jack mad. He loved Richard, but he could cheerfully have pounded him through the nearest fungusrotted wall. At that precise moment, long, fat white bugs began to squirm into Albert the Blobs room. They came pushing out of the brown fungoid spots on the wall as if the fungus were in some unknown way giving birth to them. They twisted and writhed half in and half out of the soft brown spots, then plopped to the floor and began squirming blindly toward the bed. Jack had begun to wonder if Richards sight werent really a lot worse than he remembered, or if it had degenerated badly since he had last seen Richard. Now he saw that he had been right the first time. Richard could see quite well. He certainly wasnt having any trouble picking up the gelatinous things that were coming out of the walls, anyway. He screamed and pressed against Jack, his face frantic with revulsion. Bugs, Jack! Oh, Jesus! Bugs! Bugs! Well be all rightright, Richard? Jack said. He held Richard in place with a strength he didnt know he had. Well just wait for the morning, right? No problem, right? They were squirming out in dozens, in hundreds, plump, waxywhite things like overgrown maggots. Some burst open when they struck the floor. The rest humped sluggishly across the floor toward them. Bugs, Jesus, we have to get out, we have to Thank God, this kid finally sees the light, Jack said. He slung his knapsack over his left arm and grabbed Richards elbow in his right hand. He hustled Richard to the door. White bugs squashed and splattered under their shoes. Now they were pouring out of the brown patches in a flood; an obscene, ongoing multiple birth that was happening all over Alberts room. A stream of the white bugs fell from a patch on the ceiling and landed, squirming, on Jacks hair and shoulders; he brushed them away as best he could and hauled the screaming, flailing Richard out the door. I think were on our way, Jack thought. God help us, I really think we are. 9 They were in the common room again. Richard, it turned out, had even less idea of how to sneak off the Thayer campus than Jack did himself. Jack knew one thing very well he was not going to trust that deceptive quiet and go out any of Nelson Houses Entry doors. Looking hard to the left out of the wide commonroom window, Jack could see a squat octagonal brick building. Whats that, Richard? Huh? Richard was looking at the gluey, sluggish torrents of mud flowing over the darkening quad. Little squatty brick building. You can just barely see it from here. Oh. The Depot. Whats a Depot? The name itself doesnt mean anything anymore, Richard said, still looking uneasily out at the muddrenched quad. Like our infirmary. Its called The Creamery because there used to be a real dairy barn and milkbottling plant over there. Until 1910 or so there was, anyway. Tradition, Jack. Its very important. Its one of the reason I like Thayer. Richard looked forlornly out at the muddy campus again. One of the reasons I always did, anyway. The Creamery, okay. How come The Depot? Richard was slowly warming to the twin ideas of Thayer and Tradition. This whole area of Springfield used to be a railhead, he said. In fact, in the old days Which old days are we talking about, Richard? Oh. The eighteeneighties. Eighteennineties. You see . . . Richard trailed off. His nearsighted eyes began moving around the common roomlooking for more bugs, Jack supposed. There werent any . . . at least not yet. But he could already see a few brown patches beginning to form on the walls. The bugs werent here yet, but they would be along. Come on, Richard, Jack prompted. No one used to have to prime you to get you to run your mouth. Richard smiled a little. His eyes returned to Jack. Springfield was one of the three or four biggest American railheads during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. It was geographically handy to all the points of the compass. He raised his right hand toward his face, forefinger extended to push his glasses up on his nose in a scholarly gesture, realized they were no longer there, and lowered the hand again, looking a bit embarrassed. There were main rail routes leaving Springfield for everywhere. This school exists because Andrew Thayer saw the possibilities. He made a fortune in rail shippage. Mostly to the west coast. He was the first one to see the potential in shipping west as well as east. A bright light suddenly went on in Jacks head, bathing all of his thoughts in its harsh glare. West coast? His stomach lurched. He could not yet identify the new shape that bright light had shown him, but the word that leaped into his mind was fiery and utterly clear! Talisman! West coast, did you say? Of course I did. Richard looked at Jack strangely. Jack, are you going deaf? No, Jack said. Springfield was one of the three or four biggest American railheads . . . No, Im fine. He was the first one to see the potential in shipping west . . . Well, you looked damn funny for a minute. He was, you might say, the first one to see the potential of shipping stuff by rail to the Outposts. Jack knew, utterly knew, that Springfield was still a pressure point of some kind, perhaps still a shipping point. That was, perhaps, why Morgans magic worked so well here. There were coalpiles and switching yards and roundhouses and boxcar sheds and about a billion miles of tracks and sidings, Richard was saying. It covered this whole area where Thayer School is now. If you dig down a few feet under this turf anywhere, you find cinders and pieces of rail and all sorts of stuff. But all thats left now is that little building. The Depot. Of course it never was a real depot; its too small, anyone could see that. It was the main railyard office, where the stationmaster and the railboss did their respective things. You know a hell of a lot about it, Jack said, speaking almost automaticallyhis head was still filled with that savage new light. Its part of the Thayer tradition, Richard said simply. Whats it used for now? Theres a little theater in there. Its for Dramatics Club productions, but the Dramatics Club hasnt been very active over the last couple of years. Do you think its locked? Why would anyone lock The Depot? Richard asked. Unless you think someone would be interested in stealing a few flats from the 1979 production of The Fantasticks. So we could get in there? I think so, yes. But why Jack pointed to a door just beyond the PingPong tables. Whats in there? Vending machines. And a coinop microwave to heat up snacks and frozen dinners. Jack Come on. Jack, I think my fevers coming back again. Richard smiled weakly. Maybe we should just stay here for a while. We could rack out on the sofas for the night See those brown patches on the walls? Jack said grimly, pointing. No, not without my glasses, of course not! Well, theyre there. And in about an hour, those white bugs are going to hatch out of All right, Richard said hastily. 10 The vending machines stank. It looked to Jack as if all the stuff inside them had spoiled. Blue mould coated the cheese crackers and Doritos and Jax and fried porkrinds. Sluggish creeks of melted ice cream were oozing out of the panels in the front of the HavaKone machine. Jack pulled Richard toward the window. He looked out. From here Jack could make out The Depot quite well. Beyond it he could see the chainlink fence and the service road leading offcampus. Well be out in a few seconds, Jack whispered back. He unlocked the window and ran it up. This school exists because Andrew Thayer saw the possibilities . . . do you see the possibilities, JackO? He thought maybe he did. Are there any of those people out there? Richard asked nervously. No, Jack said, taking only the most cursory of glances. It didnt really matter if there were or not, anymore. One of the three or four biggest American railheads . . . a fortune in rail shippage . . . mostly to the west coast . . . he was the first one to see the potential in shipping west . . . west . . . west . . . A thick, mucky mixture of tidalflat aroma and garbage stench drifted in the window. Jack threw one leg over the sill and grabbed for Richards hand. Come on, he said. Richard drew back, his face long and miserable with fright. Jack . . . I dont know . . . The place is falling apart, Jack said, and pretty soon its going to be crawling with bugs as well. Now come on. Someones going to see me sitting here in this window and well lose our chance to scurry out of here like a couple of mice. I dont understand any of this! Richard wailed. I dont understand what in the goddam hell is going on here! Shut up and come on, Jack said. Or I will leave you, Richard. Swear to God I will. I love you, but my mother is dying. Ill leave you to fend for yourself. Richard looked at Jacks face and saweven without his glassesthat Jack was telling the truth. He took Jacks hand. God, Im scared, he whispered. Join the club, Jack said, and pushed him off. His feet hit the mucky lawn a second later. Richard jumped down beside him. Were going to cross to The Depot, Jack whispered. I make it about fifty yards. Well go in if its unlocked, try to hide as well as we can on the Nelson House side of it if it isnt. Once were sure no ones seen us and the place is still quiet We go for the fence. Right. Or maybe well have to flip, but never mind that just now. The service road. Ive got an idea that if we can get off the Thayer grounds, everything will be okay again. Once we get a quarter of a mile down the road, you may look back over your shoulder and see the lights in the dorms and the library just as usual, Richard. Thatd be so great, Richard said with a wistfulness that was heartbreaking. Okay, you ready? I guess so, Richard said. Run to The Depot. Freeze against the wall on this side. Low, so those bushes screen you. See them? Yes. Okay . . . go for it! They broke away from Nelson House and ran for The Depot side by side. 11 They were less than halfway there, breath puffing out of their mouths in clear white vapor, feet pounding the mucky ground, when the bells in the chapel broke into a hideous, grinding jangle of sound. A howling chorus of dogs answered the bells. They were back, all these wereprefects. Jack groped for Richard and found Richard groping for him. Their hands linked together. Richard screamed and tried to pull him off to the left. His hand tightened down on Jacks until the fingerbones grated together paralyzingly. A lean white wolf, a Board Chairman of Wolves, came around The Depot and was now racing toward them. That was the old man from the limousine, Jack thought. Other wolves and dogs followed . . . and then Jack realized with sick surety that some of them were not dogs; some of them were halftransformed boys, some grown menteachers, he supposed. Mr Dufrey! Richard shrieked, pointing with his free hand (Gee, you see pretty well for someone whos lost his glasses, Richieboy, Jack thought crazily). Mr. Dufrey! Oh God, its Mr. Dufrey! Mr. Dufrey! Mr. Dufrey! So Jack got his first and only look at Thayer Schools headmastera tiny old man with gray hair, a big, bent nose, and the wizened, hairy body of an organ grinders monkey. He ran swiftly along on all fours with the dogs and the boys, a mortarboard bobbing crazily up and down on his head and somehow refusing to fall off. He grinned at Jack and Richard, and his tongue, long and lolling and stained yellow with nicotine, fell out through the middle of his grin. Mr. Dufrey! Oh God! Oh dear God! Mr. Dufrey! Mr. Du He was yanking Jack harder and harder toward the left. Jack was bigger, but Richard was in the grip of panic. Explosions rocked the air. That foul, garbagey smell grew thicker and thicker. Jack could hear the soft flupping and plupping of mud squeezing out of the earth. The white wolf which led the pack was closing the distance and Richard was trying to pull them away from it, trying to pull them toward the fence, and that was right, but it was wrong, too, it was wrong because it was The Depot they had to get to, not the fence. That was the spot, that was the spot because this had been one of the three or four biggest American railheads, because Andrew Thayer had been the first one to see the potential in shipping west, because Andrew Thayer had seen the potential and now he, Jack Sawyer, saw the potential, as well. All of this was of course only intuition, but Jack had come to believe that, in these universal matters, his intuition was the only thing he could trust. Let go of your passenger, Sloat! Dufrey was gobbling. Let go of your passenger, hes too pretty for you! But whats a passenger? Jack thought in those last few seconds, as Richard tried blindly to pull them offcourse and Jack yanked him back on, toward the mixed bunch of mongrels and boys and teachers that ran behind the big white wolf, toward The Depot. Ill tell you what a passenger is; a passenger is one who rides. And where does a passenger begin to ride? Why, at a depot . . . Jack, itll bite! Richard screamed. The wolf outran Dufrey and leaped at them, its jaws dropping open like a loaded trap. From behind them there was a thick, crunching thud as Nelson House split open like a rotten cantaloupe. Now it was Jack who was bearing down on Richards fingerbones, clamping tight and tighter and tightest as the night rang with crazy bells and flared with gasoline bombs and rattled with firecrackers. Hold on! he screamed. Hold on, Richard, here we go! He had time to think Now the shoe is on the other foot; now its Richard who is the herd, who is my passenger. God help us both. Jack, whats happening? Richard shrieked. What are you doing? Stop it! STOP IT! STOP Richard was still shrieking, but Jack no longer heard himsuddenly, triumphantly, that feeling of creeping doom cracked open like a black egg and his brain filled up with lightlight and a sweet purity of air; air so pure that you could smell the radish a man pulled out of his garden half a mile away. Suddenly Jack felt as if he could simply push off and jump all the way across the quad . . . or fly, like those men with the wings strapped to their backs. Oh, there was light and clear air replacing that foul, garbagey stench and a sensation of crossing voids of darkness, and for a moment everything in him seemed clear and full of radiance; for a moment everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow. So Jack Sawyer flipped into the Territories again, this time while running headlong across the degenerating Thayer campus, with the sound of cracked bells and snarling dogs filling the air. And this time he dragged Morgan Sloats son Richard with him. Interlude Sloat in This WorldOrris in the Territories (III) Shortly after seven a.m. on the morning following Jack and Richards flip out from Thayer, Morgan Sloat drew up to the curb just outside the main gates of Thayer School. He parked. The space was marked with a HANDICAPPED ONLY sign. Sloat glanced at it indifferently, then reached into his pocket, drew out a vial of cocaine, and used some of it. In a few moments the world seemed to gain color and vitality. It was wonderful stuff. He wondered if it would grow in the Territories, and if it would be more potent over there. Gardener himself had awakened Sloat in his Beverly Hills home at two in the morning to tell him what had happenedit had been midnight in Springfield. Gardeners voice had been trembling. He was obviously terrified that Morgan would fly into a rage, and furious that he had missed Jack Sawyer by less than an hour. That boy . . . that bad, bad boy . . . Sloat had not flown into a rage. Indeed, he had felt extraordinary calm. He felt a sense of predestination which he suspected came from that other part of himwhat he thought of as his Orrisness in a halfunderstood pun on royalty. Be calm, Sloat had soothed. Ill be there as soon as I can. Hang in there, baby. He had broken the connection before Gardener could say any more, and lain back on the bed. He had crossed his hands on his stomach and closed his eyes. There was a moment of weightlessness . . . just a moment . . . and then he felt a sensation of movement beneath him. He heard the creak of leather traces, the groan and thump of rough iron springs, the curses of his driver. He had opened his eyes as Morgan of Orris. As always, his first reaction was pure delight this made coke seem like baby aspirin. His chest was narrower, his weight less. Morgan Sloats heartbeat ran anywhere from eightyfive beats a minute to a hundred and twenty when he was pissed off; Orriss rarely went higher than sixtyfive or so. Morgan Sloats eyesight was tested at 2020, but Morgan of Orris nonetheless saw better. He could see and trace the course of every minute crack in the sidewall of the diligence, could marvel over the fineness of the mesh curtains which blew through the windows. Cocaine had clogged Sloats nose, dulling his sense of smell; Orriss nose was totally clear and he could smell dust and earth and air with perfect fidelityit was as if he could sense and appreciate every molecule. Behind him he had left an empty double bed still marked with the shape of his large body. Here he was sitting on a bench seat plusher than the seat in any RollsRoyce ever made, riding west toward the end of the Outposts, toward a place which was called Outpost Depot. Toward a man named Anders. He knew these things, knew exactly where he was, because Orris was still here, inside his headspeaking to him the way the right side of the brain may speak to the rational left during daydreams, in a low but perfectly clear voice. Sloat had spoken to Orris in this same low undervoice on the few occasions when Orris had Migrated to what Jack had come to think of as the American Territories. When one Migrated and entered the body of ones Twinner, the result was a kind of benign possession. Sloat had read of more violent cases of possession, and although the subject did not greatly interest him, he guessed that the poor, unlucky slobs so afflicted had been taken over by mad hitchhikers from other worldsor perhaps it was the American world itself which had driven them mad. That seemed more than possible; it had certainly done a number on poor old Orriss head the first two or three times he had popped over, although he had been wildly excited as well as terrified. The diligence took a mighty bouncein the Outposts, you took the roads as you found them and thanked God they were there at all. Orris shifted in his seat and his clubfoot muttered dull pain. Hold on steady, God pound you, the driver muttered up above. His whip whistled and popped. Roll, you sons of dead whores! Roll on! Sloat grinned with the pleasure of being here, even though it would only be for moments. He already knew what he needed to know; Orriss voice had muttered it to him. The diligence would arrive at Outpost DepotThayer School in the other worldwell before morning. It might be possible to take them there if they had lingered; if not, the Blasted Lands awaited them. It hurt and enraged him to think that Richard was now with the Sawyer brat, but if a sacrifice was demanded . . . well, Orris had lost his son and survived. The only thing that had kept Jack alive this long was the maddening fact of his single naturewhen the whelp flipped to a place, he was always in the analogue of the place he had left. Sloat, however, always ended up where Orris was, which might be miles away from where he needed to be . . . as was the case now. He had been lucky at the rest area, but Sawyer had been luckier. Your luck will run out soon enough, my little friend, Orris said. The diligence took another terrific bounce. He grimaced, then grinned. If nothing else, the situation was simplifying itself even as the final confrontation took on wider and deeper implications. Enough. He closed his eyes and crossed his arms. For just a moment he felt another dull thud of pain in the deformed foot . . . and when he opened his eyes, Sloat was looking up at the ceiling of his apartment. As always, there was a moment when the extra pounds fell into him with sickening weight, when his heart reacted with a surprised doublebeat and then sped up. He had gotten to his feet then and had called West Coast Business Jet. Seventy minutes later he had been leaving LAX. The Lears steep and abrupt takeoff stance made him feel as it always didit was as if a blowtorch had been strapped to his ass. They had touched down in Springfield at fivefifty central time, just as Orris would be approaching Outpost Depot in the Territories. Sloat had rented a Hertz sedan and here he was. American travel did have its advantages. He got out of the car and, just as the morning bells began to ring, he walked onto the Thayer campus his own son had so lately quitted. Everything was the essence of an early Thayer weekday morning. The chapel bells were playing a normal morning tune, something classical but not quite recognizable which sounded a bit like Te Deum but wasnt. Students passed Sloat on their way to the dining hall or to morning workouts. They were perhaps a little more silent than usual, and they shared a lookpale and slightly dazed, as if they had all shared a disquieting dream. Which, of course, they had, Sloat thought. He stopped for a moment in front of Nelson House, looking at it thoughtfully. They simply didnt know how fundamentally unreal they all were, as all creatures who live near the thin places between worlds must be. He walked around to the side and watched a maintenance man picking up broken glass that lay on the ground like trumpery diamonds. Beyond his bent back Sloat could see into the Nelson House lounge, where an unusually quiet Albert the Blob was sitting and looking blankly at a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Sloat started across toward The Depot, his thoughts turning to the first time that Orris had flipped over into this world. He found himself thinking of that time with a nostalgia that was, when one really stopped to think about it, damned near grotesqueafter all, he had nearly died. Both of them had nearly died. But it had been in the middle fifties, and now he was in his middle fiftiesit made all the difference in the world. He had been coming back from the office and the sun had been going down in a Los Angeles haze of smudged purples and smokey yellowsthis had been in the days before the L.A. smog had really begun to thicken up. He had been on Sunset Boulevard and looking at a billboard advertising a new Peggy Lee record when he had felt a coldness in his mind. It had been as if a wellspring had suddenly opened somewhere in his subconscious, spilling out some alien weirdness that was like . . . like . . . (like semen) . . . well, he didnt know exactly what it had been like.

Except that it had quickly become warm, gained cognizance, and he had just had time to realize it was he, Orris, and then everything had turned topsyturvy like a secret door on its gimbala bookcase on one side, a Chippendale dresser on the other, both fitting the ambience of the room perfectlyand it had been Orris sitting behind the wheel of a 1952 bulletnosed Ford, Orris wearing the brown doublebreasted suit and the John Penske tie, Orris who was reaching down toward his crotch, not in pain but in slightly disgusted curiosityOrris who had, of course, never worn undershorts. There had been a moment, he remembered, when the Ford had nearly driven up onto the sidewalk, and then Morgan Sloatnow very much the undermindhad taken over that part of the operation and Orris had been free to go along his way, goggling at everything, nearly halfmad with delight. And what remained of Morgan Sloat had also been delighted; he had been delighted the way a man is delighted when he shows a friend around his new home for the first time and finds that his friend likes it as much as he likes it himself. Orris had cruised into a Fat Boy Drivein, and after some fumbling with Morgans unfamiliar paper money, he had ordered a hamburger and french fries and a chocolate thickshake, the words coming easily out of his mouthwelling up from that undermind as water wells up from a spring. Orriss first bite of the hamburger had been tentative . . . and then he had gobbled the rest with the speed of Wolf gobbling his first Whopper. He had crammed the fries into his mouth with one hand while dialling the radio with the other, picking up an enticing babble of bop and Perry Como and some big band and early rhythm and blues. He had sucked down the shake and then had ordered more of everything. Halfway through the second burger heSloat as well as Orrisbegan to feel sick. Suddenly the fried onions had seemed too strong, too cloying; suddenly the smell of car exhaust was everywhere. His arms had suddenly begun to itch madly. He pulled off the coat of the doublebreasted suit (the second thickshake, this one mocha, fell unheeded to one side, dribbling ice cream across the Fords seat) and looked at his arms. Ugly red blotches with red centers were growing there, and spreading. His stomach lurched, he leaned out the window, and even as he puked into the tray that was fixed there, he had felt Orris fleeing from him, going back into his own world. . . . Can I help you, sir? Hmmmm? Startled out of his reverie, Sloat looked around. A tall blond boy, obviously an upperclassman, was standing there. He was dressed prepan impeccable blue flannel blazer worn over an opencollared shirt and a pair of faded Levis. He brushed hair out of his eyes which had that same dazed, dreaming look. Im Etheridge, sir. I just wondered if I could help you. You looked . . . lost. Sloat smiled. He thought of sayingbut did notNo, thats how you look, my friend. Everything was all right. The Sawyer brat was still on the loose, but Sloat knew where he was going and that meant that Jacky was on a chain. It was invisible, but it was still a chain. Lost in the past, thats all, he said. Old times. Im not a stranger here, Mr. Etheridge, if thats what youre worried about. My sons a student. Richard Sloat. Etheridges eyes grew even dreamier for a momentpuzzled, lost. Then they cleared. Sure. Richard! he exclaimed. Ill be going up to see the headmaster in a bit. I just wanted to have a poke around first. Well, I guess thats fine. Etheridge looked at his watch. I have tableduty this morning, so if youre sure youre okay . . . Im sure. Etheridge gave him a nod, a rather vague smile, and started off. Sloat watched him go, and then he surveyed the ground between Nelson House and here. Noted the broken window again. A straight shot. It was fairmore than fairto assume that, somewhere between Nelson House and this octagonal brick building, the two boys had Migrated into the Territories. If he liked, he could follow them. Just step insidethere was no lock on the doorand disappear. Reappear wherever Orriss body happened to be at this moment. It would be somewhere close; perhaps even, in fact, in front of the depotkeeper himself. No nonsense about Migrating to a spot which might be a hundred miles away from the point of interest in Territories geography and no way to cover the intervening distance but by wagon or, worse, what his father had called shanks mare. The boys would already have gone on, in all likelihood. Into the Blasted Lands. If so, the Blasted Lands would finish them. And Sunlight Gardeners Twinner, Osmond, would be more than capable of squeezing out all the information that Anders knew. Osmond and his horrid son. No need to Migrate at all. Except maybe for a looksee. For the pleasure and refreshment of becoming Orris again, if only for a few seconds. And to Make Sure, of course. His entire life, from childhood onward, had been an exercise in Making Sure. He looked around once to assure himself that Etheridge had not lingered; then he opened the door of The Depot and went inside. The smell was stale, dark, and incredibly nostalgicthe smell of old makeup and canvas flats. For a moment he had the crazy idea that he had done something even more incredible than Migrating; he felt that he might have travelled back through time to those undergraduate days when he and Phil Sawyer had been theatermad college students. Then his eyes adjusted to the dimness and he saw the unfamiliar, almost mawkish propsa plaster bust of Pallas for a production of The Raven, an extravagantly gilt birdcage, a bookcase full of false bindingsand remembered that he was in the Thayer School excuse for a little theater. He paused for a moment, breathing deeply of the dust; he turned his eyes up to one dusty sunray falling through a small window. The light wavered and was suddenly a deeper gold, the color of lamplight. He was in the Territories. Just like that, he was in the Territories. There was a moment of almost staggering exhilaration at the speed of the change. Usually there was a pause, a sense of sideslipping from one place to another. This caesura seemed to be in direct proportion to the distance between the physical bodies of his two selves, Sloat and Orris. Once, when he had Migrated from Japan, where he was negotiating a deal with the Shaw brothers for a terrible novel about Hollywood stars menaced by a crazed ninja, the pause had gone on so long that he had feared he might be lost forever somewhere in the empty, senseless purgatory that exists between the worlds. But this time they had been close . . . so close! It was like those few times, he thought (Orris thought) when a man and woman achieve orgasm at the exact same instant and die in sex together. The smell of dried paint and canvas was replaced with the light, pleasant smell of Territories burningoil. The lamp on the table was guttering low, sending out dark membranes of smoke. To his left a table was set, the remains of a meal congealing on the rough plates. Three plates. Orris stepped forward, dragging his clubfoot a little as always. He tipped one of the plates up, let the guttering lamplight skate queasily across the grease. Who ate from this one? Was it Anders, or Jason, or Richard . . . the boy who would also have been Rushton if my son had lived? Rushton had drowned while swimming in a pond not far from the Great House. There had been a picnic. Orris and his wife had drunk a quantity of wine. The sun had been hot. The boy, little more than an infant, had been napping. Orris and his wife had made love and then they had also fallen asleep in the sweet afternoon sunshine. He had been awakened by the childs cries. Rushton had awakened and gone down to the water. He had been able to dogpaddle a little, just enough to get well out beyond his depth before panicking. Orris had limped to the water, dived in, and swum as fast as he could out to where the boy floundered. It was his foot, his damned foot, that had hampered him and perhaps cost his son his life. When he reached the boy, he had been sinking. Orris had managed to catch him by the hair and pull him to shore . . . but by then Rushton had been blue and dead. Margaret had died by her own hand less than six weeks later. Seven months after that, Morgan Sloats own young son had nearly drowned in a Westwood YMCA pool during a Young Paddlers class. He had been pulled from the pool as blue and dead as Rushton . . . but the lifeguard had applied mouthtomouth resuscitation, and Richard Sloat had responded. God pounds His nails, Orris thought, and then a deep, blurry snore snapped his head around. Anders, the depotkeeper, lay on a pallet in the corner with his kilt rudely pulled up to his breeks. An earthen jug of wine lay overturned nearby. Much of the wine had flowed into his hair. He snored again, then moaned, as if with bad dreams. No dream you might have could be as bad as your future now is, Orris thought grimly. He took a step closer, his cloak flapping around him. He looked down on Anders with no pity. Sloat was able to plan murder, but it had been Orris, time and time again, who had Migrated to carry out the act itself. It had been Orris in Sloats body who had attempted to smother the infant Jack Sawyer with a pillow while a wrestling announcer droned on and on in the background. Orris who had overseen the assassination of Phil Sawyer in Utah (just as he had overseen the assassination of Phil Sawyers counterpart, the commoner Prince Philip Sawtelle, in the Territories). Sloat had a taste for blood, but ultimately he was as allergic to it as Orris was to American food and American air. It was Morgan of Orris, once derided as Morgan Thudfoot, who had always done the deeds Sloat had planned. My son died; his still lives. Sawtelles son died. Sawyers still lives. But these things can be remedied. Will be remedied. No Talisman for you, my sweet little friends. You are bound for a radioactive version of Oatley, and you each owe the balancescales a death. God pounds His nails. And if God doesnt, you may be sure I will, he said aloud. The man on the floor moaned again, as if he had heard. Orris took another step toward him, perhaps meaning to kick him awake, and then cocked his head. In the distance he heard hoofbeats, the faint creak and jingle of harness, the hoarse cries of drovers. That would be Osmond, then. Good. Let Osmond take care of business herehe himself had little interest in questioning a man with a hangover when he knew well enough what the man would have to say. Orris clumped across to the door, opened it, and looked out on a gorgeous peachcolored Territories sunrise. It was from this directionthe direction of the sunrisethat the sounds of approaching riders came. He allowed himself to drink in that lovely glow for a moment and then turned toward the west again, where the sky was still the color of a fresh bruise. The land was dark . . . except for where the first sunlight bounced off a pair of bright parallel lines. Boys, you have gone to your deaths, Orris thought with satisfaction . . . and then a thought occurred which brought even more satisfaction their deaths might already have happened. Good, Orris said, and closed his eyes. A moment later Morgan Sloat was gripping the handle of the door of Thayer Schools little theater, opening his own eyes, and planning his trip back to the west coast. It might be time to take a little trip down memory lane, he thought. To a town in California called Point Venuti. A trip back east first, perhapsa visit to the Queenand then . . . The sea air, he said to the bust of Pallas, will do me good. He ducked back inside, had another jolt from the small vial in his pocket (hardly noticing the smells of canvas and makeup now), and, thus refreshed, he started back downhill toward his car. FOUR THE TALISMAN 34 Anders 1 Jack suddenly realized that, although he was still running, he was running on thin air, like a cartoon character who has time for one surprised doubletake before plunging two thousand feet straight down. But it wasnt two thousand feet. He had timejustto realize that the ground wasnt there anymore, and then he dropped four or five feet, still running. He wobbled and might have remained upright, but then Richard came piling into him and they both went tumbling. Look out, Jack! Richard was screaminghe was apparently not interested in taking his own advice, because his eyes were squeezed tightly shut. Look out for the wolf! Look out for Mr. Dufrey! Look out Stop it, Richard! These breathless screams frightened him more than anything else had done. Richard sounded mad, absolutely mad. Stop it, were all right! Theyre gone! Look out for Etheridge! Look out for the bugs! Look out, Jack! Richard, theyre gone! Look around you, for Jasons sake! Jack hadnt had a chance to do this himself, but he knew they had made itthe air was still and sweet, the night perfectly silent except for a slim breeze that was blessedly warm. Look out, Jack! Look out, Jack! Look out, look out Like a bad echo inside his head, he heard a memory of the dogboys outside Nelson House chorusing Waygup, waygup, waygup! Pleeze, pleeze, pleeze! Look out, Jack! Richard wailed. His face was slammed into the earth and he looked like an overenthusiastic Moslem determined to get in good with Allah. LOOK OUT! THE WOLF! PREFECTS! THE HEADMASTER! LOOK O Panicked by the idea that Richard actually had gone crazy, Jack yanked his friends head up by the back of his collar and slapped his face. Richards words were cut cleanly off. He gaped at Jack, and Jack saw the shape of his own hand rising on Richards pale cheek, a dim red tattoo. His shame was replaced by an urgent curiosity to know just where they were. There was light; otherwise he wouldnt have been able to see that mark. A partial answer to the question came from inside himit was certain and unquestionable . . . at least, as far as it went. The Outposts, JackO. Youre in the Outposts now. But before he could spend any time mulling that over, he had to try to get Richard shipshape. Are you all right, Richie? He was looking at Jack with numb, hurt surprise. You hit me, Jack. I slapped you. Thats what youre supposed to do with hysterical people. I wasnt hysterical! Ive never been hysterical in my l Richard broke off and jumped to his feet, looking around wildly. The wolf! We have to look out for the wolf, Jack! If we can get over the fence he wont be able to get us! He would have gone sprinting off into the darkness right then, making for a cyclone fence which was now in another world, if Jack hadnt grabbed him and held him back. The wolf is gone, Richard. Huh? We made it. What are you talking about The Territories, Richard! Were in the Territories! We flipped over! And you almost pulled my damn arm out of its socket, you unbeliever, Jack thought, rubbing his throbbing shoulder. The next time I try to haul someone across, Im going to find myself a real little kid, one who still believes in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Thats ridiculous, Richard said slowly. Theres no such thing as the Territories, Jack. If there isnt, Jack said grimly, then how come that great big white wolf isnt biting your ass? Or your own damn headmaster? Richard looked at Jack, opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. He looked around, this time with a bit more attention (at least Jack hoped so). Jack did the same, enjoying the warmth and the clarity of the air as he did so. Morgan and his crowd of snakepit crazies might come bursting through at any second, but for now it was impossible not to luxuriate in the pure animal joy of being back here again. They were in a field. High, yellowish grass with bearded headsnot wheat, but something like wheat; some edible grain, anywaystretched off into the night in every direction. The warm breeze rippled it in mysterious but rather lovely waves. To the right was a wooden building standing on a slight knoll, a lamp mounted on a pole in front of it. A yellow flame almost too bright to look at burned clearly inside the lamps glass globe. Jack saw that the building was octagonal. The two boys had come into the Territories on the outermost edge of the circle of light that lamp threwand there was something on the far side of the circle, something metallic that threw back the lamplight in broken glimmers. Jack squinted at the faint, silvery glow . . . and then understood. What he felt was not so much wonder as a sense of fulfilled expection. It was as if two very large jigsawpuzzle pieces, one in the American Territories and one over here, had just come neatly together. Those were railroad tracks. And although it was impossible to tell direction in the darkness, Jack thought he knew in which direction those tracks would travel West. 2 Come on, Jack said. I dont want to go up there, Richard said. Why not? Too much crazy stuff going on. Richard wet his lips. Could be anything up there in that building. Dogs. Crazy people. He wet his lips again. Bugs. I told you, were in the Territories now. The craziness has all blown awayits clean here. Hell, Richard, cant you smell it? There are no such things as Territories, Richard said thinly. Look around you. No, Richard said. His voice was thinner than ever, the voice of an infuriatingly stubborn child. Jack snatched up a handful of the heavily bearded grass. Look at this! Richard turned his head. Jack had to actively restrain an urge to shake him. Instead of doing that, he tossed the grass away, counted mentally to ten, and then started up the hill. He looked down and saw that he was now wearing something like leather chaps. Richard was dressed in much the same way, and he had a red bandanna around his neck that looked like something out of a Frederic Remington painting. Jack reached up to his own neck and felt a similar bandanna. He ran his hands down along his body and discovered that Myles P. Kigers wonderfully warm coat was now something very like a Mexican serape. I bet I look like an advertisement for Taco Bell, he thought, and grinned. An expression of utter panic came over Richards face when Jack started up the hill, leaving him alone at the bottom. Where are you going? Jack looked at Richard and came back. He put his hands on Richards shoulders and looked soberly into Richards eyes. We cant stay here, he said. Some of them must have seen us flip. It may be that they cant come right after us, or it may be that they can. I dont know. I know as much about the laws governing all of this as a kid of five knows about magnetismand all a kid of five knows on the subject is that sometimes magnets attract and sometimes they repel. But for the time being, thats all I have to know. We have to get out of here. End of story. Im dreaming all this, I know I am. Jack nodded toward the ramshackle wooden building. You can come or you can stay here. If you want to stay here, Ill come back for you after I check the place out. None of this is happening, Richard said. His naked, glassesless eyes were wide and flat and somehow dusty. He looked for a moment up at the black Territories sky with its strange and unfamiliar sprawl of stars, shuddered, and looked away. I have a fever. Its the flu. Theres been a lot of flu around. This is a delirium. Youre gueststarring in my delirium, Jack. Well, Ill send somebody around to the Delirium Actors Guild with my AFTRA card when I get a chance, Jack said. In the meantime, why dont you just stay here, Richard? If none of this is happening, then you have nothing to worry about. He started away again, thinking that it would take only a few more of these Aliceattheteaparty conversations with Richard to convince him that he was crazy, as well. He was halfway up the hill when Richard joined him. I would have come back for you, Jack said. I know, Richard said. I just thought that I might as well come along. As long as all of this is a dream, anyway. Well, keep your mouth shut if theres anyone up there, Jack said. I think there isI think I saw someone looking out that front window at me. What are you going to do? Richard asked. Jack smiled. Play it by ear, Richieboy, he said. Thats what Ive been doing ever since I left New Hampshire. Playing it by ear. 3 They reached the porch. Richard clutched Jacks shoulder with panicky strength. Jack turned toward him wearily; Richards patented Kansas City Clutch was something else that was getting old in a big hurry. What? Jack asked. This is a dream, all right, Richard said, and I can prove it. How? Were not talking English anymore, Jack! Were talking some language, and were speaking it perfectly, but its not English! Yeah, Jack said. Weird, isnt it? He started up the steps again, leaving Richard standing below him, gapemouthed. 4 After a moment or two, Richard recovered and scrambled up the steps after Jack. The boards were warped and loose and splintery. Stalks of that richly bearded graingrass grew up through some of them. Off in the deep darkness, both boys could hear the sleepy hum of insectsit was not the reedy scratch of crickets but a sweeter soundso much was sweeter over here, Jack thought. The outside lamp was now behind them; their shadows ran ahead of them across the porch and then made rightangles to climb the door. There was an old, faded sign on that door. For a moment it seemed to Jack to be written in strange Cyrillic letters, as indecipherable as Russian. Then they came clear, and the word was no surprise. DEPOT. Jack raised his hand to knock, then shook his head a little. No. He would not knock. This was not a private dwelling; the sign said DEPOT, and that was a word he associated with public buildingsplaces to wait for Greyhound buses and Amtrak trains, loading zones for the Friendly Skies. He pushed the door open. Friendly lamplight and a decidedly unfriendly voice came out onto the porch together. Get away, ye devil! the cracked voice screeched. Get away, Im going in the morning! I swear! The trains in the shed! Go away! I swore Id go and I will go, snow YE go . . . go and leave me some peace! Jack frowned. Richard gaped. The room was clean but very old. The boards were so warped that the walls seemed almost to ripple. A picture of a stagecoach which looked almost as big as a whaling ship hung on one wall. An ancient counter, its flat surface almost as ripply as the walls, ran across the middle of the room, splitting it in two. Behind it, on the far wall, was a slate board with STAGE ARRIVES written above one column and STAGE LEAVES written above the other. Looking at the ancient board, Jack guessed it had been a good long time since any information had been written there; he thought that if someone tried to write on it with even a piece of soft chalk, the slate would crack in pieces and fall to the weathered floor. Standing on one side of the counter was the biggest hourglass Jack had ever seenit was as big as a magnum of champagne and filled with green sand. Leave me alone, cant you? Ive promised ye Id go, and I will! Please, Morgan! For yer mercy! Ive promised, and if ye dont believe me, look in the shed! The train is ready, I swear the train is ready! There was a good deal more gabble and gobble in this same vein. The large, elderly man spouting it was cringing in the far righthand corner of the room. Jack guessed the oldsters height at sixthree at leasteven in his present servile posture, The Depots low ceiling was only four inches or so above his head. He might have been seventy; he might have been a fairly wellpreserved eighty. A snowy white beard began under his eyes and cascaded down over his breast in a spray of baby fine hair. His shoulders were broad, although now so slumped that they looked as if someone had broken them by forcing him to carry heavy weights over the course of many long years. Deep crowsfeet radiated out from the corners of his eyes; deep fissures undulated on his forehead. His complexion was waxyyellow. He was wearing a white kilt shot through with bright scarlet threads, and he was obviously scared almost to death. He was brandishing a stout staff, but with no authority at all. Jack glanced sharply around at Richard when the old man mentioned the name of Richards father, but Richard was currently beyond noticing such fine points. I am not who you think I am, Jack said, advancing toward the old man. Get away! he shrieked. None of yer guff! I guess the devil can put on a pleasing face! Get away! Ill do it! Shes ready to go, first thing in the morning! I said Id do it and I mean to, now get away, cant ye? The knapsack was now a haversack hanging from Jacks arm. As Jack reached the counter, he rummaged in it, pushing aside the mirror and a number of the jointed moneysticks. His fingers closed around what he wanted and brought it out. It was the coin Captain Farren had given him so long ago, the coin with the Queen on one side and the gryphon on the other. He slammed it down on the counter, and the rooms mellow light caught the lovely profile of Laura DeLoessianagain he was struck with wonder by the similarity of that profile to the profile of his mother. Did they look that much alike at the beginning? Is it just that I see the similarities more as I think about them more? Or am I actually bringing them together somehow, making them one? The old man cringed back even farther as Jack came forward to the counter; it began to seem as though he might push himself right through the back of the building. His words began to pour out in a hysterical flood. When Jack slammed the coin down on the counter like a badman in a Western movie demanding a drink, he suddenly stopped talking. He stared at the coin, his eyes widening, the spitshiny corners of his mouth twitching. His widening eyes rose to Jacks face and really saw him for the first time. Jason, he whispered in a trembling voice. Its former weak bluster was gone. It trembled now not with fear but with awe. Jason! No, he said. My name is Then he stopped, realizing that the word which would come out in this strange language was not Jack but Jason! the old man cried, and fell on his knees. Jason, yeve come! Yeve come and a wi be well, aye, a wi be well, a wi be well, and a manner a things wi be well! Hey, Jack said. Hey, really Jason! Jasons come and the Queenll be well, aye, a manner a things wi be well! Jack, less prepared to cope with this weepy adoration than he had been to deal with the old depotkeepers terrified truculence, turned toward Richard . . . but there was no help there. Richard had stretched out on the floor to the left of the door and had either gone to sleep or was giving a damned good facsimile thereof. Oh shit, Jack groaned. The old man was on his knees, babbling and weeping. The situation was rapidly passing from the realms of the merely ridiculous into those of the cosmically comic. Jack found a flipup partition and went behind the counter. Ah, rise, you good and faithful servant, Jack said. He wondered blackly if Christ or Buddha had ever had problems like this. On your feet, fella. Jason! Jason! the old man sobbed. His white hair obscured Jacks sandaled feet as he bent over them and began to kiss themthey werent little kisses, either, but good old spooninginthehayloft smackers. Jack began to giggle helplessly. He had managed to get them out of Illinois, and here they were in a ramshackle depot at the center of a great field of grain which wasnt quite wheat, somewhere in the Outposts, and Richard was sleeping by the door, and this strange old man was kissing his feet and his beard tickled. Rise! Jack yelled, giggling. He tried to step back but hit the counter. Rise up, O good servant! Get on your frigging feet, get up, thats enough! Jason! Smack! A wi be well! Smacksmack! And a manner a things wi be well, Jack thought crazily, giggling as the old man kissed his toes through the sandals. I didnt know they read Robert Burns over here in the Territories, but I guess they must Smacksmacksmack. Oh, no more of this, I really cant stand it. RISE! he bellowed at the top of his voice, and the old man finally stood before him, trembling and weeping, unable to meet Jacks eye. But his amazingly broad shoulders had come up a bit, had lost that broken look, and Jack was obscurely glad of that. 5 It was an hour or better before Jack could manage a coherent run of conversation with the old man. They would begin talking, and then Anders, who was a liveryman by trade, would go off on another of his OJasonmyJasonhowgreatthouart jags and Jack would have to quiet him down as quickly as he could . . . certainly before the feetkissing started again. Jack liked the old man, however, and sympathized. In order to sympathize, all he had to do was imagine how he would feel if Jesus or Buddha turned up at the local carwash or in the school lunch line. And he had to acknowledge one other clear and present fact there was a part of him which was not entirely surprised by Anderss attitude. Although he felt like Jack, he was coming more and more to also feel like . . . the other one. But hed died. That was true; undeniably true. Jason had died, and Morgan of Orris had probably had something to do with his death. But guys like Jason had a way of coming back, didnt they? Jack considered the time it took to get Anders talking well spent if only because it allowed him to be sure that Richard wasnt shamming; that he really had gone back to sleep again. This was good, because Anders had a lot to say about Morgan. Once, he said, this had been the last stage depot in the known worldit went by the euphonious name of Outpost Depot. Beyond here, he said, the world became a monstrous place. Monstrous how? Jack asked. I dont know, Anders said, lighting his pipe. He looked out into the darkness, and his face was bleak. There are stories about the Blasted Lands, but each is apt to be different from each, and they always begin something like I know a man who met a man who was lost on the edge of the Blasted Lands for three days and he said . . . But I never heard a story that begun I was lost on the edge of the Blasted Lands for three days and I say . . . Ye ken the difference, Jason my Lord? I ken it, Jack said slowly. The Blasted Lands. Just the sound of that had raised the hairs on his arms and the nape of his neck. No one knows what they are, then? Not for sure, Anders said. But if even a quarter of what Ive heard is true What have you heard? That there are monstrosities out there that makes the things in Orriss orepits look almost normal. That there are balls of fire that go rolling across the hills and empty places, leaving long black trails behind themthe trails are black in the daytime, anyway, but Ive heard they glow at night. And if a man gets too close to one of those fireballs, he gets turrible sick. He loses his hair, and soresre apt to raise all over his body, and then he begins to vomit; and mayhap he gets better, but more often he only vomits and vomits until his stomach ruptures and his throat bursts and then . . . Anders rose. My Lord! Why dye look so? Have yseen something out the window? Have yseen a spook along those doubledamned tracks? Anders looked wildly toward the window. Radiation poisoning, Jack thought. He doesnt know it, but hes described the symptoms of radiation poisoning almost to a T. They had studied both nuclear weapons and the consequences of exposure to radiation in a physical science mod the year beforebecause his mother was at least casually involved in both the nuclearfreeze movement and the movement to prevent the proliferation of nuclear power plants, Jack had paid very close attention.

How well, he thought, how well radiation poisoning fit with the whole idea of the Blasted Lands! And then he realized something else, as well the west was where the first tests had been carried outwhere the prototype of the Hiroshima bomb had been hung from a tower and then exploded, where any number of suburbs inhabited only by departmentstore mannequins had been destroyed so the Army could get a more or less accurate idea of what a nuclear explosion and the resulting firestorm would really do. And in the end they had returned to Utah and Nevada, among the last of the real American Territories, and had simply resumed testing underground. There was, he knew, a lot of government land out there in those great wastes, those tangles of buttes and mesas and crenellated badlands, and bombs were not all they were testing out there. How much of that shit would Sloat bring over here if the Queen died? How much of that shit had he already brought? Was this stagelinecumrailhead part of the shipping system for it? Ye dont look good, my Lord, not at all. Ye look as white as a sheet; Ill take an oath that ye do! Im fine, Jack said slowly. Sit down. Go on with your story. And light your pipe, its gone out. Anders took his pipe from his mouth, relit it, and looked from Jack to the window again . . . and now his face was not just bleak; it was haggard with fright. But Ill know soon enough if the stories are true, I suppose. Why is that? Because I start through the Blasted Lands tomorrow morning, at first light, Anders said. I start through the Blasted Lands, driving Morgan of Orriss devilmachine in yon shed, and carrying God alone knows what sort of hideous devils work. Jack stared at him, his heart pumping hard, the blood humming in his head. Where? How far? To the ocean? The big water? Anders nodded slowly. Aye, he said. To the water. And His voice dropped, became a strengthless whisper. His eyes rolled toward the dark windows, as if he feared some nameless thing might be peering in, watching, eavesdropping. And there Morgan will meet me, and were to take his goods on. On to where? Jack asked. To the black hotel, Anders finished in a low, trembling voice. 6 Jack felt the urge to break into wild cackles of laughter again. The Black Hotelit sounded like the title of a lurid mystery novel. And yet . . . and yet . . . all of this had begun at a hotel, hadnt it? The Alhambra in New Hampshire, on the Atlantic coast. Was there some other hotel, perhaps even another rambling old Victorian monstrosity of a hotel, on the Pacific coast? Was that where his long, strange adventure was supposed to end? In some analogue of the Alhambra and with a seedy amusement park close at hand? This idea was terribly persuasive; in an odd, yet precise way, it even seemed to pick up the idea of Twinners and Twinning . . . Why do ye look at me so, my Lord? Anders sounded agitated and upset. Jack shifted his gaze away quickly. Im sorry, he said. I was just thinking. He smiled reassuringly, and the liveryman smiled tentatively back at him. And I wish youd stop calling me that. Calling ye what, my Lord? My Lord. My Lord? Anders looked puzzled. He was not echoing what Jack had said but asking for clarification. Jack had a feeling that if he tried to push on with this, he would end up in the middle of a Whos on first, Whats on second sort of sketch. Never mind, Jack said. He leaned forward. I want you to tell me everything. Can you do that? Ill try, my Lord, Anders said. 7 His words came slowly at first. He was a single man who had spent his entire life in the Outposts and he was not used to talking much at the best of times. Now he had been commanded to speak by a boy whom he considered to be at least royalty, and perhaps even something like a god. But, little by little, his words began to come faster, and by the end of his inconclusive but terribly provocative tale, the words were nearly pouring out. Jack had no trouble following the tale he told in spite of the mans accent, which his mind kept translating into a sort of ersatz Robert Burns burr. Anders knew Morgan because Morgan was, quite simply, Lord of the Outposts. His real title, Morgan of Orris, was not so grand, but as a practical matter, the two came to nearly the same. Orris was the easternmost cantonment of the Outposts, and the only really organized part of that large, grassy area. Because he ruled Orris utterly and completely, Morgan ruled the rest of the Outposts by default. Also, the bad Wolfs had begun to gravitate to Morgan in the last fifteen years or so. At first that meant little, because there were only a few bad (except the word Anders used also sounded a bit like rabid to Jacks ear) Wolfs. But in later years there had been more and more of them, and Anders said he had heard tales that, since the Queen had fallen ill, more than half the tribe of skinturning shepherds were rotten with the sickness. Nor were these the only creatures at Morgan of Orriss command, Anders said; there were others, even worsesome, it was told, could drive a man mad at a single look. Jack thought of Elroy, the bogeyman of the Oatley Tap, and shuddered. Does this part of the Outposts were in have a name? Jack asked. My Lord? This part were in now. No real name, my Lord, but Ive heard people call it EllisBreaks. EllisBreaks, Jack said. A picture of Territories geography, vague and probably in many ways incorrect, was finally beginning to take shape in Jacks mind. There were the Territories, which corresponded to the American east; the Outposts, which corresponded to the American midwest and great plains (EllisBreaks? Illinois? Nebraska?); and the Blasted Lands, which corresponded to the American west. He looked at Anders so long and so fixedly that at last the liveryman began to stir uneasily again. Im sorry, Jack said. Go on. His father, Anders said, had been the last stage driver who drove out east from Outpost Depot. Anders had been his prentice. But even in those days, he said, there were great confusions and upheavals in the east; the murder of the old King and the short war which had followed it had seen the beginning of those upheavals, and although the war had ended with the installation of Good Queen Laura, the upheavals had gone on ever since, seeming to work their way steadily eastward, out of the spoiled and twisted Blasted Lands. There were some, Anders said, who believed the evil had begun all the way west. Im not sure I understand you, Jack said, although in his heart he thought he did. At lands end, Anders said. At the edge of the big water, where I am bound to go. In other words, it began in the same place my father came from . . . my father, and me, and Richard . . . and Morgan. Old Bloat. The troubles, Anders said, had come to the Outposts, and now the Wolf tribe was partly rottenjust how rotten none could say, but the liveryman told Jack he was afraid that the rot would be the end of them if it didnt stop soon. The upheavals had come here, and now they had even reached the east, where, he had heard, the Queen lay ill and near death. Thats not true, is it, my Lord? Anders asked . . . almost begged. Jack looked at him. Should I know how to answer that? he asked. Of course, Anders said. Are ye not her son? For a moment, the entire world seemed to become very quiet. The sweet hum of the bugs outside stilled. Richard seemed to pause between heavy, sluggish breaths. Even his own heart seemed to pause . . . perhaps that most of all. Then, his voice perfectly even, he said, Yes . . . I am her son. And its true . . . shes very ill. But dying? Anders persisted, his eyes nakedly pleading now. Is she dying, my Lord? Jack smiled a little and said That remains to be seen. 8 Anders said that until the troubles began, Morgan of Orris had been a littleknown frontier lord and no more; he had inherited his comicopera title from a father who had been a greasy, evilsmelling buffoon. Morgans father had been something of a laughingstock while alive, Anders went on, and had even been a laughingstock in his manner of dying. He was taken with the squitters after a day of drinking peachfruit wine and died while on the trots. People had been prepared to make the old mans son a laughingstock as well, but the laughing had stopped soon after the hangings in Orris began. And when the troubles began in the years after the death of the old King, Morgan had risen in importance as a star of evil omen rises in the sky. All of this meant little this far out in the Outpoststhese great empty spaces, Anders said, made politics seem unimportant. Only the deadly change in the Wolf tribe made a practical difference to them, and since most of the bad Wolfs went to the Other Place, even that didnt make much difference to them (It fashes us little, my Lord was what Jacks ears insisted they had heard). Then, not long after the news of the Queens illness had reached this far west, Morgan had sent out a crew of grotesque, twisted slaves from the orepits back east; these slaves were tended by stolen Wolfs and other, stranger creatures. Their foreman was a terrible man who carried a whip; he had been here almost constantly when the work began, but then he had disappeared. Anders, who had spent most of those terrible weeks and months cowering in his house, which was some five miles south of here, had been delighted to see him go. He had heard rumors that Morgan had called the man with the whip back east, where affairs were reaching some great point of climax; Anders didnt know if this was true or not, and didnt care. He was simply glad that the man, who was sometimes accompanied by a scrawny, somehow gruesomelooking little boy, was gone. His name, Jack demanded. What was his name? My Lord, I dont know. The Wolfs called him He of the Lashes. The slaves just called him the devil. Id say they were both right. Did he dress like a dandy? Velvet coats? Shoes with buckles on the tops, maybe? Anders was nodding. Did he wear a lot of strong perfume? Aye! Aye, he did! And the whip had little rawhide strings with metal caps on them. Aye, my Lord. An evil whip. And he was fearsome good with it, aye, he was. It was Osmond. It was Sunlight Gardener. He was here, overseeing some project for Morgan . . . then the Queen got sick and Osmond was called back to the summer palace, where I first made his cheerful acquaintance. His son, Jack said. What did his son look like? Skinny, Anders said slowly. One eye was afloat. Thats all I can remember. He . . . my Lord, the Whipmans son was hard to see. The Wolfs seemed more afraid of him than of his father, although the son carried no whip. They said he was dim. Dim, Jack mused. Yes. It is their word for one who is hard to see, no matter how hard ye look for that one. Invisibility is impossibleso the Wolfs saybut one can make himself dim if only he knows the trick of it. Most Wolfs do, and this little whoreson knew it, too. So all I remember is how thin he was, and that floating eye, and that he was as ugly as black, syphilitic sin. Anders paused. He liked to hurt things. Little things. He used to take them under the porch and Id hear the most awful screams. . . . Anders shuddered. That was one of the reasons I kept to my house, you know. I dont like to hear wee animals in pain. Makes me feel turrible bad, it does. Everything Anders said raised a hundred fresh questions in Jacks mind. He would particularly have liked to know all that Anders knew about the Wolfsjust hearing of them woke simultaneous pleasure and a deep, dully painful longing for his Wolf in his heart. But time was short; this man was scheduled to drive west into the Blasted Lands in the morning, a horde of crazy scholars led by Morgan himself might burst through from what the liveryman called the Other Place at any moment, Richard might wake up and want to know who this Morgan was they were discussing, and who this dim fellow wasthis dim fellow who sounded suspiciously like the fellow who had lived next door to him in Nelson House. They came, he prompted, this crew came, and Osmond was their foremanat least until he was called away or whenever he had to lead the devotions at nightchapel back in Indiana My Lord? Anderss face was again ponderous with puzzlement. They came, and they built . . . what? He was sure he already knew the answer to this, but he wanted to hear Anders himself say it. Why, the tracks, Anders said. The tracks going west into the Blasted Lands. The tracks I must travel myself tomorrow. He shuddered. No, Jack said. A hot, terrible excitement exploded in his chest like a sun, and he rose to his feet. Again there was that click in his head, that terrible, persuasive feeling of great things coming together. Anders fell on his knees with a crash as a terrible, beautiful light filled Jacks face. Richard stirred at the sound and sat sleepily up. Not you, Jack said. Me. And him. He pointed at Richard. Jack? Richard looked at him with sleepy, nearsighted confusion. What are you talking about? And why is that man sniffing the floor? My Lord . . . yer will, of course . . . but I dont understand. . . . Not you, Jack said, us. Well take the train for you. But my Lord, why? Anders managed, not yet daring to look up. Jack Sawyer looked out into the darkness. Because, he said, I think theres something at the end of the tracksat the end of the tracks or near the endthat I have to get. Interlude Sloat in This World (IV) On the tenth of December, a bundledup Morgan Sloat was sitting on the uncomfortable little wooden chair beside Lily Sawyers bedhe was cold, so he had his heavy cashmere coat wrapped around him and his hands thrust deep into its pockets, but he was having a much better time than his appearance suggested. Lily was dying. She was going out, away, to that place from which you never came back, not even if you were a Queen in a football fieldsized bed. Lilys bed was not so grand, and she did not in the least resemble a Queen. Illness had subtracted her good looks, had skinned down her face and aged her a quick twenty years. Sloat let his eyes roam appreciatively over the prominent ridges of bone about her eyes, the tortoiselike shell of her forehead. Her ravaged body barely made a lump beneath the sheets and blankets. Sloat knew that the Alhambra had been well paid to leave Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer alone, for it was he who had paid them. They no longer bothered to send heat up to her room. She was the hotels only guest. Besides the desk clerk and cook, the only employees still in the Alhambra were three Portuguese maids who spent all their time cleaning the lobbyit must have been the maids who kept Lily piled high with blankets. Sloat himself had commandeered the suite across the hall, and ordered the desk clerk and the maids to keep a close eye on Lily. To see if she would open her eyes, he said, Youre looking better, Lily. I really think I see signs of improvement. Without moving anything but her mouth, Lily said, I dont know why you pretend to be human, Sloat. Im the best friend you have, Sloat responded. Now she did open her eyes, and they were not dull enough to suit him. Get out of here, she whispered. Youre obscene. Im trying to help you, and I wish youd remember that. I have all the papers, Lily. All you have to do is sign them. Once you do, you and your son are taken care of for life. Sloat regarded Lily with an expression of satisfied gloom. I havent had much luck in locating Jack, by the way. Spoken to him lately? You know I havent, she said. And did not weep, as he had hoped. I really do think the boy ought to be here, dont you? Piss up a stick, Lily said. I think I will use your bathroom, if you dont mind, he said, and stood up. Lily closed her eyes again, ignoring him. I hope hes staying out of trouble, anyhow, Sloat said, slowly walking down the side of the bed. Terrible things happen to boys on the road. Lily still did not respond. Things I hate to think about. He reached the end of the bed and continued on to the bathroom door. Lily lay under her sheets and blankets like a crumpled piece of tissue paper. Sloat went into the bathroom. He rubbed his hands together, gently closed the door, and turned on both taps over the sink. From the pocket of his suitcoat he extracted a small brown twogram vial, from his inner jacket pocket a small case containing a mirror, a razor blade, and a short brass straw. Onto the mirror he tapped about an eighth of a gram of the purest Peruvian Flake cocaine hed been able to find. Then he chopped it ritualistically with his blade, forming it into two stubby lines. He snorted the lines through the brass straw, gasped, inhaled sharply, and held his breath for a second or two. Aah. His nasal passages opened up as wide as tunnels. Way back there, a drip began to deliver the goodies. Sloat ran his hands under the water, then for the sake of his nose drew a little of the moisture on his thumb and index finger up into his nostrils. He dried his hands and his face. That lovely train, he allowed himself to think, that lovely lovely train, I bet Im prouder of it than I am of my own son. Morgan Sloat revelled in the vision of his precious train, which was the same in both worlds and the first concrete manifestation of his longheld plan to import modern technology into the Territories, arriving in Point Venuti loaded with its useful cargo. Point Venuti! Sloat smiled as the coke blasted through his brain, bringing its usual message that all would be well, all would be well. Little Jacky Sawyer would be a very lucky boy ever to leave the odd little town of Point Venuti. In fact, hed be lucky ever to get there in the first place, considering that hed have to make his way across the Blasted Lands. But the drug reminded Sloat that in some ways hed prefer Jack to make it to dangerous, warped little Point Venuti, hed even prefer Jack to survive his exposure to the black hotel, which was not merely boards and nails, bricks and stone, but was also somehow alive . . . because it was possible that he might walk out with the Talisman in his thieving little hands. And if that were to happen . . . Yes, if that absolutely wonderful event were to take place, all would indeed be well. And both Jack Sawyer and the Talisman would be broken in half. And he, Morgan Sloat, would finally have the canvas his talents deserved. For a second he saw himself spreading his arms over starry vastnesses, over worlds folded together like lovers on a bed, over all that the Talisman protected, and all that he had coveted so when hed bought the Agincourt, years back. Jack could get all that for him. Sweetness. Glory. To celebrate this thought, Sloat brought the vial out of his pocket again and did not bother with the ritual of razor and mirror, but simply used the attached little spoon to raise the medicinal white powder to first one nostril, then the other. Sweetness, yes. Sniffing, he came back into the bedroom. Lily appeared slightly more animated, but his mood now was so good that even this evidence of her continuing life did not darken it. Bright and oddly hollow within their circles of bone, her eyes followed him. Uncle Bloat has a new loathsome habit, she said. And youre dying, he said. Which one would you choose? Do enough of that stuff, and youll be dying, too. Undeterred by her hostility, Sloat returned to the rickety wooden chair. For Gods sake, Lily, grow up, he said. Everybody does coke now. Youre out of touchyouve been out of touch for years. You wanna try some? He lifted the vial from his pocket and swung it by the chain attached to the little spoon. Get out of here. Sloat waggled the vial closer to her face. Lily sat up in bed as smartly as a striking snake and spat in his face. Bitch! He recoiled, grabbing for his handkerchief as the wad of spittle slid down his cheek. If that crap is so wonderful, why do you have to sneak into the toilet to take it? Dont answer, just leave me alone. I dont want to see you again, Bloat. Take your fat ass out of here. Youre going to die alone, Lily, he said, now perversely filled with a cold, hard joy. Youre going to die alone, and this comic little town is going to give you a paupers burial, and your son is going to be killed because he cant possibly handle whats lying in wait for him, and no one will ever hear of either one of you again. He grinned at her. His plump hands were balled into white hairy fists. Remember Asher Dondorf, Lily? Our client? The sidekick on that series Flanagan and Flanagan? I was reading about him in The Hollywood Reportersome issue a few weeks ago. Shot himself in his living room, but his aim wasnt too cool, because instead of killing himself he just blew away the roof of his mouth and put himself in a coma. Might hang on for years, I hear, just rotting away. He leaned toward her, his forehead corrugating. You and good old Asher have a lot in common, it seems to me. She stonily looked back. Her eyes seemed to have crawled back inside her head, and at that moment she resembled some hardbitten old frontier woman with a squirrel rifle in one hand and Scripture in the other. My son is going to save my life, she said. Jack is going to save my life, and you wont be able to stop him. Well, well see, wont we? Sloat answered. Well just see about that. 35 The Blasted Lands 1 But will ye be safe, my Lord? Anders asked, kneeling down before Jack with his whiteandred kilt pooled out around him like a skirt. Jack? Richard asked, his voice a whiny, irrelevant skirl of sound. Would you be safe yourself? Jack asked. Anders twisted his big white head sideways and squinted up at Jack as if he had just asked a riddle. He looked like a huge puzzled dog. I mean, Ill be about as safe as you would be yourself. Thats all I mean. But my Lord . . . Jack? came Richards querulous voice again. I fell asleep, and now I should be awake, but were still in this weird place, so Im still dreaming . . . but I want to be awake, Jack, I dont want to have this dream anymore. No. I dont want to. And thats why you busted your damn glasses, Jack said to himself. Aloud, he said, This isnt a dream, Richieboy. Were about to hit the road. Were gonna take a train ride. Huh? Richard said, rubbing his face and sitting up. If Anders resembled a big white dog in skirts, Richard looked like nothing so much as a newly awakened baby. My Lord Jason, Anders said. Now he seemed as if he might weepwith relief, Jack thought. It is yer will? It is yer will to drive that devilmachine through the Blasted Lands? It sure is, Jack said. Where are we? Richard said. Are you sure theyre not following us? Jack turned toward him. Richard was sitting up on the undulating yellow floor, blinking stupidly, terror still drifting about him like a fog. Okay, he said. Ill answer your question. Were in a section of the Territories called EllisBreaks My head hurts, Richard said. He had closed his eyes. And, Jack went on, were going to take this mans train all the way through the Blasted Lands to the black hotel, or as close to it as we can get. Thats it, Richard. Believe it or not. And the sooner we do it, the sooner well get away from whatever just might be trying to find us. Etheridge, Richard whispered. Mr. Dufrey. He looked around the mellow interior of The Depot as if he expected all their pursuers to suddenly pour through the walls. Its a brain tumor, you know, he said to Jack in a tone of perfect reasonableness. Thats what it ismy headache. My Lord Jason, old Anders was saying, bowing so low that his hair settled down on the rippling floorboards. How good ye are, O High One, how good to yer lowliest servant, how good to those who do not deserve yer blessed presence. . . . He crawled forward, and Jack saw with horror that he was about to begin that moony footkissing all over again. Pretty far advanced, too, Id say, Richard offered. Get up, please, Anders, Jack said, stepping back. Get up, come on, thats enough. The old man continued to crawl forward, babbling with his relief at not having to endure the Blasted Lands. ARISE! Jack bellowed. Anders looked up, his forehead wrinkled. Yes, my Lord. He slowly got up. Bring your brain tumor over here, Richard, Jack said Were going to see if we can figure out how to drive this damn train. 2 Anders had moved over behind the long, rippling counter, and was rooting in a drawer. I believe it works on devils, my Lord, he said. Strange devils, all hurtled down together. They do not appear to live, yet they do. Aye. He fetched out of the drawer the longest, fattest candle that Jack had ever seen. From a box atop the counter Anders selected a footlong, narrow softwood strip, then lowered one of its ends into a glowing lamp. The strip of wood ignited, and Anders used it to light his enormous candle. Then he waved the match back and forth until the flame expired in a curl of smoke. Devils? Jack asked. Strange square thingsI believe the devils are contained therein. Sometimes how they spit and spark! I shall show this to ye, Lord Jason. Without another word he swept toward the door, the warm glow of the candle momentarily erasing the wrinkles from his face. Jack followed him outside into the sweetness and amplitude of the deep Territories. He remembered a photograph on the wall of Speedy Parkers office, a photograph even then filled with an inexplicable power, and realized that he was actually near the site of that photograph. Far off rose a familiarlooking mountain. Down the little knoll the fields of grain rolled away in all directions, waving in smooth, wide patterns. Richard Sloat moved hesitantly beside Jack, rubbing his forehead. The silvery bands of metal, out of key with the rest of the landscape, stretched inexorably west. The shed is in back, my Lord, Anders said softly, and almost shyly turned away toward the side of The Depot. Jack took another glance at the faroff mountain. Now it looked less like the mountain in Speedys photographnewera western, not an eastern, mountain. Whats with that Lord Jason business? Richard whispered right into his ear. He thinks he knows you. Its hard to explain, Jack said. Richard tugged at his bandanna, then clamped a hand on Jacks biceps. The old Kansas City Clutch. What happened to the school, Jack? What happened to the dogs? Where are we? Just come along, Jack said. Youre probably still dreaming. Yes, Richard said in the tone of purest relief. Yes, thats it, isnt it? Im still asleep. You told me all that crazy stuff about the Territories, and now Im dreaming about it. Yeah, Jack said, and set off after Anders. The old man was holding up the enormous candle like a torch and drifting down the rear side of the knoll toward another, slightly larger, octagonal wooden building. The two boys followed him through the tall yellow grass. Light spilled from another of the transparent globes, revealing that this second building was open at opposite ends, as if two matching faces of the octagon had been neatly sliced away. The silvery train tracks ran through these open ends. Anders reached the large shed and turned around to wait for the boys. With the flaring, sputtering, upheld candle, his long beard and odd clothes, Anders resembled a creature from legend or faery, a sorcerer or wizard. It sits here, as it has since it came, and may the demons drive it hence. Anders scowled at the boys, and all his wrinkles deepened. Invention of hell. A foul thing, dye ken. He looked over his shoulder when the boys were before him. Jack saw that Anders did not even like being in the shed with the train. Half its cargo is aboard, and it, too, stinks of hell. Jack stepped into the open end of the shed, forcing Anders to follow him. Richard stumbled after, rubbing his eyes. The little train sat pointing west on the tracksan oddlooking engine, a boxcar, a flatcar covered with a straining tarp. From this last car came the smell Anders so disliked. It was a wrong smell, not of the Territories, both metallic and greasy. Richard immediately went to one of the interior angles of the shed, sat down on the floor with his back to the wall, and closed his eyes. Dye ken its workings, my Lord? Anders asked in a low voice. Jack shook his head and walked up along the tracks to the head of the train. Yes, there were Anderss demons. They were box batteries, just as Jack had supposed. Sixteen of them, in two rows strung together in a metal container supported by the cabs first four wheels. The entire front part of the train looked like a more sophisticated version of a deliveryboys bicyclecartbut where the bicycle itself should have been was a little cab which reminded Jack of something else . . . something he could not immediately identify. The demons talk to the upright stick, Anders said from behind him. Jack hoisted himself up into the little cab. The stick Anders had mentioned was a gearshift set in a slot with three notches. Then Jack knew what the little cab resembled. The whole train ran on the same principle as a golf cart. Batterypowered, it had only three gears forward, neutral, and reverse. It was the only sort of train that might possibly work in the Territories, and Morgan Sloat must have had it specially constructed for him. The demons in the boxes spit and spark, and talk to the stick, and the stick moves the train, my Lord. Anders hovered anxiously beside the cab, his face contorting into an astonishing display of wrinkles. You were going to leave in the morning? Jack asked the old man. Aye. But the train is ready now? Yes, my Lord. Jack nodded, and jumped down. Whats the cargo? Devilthings, Anders said grimly. For the bad Wolfs. To take to the black hotel. Id be a jump ahead of Morgan Sloat if I left now, Jack thought. And looked uneasily over at Richard, who had managed to put himself asleep again. If it werent for pigheaded, hypochondriacal Rational Richard, he would never have stumbled onto Sloats choochoo; and Sloat would have been able to use the devilthingsweapons of some kind, surelyagainst him as soon as he got near the black hotel. For the hotel was the end of his quest, he was sure of that now. And all of that seemed to argue that Richard, as helpless and annoying as he now was, was going to be more important to his quest than Jack had ever imagined. The son of Sawyer and the son of Sloat the son of Prince Philip Sawtelle and the son of Morgan of Orris. For an instant the world wheeled above Jack and he snagged a seconds insight that Richard might just be essential to whatever he was going to have to do in the black hotel. Then Richard snuffled and let his mouth drop open, and the feeling of momentary comprehension slipped away from Jack. Lets have a look at those devilthings, he said. He whirled around and marched back down the length of the train, along the way noticing for the first time that the floor of the octagonal shed was in two sectionsmost of it was one round circular mass, like an enormous dinner plate. Then there was a break in the wood, and what was beyond the perimeter of the circle extended to the walls. Jack had never heard of a roundhouse, but he understood the concept the circular part of the floor could turn a hundred and eighty degrees. Normally, trains or coaches came in from the east, and returned in the same direction. The tarpaulin had been tied down over the cargo with thick brown cord so hairy it looked like steel wool. Jack strained to lift an edge, peered under, saw only blackness. Help me, he said, turning to Anders. The old man stepped forward, frowning, and with one strong, deft motion released a knot. The tarpaulin loosened and sagged. Now when Jack lifted its edge, he saw that half of the flatcar held a row of wooden boxes stencilled MACHINE PARTS. Guns, he thought Morgan is arming his rebel Wolfs. The other half of the space beneath the tarp was occupied by bulky rectangular packages of a squashylooking substance wrapped in layers of clear plastic sheeting.

Jack had no idea what this substance might be, but he was pretty sure it wasnt Wonder Bread. He dropped the tarpaulin and stepped back, and Anders pulled at the thick rope and knotted it again. Were going tonight, Jack said, having just decided this. But my Lord Jason . . . the Blasted Lands . . . at night . . . dye ken I ken, all right, Jack said. I ken that Ill need all the surprise I can whip up. Morgan and that man the Wolfs call He of the Lashes are going to be looking for me, and if I show up twelve hours before anybody is expecting this train, Richard and I might get away alive. Anders nodded gloomily, and again looked like an oversize dog accommodating itself to unhappy knowledge. Jack looked at Richard againasleep, sitting up with his mouth open. As if he knew what was in Jacks mind, Anders, too, looked toward sleeping Richard. Did Morgan of Orris have a son? Jack asked. He did, my Lord. Morgans brief marriage had issuea boy child named Rushton. And what became of Rushton? As if I couldnt guess. He died, Anders said simply. Morgan of Orris was not meant to be a father. Jack shuddered, remembering how his enemy had torn his way through the air and nearly killed Wolfs entire herd. Were going, he said. Will you please help me get Richard into the cab, Anders? My Lord . . . Anders hung his head, then lifted it and gave Jack a look of almost parental concern. The journey will require at least two days, perhaps three, before ye reach the western shore. Have ye any food? Would ye share my evening meal? Jack shook his head, impatient to begin this last leg of his journey to the Talisman, but then his stomach abruptly growled, reminding him of how long it had been since he had eaten anything but the RingDings and stale Famous Amos cookies in Albert the Blobs room. Well, he said, I suppose another half hour wont make any difference. Thank you, Anders. Help me get Richard up on his feet, will you? And maybe, he thought, he wasnt so eager to cross the Blasted Lands after all. The two of them jerked Richard to his feet. Like the Dormouse, he opened his eyes, smiled, and sagged back to sleep again. Food, Jack said. Real food. You up for that, chum? I never eat in dreams, Richard answered with surreal rationality. He yawned, then wiped his eyes. He gradually had found his feet, and no longer leaned against Anders and Jack. I am pretty hungry, though, to tell you the truth. Im having a long dream, arent I, Jack? He seemed almost proud of it. Yep, said Jack. Say, is that the train were going to take? It looks like a cartoon. Yep. Can you drive that thing, Jack? Its my dream, I know, but Its about as hard to operate as my old electric train set, Jack said. I can drive it, and so can you. I dont want to, Richard said, and that cringing, whining tone came back into his voice again. I dont want to get on that train at all. I want to go back to my room. Come and have some food instead, Jack said, and found himself leading Richard out of the shed. Then were on our way to California. And so the Territories showed one of its best faces to the boys immediately before they entered the Blasted Lands. Anders gave them thick sweet slices of bread clearly made from the grain growing around The Depot, kebabs of tender sections of meat and plump juicy unfamiliar vegetables, a spicy pink juice that Jack for some reason thought of as papaya though he knew it was not. Richard chewed in a happy trance, the juice running down his chin until Jack wiped it off for him. California, he said once. I should have known. Assuming that he was alluding to that states reputation for craziness, Jack did not question him. He was more concerned about what the two of them were doing to Anderss presumably limited stock of food, but the old man kept nipping behind the counter, where he or his father before him had installed a small woodburning stove, and returning with yet more food. Corn muffins, calfsfoot jelly, things that looked like chicken legs but tasted of . . . what? Frankincense and myrrh? Flowers? The taste fairly exploded over his tongue, and he thought that he, too, might begin to drool. The three of them sat around a little table in the warm and mellow room. At the end of the meal Anders almost shyly brought forth a heavy beaker halffilled with red wine. Feeling as if he were following someone elses script, Jack drank a small glassful. 3 Two hours later, beginning to feel drowsy, Jack wondered if that enormous meal had been an equally enormous error. First of all, there had been the departure from EllisBreaks and The Depot, which had not gone easily; secondly, there was Richard, who threatened to go seriously crazy; and thirdly, and above all else, there were the Blasted Lands. Which were far crazier than Richard would ever be, and which absolutely demanded concentrated attention. After the meal the three of them had returned to the shed, and the trouble had started. Jack knew that he was fearful of whatever might be aheadand, he now knew, that fear was perfectly justifiedand perhaps his trepidation had made him behave less well than he should have. The first difficulty had come when he tried to pay old Anders with the coin Captain Farren had given him. Anders responded as if his beloved Jason had just stabbed him in the back. Sacrilege! Outrage! By offering the coin, Jack had done more than merely insult the old liveryman; he had metaphorically smeared mud on his religion. Supernaturally restored divine beings apparently were not supposed to offer coins to their followers. Anders had been upset enough to smash his hand into the devilbox, as he called the metal container for the rank of batteries, and Jack knew that Anders had been mightily tempted to strike another target besides the train. Jack had managed only a semitruce Anders did not want his apologies any more than he wanted his money. The old man had finally calmed down once he realized the extent of the boys dismay, but he did not really return to his normal behavior until Jack speculated out loud that the Captain Farren coin might have other functions, other roles for him. Yere not Jason entire, the old man gloomed, yet the Queens coin may aid ye toward yer destiny. He shook his head heavily. His farewell wave had been distinctly halfhearted. But a good portion of that had been due to Richard. What had begun as a sort of childish panic had quickly blossomed into fullblown terror. Richard had refused to get in the cab. Up until that moment he had mooned around the shed, not looking at the train, seemingly in an uncaring daze. Then he had realized that Jack was serious about getting him on that thing, and he had freakedand, strangely, it had been the idea of ending up in California which had disturbed him most. NO! NO! CANT! Richard had yelled when Jack urged him toward the train. I WANT TO GO BACK TO MY ROOM! They might be following us, Richard, Jack said wearily. We have to get going. He reached out and took Richards arm. This is all a dream, remember? Oh my Lord, oh my Lord, Anders had said, moving aimlessly around in the big shed, and Jack understood that for once the liveryman was not addressing him. I HAVE TO GO BACK TO MY ROOM! Richard squalled. His eyes were clamped shut so tightly that a single painful crease ran from temple to temple. Echoes of Wolf again. Jack had tried to pull Richard toward the train, but Richard had stuck fast, like a mule. I CANT GO THERE! he yelled. Well, you cant stay here, either, Jack said. He made another futile effort at yanking Richard toward the train, and this time actually budged him a foot or two. Richard, he said, this is ridiculous. Do you want to be here alone? Do you want to be left alone in the Territories? Richard shook his head. Then come with me. Its time. In two days well be in California. Bad business, Anders muttered to himself, watching the boys. Richard simply continued to shake his head, offering a single comprehensive negative. I cant go there, he repeated. I cant get on that train and I cant go there. California? Richard bit his mouth into a lipless seam and closed his eyes again. Oh hell, Jack said. Can you help me, Anders? The huge old man gave him a dismayed, almost disgusted look, then marched across the room and scooped up Richard in his armsas if Richard were the size of a puppy. The boy let out a distinctly puppyish squeal. Anders dropped him onto the padded bench in the cab. Jack! Richard called, afraid that he somehow was going to wind up in the Blasted Lands all by himself. Im here, Jack said, and was in fact already climbing into the other side of the cab. Thank you, Anders, he said to the old liveryman, who nodded gloomily and retreated back into a corner of the shed. Take care. Richard had begun to weep, and Anders looked at him without pity. Jack pushed the ignition button, and two enormous blue sparks shot out from the devilbox just as the engine whirred into life. Here goes, Jack said, and eased the lever forward. The train began to glide out of the shed. Richard whimpered and drew up his knees. Saying something like Nonsense or ImpossibleJack chiefly heard the hiss of the sibilantshe buried his face between his knees. He looked as though he were trying to become a circle. Jack waved to Anders, who waved back, and then they were out of the lighted shed and were covered only by the vast dark sky. Anderss silhouette appeared in the opening through which they had gone, as if he had decided to run after them. The train was not capable of going more than thirty miles an hour, Jack thought, and at present was doing no better than eight or nine. This seemed excruciatingly slow. West, Jack said to himself, west, west, west. Anders stepped back inside the shed, and his beard lay against his massive chest like a covering of frost. The train lurched forwardanother sizzling blue spark snapped upwardand Jack turned around on the padded seat to see what was coming. NO! Richard screamed, almost making Jack fall out of the cab. I CANT! CANT GO THERE! He had drawn his head up from his knees, but he wasnt seeing anythinghis eyes were still clamped shut, and his whole face looked like a knuckle. Be quiet, Jack said. Ahead the tracks arrowed through the endless fields of waving grain; dim mountains, old teeth, floated in the western clouds. Jack glanced one last time over his shoulder and saw the little oasis of warmth and light which was The Depot and the octagonal shed, slipping slowly backward behind him. Anders was a tall shadow in a lighted doorway. Jack gave a final wave, and the tall shadow waved, too. Jack turned around again and looked over the immensity of grain, all that lyric distance. If this was what the Blasted Lands were like, the next two days were going to be positively restful. Of course they were not, not like that at all. Even in the moonlit dark he could tell that the grain was thinning out, becoming scrubbyabout half an hour out of The Depot the change had begun. Even the color seemed wrong now, almost artificial, no longer the beautiful organic yellow he had seen before, but the yellow of something left too near a powerful heat sourcethe yellow of something with most of the life bleached out of it. Richard now had a similar quality. For a time he had hyperventilated, then he had wept as silently and shamelessly as a jilted girl, then he had fallen into a twitchy sleep. Cant go back, he had muttered in his sleep, or such were the words Jack thought he had heard. In sleep he seemed to dwindle. The whole character of the landscape had begun to alter. From the broad sweep of the plains in EllisBreaks, the land had mutated to secretive little hollows and dark little valleys crowded with black trees. Huge boulders lay everywhere, skulls, eggs, giant teeth. The ground itself had changed, become much sandier. Twice the walls of the valleys grew up right alongside the tracks, and all Jack could see on either side were scrubby reddish cliffs covered with low creeping plants. Now and then he thought he saw an animal scurrying for cover, but the light was too weak, and the animal too quick, for him to identify it. But Jack had the eerie feeling that if the animal had frozen absolutely still in the middle of Rodeo Drive at high noon, he would still have been unable to identify ita suggestion that the head was twice the size it should be, that this animal was better off hiding from human sight. By the time ninety minutes had elapsed, Richard was moaning in his sleep and the landscape had passed into utter strangeness. The second time they had emerged from one of the claustrophobic valleys, Jack had been surprised by a sense of sudden opennessat first it was like being back in the Territories again, the Daydreamsland. Then he had noticed, even in the dark, how the trees were stunted and bent; then he had noticed the smell. Probably this had been slowly growing in his consciousness, but it was only after he had seen how the few trees scattered on the black plain had coiled themselves up like tortured beasts that he finally noticed the faint but unmistakable odor of corruption in the air. Corruption, hellfire. Here the Territories stank, or nearly. The odor of longdead flowers overlaid the land; and beneath it, as with Osmond, was a coarser, more potent odor. If Morgan, in either of his roles, had caused this, then he had in some sense brought death to the Territories, or so Jack thought. Now there were no more intricate valleys and hollows; now the land seemed a vast red desert. The queerly stunted trees dotted the sloping sides of this great desert. Before Jack, the twin silver rails of the tracks rolled on through darkened reddish emptiness; to his side, empty desert also rolled away through the dark. The red land seemed empty, anyhow. For several hours Jack never actually caught sight of anything larger than the deformed little animals concealing themselves on the slopes of the railway cuttingsbut there were times when he thought he caught a sudden sliding movement in the corner of one eye, turned to see it, and it was gone. At first he thought he was being followed. Then, for a hectic time, no longer than twenty or thirty minutes, he imagined that he was being tracked by the dogthings from Thayer School. Wherever he looked, something had just ceased to movehad nipped behind one of the coiledup trees or slipped into the sand. During this time the wide desert of the Blasted Lands did not seem empty or dead, but full of slithery, hidden life. Jack pushed forward on the trains gearshift (as if that could help) and urged the little train to go faster, faster. Richard slumped in the ell of his seat, whimpering. Jack imagined all those beings, those things neither canine nor human, rushing toward them, and prayed that Richards eyes would stay closed. NO! Richard yelled, still sleeping. Jack nearly fell out of the cab. He could see Etheridge and Mr. Dufrey loping after them. They gained ground, their tongues lolling, their shoulders working. In the next second, he realized that he had seen only shadows travelling beside the train. The loping schoolboys and their headmaster had winked out like birthday candles. NOT THERE! Richard bawled. Jack inhaled carefully. He, they, were safe. The dangers of the Blasted Lands were overrated, mainly literary. In not very many hours the sun would lift itself up again. Jack raised his watch to the level of his eyes and saw that they had been on the train just under two hours. His mouth opened in a huge yawn, and he found himself regretting that he had eaten so much back in The Depot. A piece of cake, he thought, this is going to be And just as he was about to complete his paraphrase of the Burns lines old Anders had rather startlingly quoted, he saw the first of the fireballs, which destroyed his complacency forever. 4 A ball of light at least ten feet in diameter tumbled over the edge of the horizon, sizzling hot, and at first arrowed straight toward the train. Holy shit, Jack muttered to himself, remembering what Anders had said about the balls of fire. If a man gets too close to one of those fireballs, he gets turrible sick . . . loses his hair . . . soresre apt to raise all over his body . . . he begins to vomit . . . vomits and vomits until his stomach ruptures and his throat bursts. . . . He swallowed, hardit was like swallowing a pound of nails. Please, God, he said aloud. The giant ball of light sped straight toward him, as though it owned a mind and had decided to erase Jack Sawyer and Richard Sloat from the earth. Radiation poisoning. Jacks stomach contracted, and his testicles froze up under his body. Radiation poisoning. Vomits and vomits until his stomach ruptures . . . The excellent dinner Anders had given him nearly leaped out of his stomach. The fireball continued to roll straight toward the train, shooting out sparks and sizzling with its own fiery energy. Behind it lengthened a glowing golden trail which seemed magically to instigate other snapping, burning lines in the red earth. Just when the fireball bounced up off the earth and took a zagging bounce like a giant tennis ball, wandering harmlessly off to the left, Jack had his first clear glimpse of the creatures he had all along thought were following them. The reddishgolden light of the wandering fireball, and the residual glow of the old trails in the earth, illuminated a group of deformedlooking beasts which had evidently been following the train. They were dogs, or once had been dogs, or their ancestors had been dogs, and Jack glanced uneasily at Richard to make sure that he was still sleeping. The creatures falling behind the train flattened out on the ground like snakes. Their heads were doglike, Jack saw, but their bodies had only vestigial hind legs and were, as far as he could see, hairless and tailless. They looked wetthe pink hairless skin glistened like that of newborn mice. They snarled, hating to be seen. It had been these awful mutant dogs that Jack had seen on the banks of the railway cutting. Exposed, flattened out like reptiles, they hissed and snarled and began creeping awaythey, too, feared the fireballs and the trails the fireballs left on the earth. Then Jack caught the odor of the fireball, now moving swiftly, somehow almost angrily, toward the horizon again, igniting an entire row of the stunted trees. Hellfire, corruption. Another of the fireballs came cruising over the horizon and blazed away off to the boys left. The stink of missed connections, of blasted hopes and evil desiresJack, with his heart lodged just under his tongue, imagined he found all this in the foul smell broadcast by the fireball. Mewing, the crowd of mutant dogs had dispersed into the threat of glinting teeth, a whisper of surreptitious movement, the hushushush of heavy legless bodies dragged through red dust. How many of them were there? From the base of a burning tree which tried to hide its head in its trunk two of the deformed dogs bared long teeth at him. Then another fireball lurched over the wide horizon, spinning off a wide glowing track a distance from the train, and Jack momentarily glimpsed what looked like a ramshackle little shed set just below the curve of the desert wall. Before it stood a large humanoid figure, male, looking toward him. An impression of size, hairiness, force, malice . . . Jack was indelibly conscious of the slowness of Anderss little train, of his and Richards exposure to anything that might want to investigate them a little more closely. The first fireball had dispatched the horrible dogthings, but human residents of the Blasted Lands might prove more difficult to overcome. Before the light diminished into the glowing trail, Jack saw that the figure before the shed was following his progress, turning a great shaggy head as the train passed by. If what he had seen were dogs, then what would the people be like? In the last of the flaring light from the ball of fire, the manlike being scuttled around the side of its dwelling. A thick reptilian tail swung from its hindquarters, and then the thing had slipped around the side of the building, and then it was dark again and nothingdogs, manbeast, shedwas visible. Jack could not even be sure that he had really seen it. Richard jerked in his sleep, and Jack pushed his hand against the simple gearshift, vainly trying for more speed. The dognoises gradually faded behind them. Sweating, Jack raised his left wrist again to the level of his eyes and saw that only fifteen minutes had passed since the last time hed checked his watch. He astonished himself by yawning again, and again regretted eating so much at The Depot. NO! Richard screamed. NO! I CANT GO THERE! There? Jack wondered. Where was there? California? Or was it anywhere threatening, anywhere Richards precarious control, as insecure as an unbroken horse, might slip away from him? 5 All night Jack stood at the gearshift while Richard slept, watching the trails of the departed fireballs flicker along the reddish surface of the earth. Their odor, of dead flowers and hidden corruption, filled the air. From time to time he heard the chatter of the mutant dogs, or of other poor creatures, rising from the roots of the stunted, ingrown trees which still dotted the landscape. The ranks of batteries occasionally sent up snapping arcs of blue. Richard was in a state beyond mere sleep, wrapped in an unconsciousness he both required and had willed. He made no more tortured outcriesin fact he did nothing but slump into his corner of the cab and breathe shallowly, as if even respiration took more energy than he had. Jack halfprayed for, halffeared the coming of the light. When morning came, he would be able to see the animals; but what else might he have to see? From time to time he glanced over at Richard. His friends skin seemed oddly pale, an almost ghostly shade of gray. 6 Morning came with a relaxation of the darkness. A band of pink appeared along the bowllike edge of the eastern horizon, and soon a rosy stripe grew up beneath it, pushing the optimistic pinkness higher in the sky. Jacks eyes felt almost as red as that stripe, and his legs ached. Richard lay across the whole of the cabs little seat, still breathing in a restricted, almost reluctant way. It was true, Jack sawRichards face did seem peculiarly gray. His eyelids fluttered in a dream, and Jack hoped that his friend was not about to erupt in another of his screams. Richards mouth dropped open, but what emerged was the tip of his tongue, not a loud outcry. Richard passed his tongue along his upper lip, snorted, then fell back into his stupefied coma. Although Jack wished desperately to sit down and close his own eyes, he did not disturb Richard. For the more Jack saw as the new light filled in the details of the Blasted Lands, the more he hoped Richards unconsciousness would endure as long as he himself could endure the conditions of Anderss cranky little train. He was anything but eager to witness the response of Richard Sloat to the idiosyncrasies of the Blasted Lands. A small amount of pain, a quantity of exhaustionthese were a minimal price to pay for what he knew must be a temporary peace. What he saw through his squinting eyes was a landscape in which nothing seemed to have escaped withering, crippling damage. By moonlight, it had seemed a vast desert, though a desert furnished with trees. Now Jack took in that his desert was actually nothing of the sort. What he had taken for a reddish variety of sand was a loose, powdery soilit looked as though a man would sink in it up to his ankles, if not his knees. From this starved dry soil grew the wretched trees. Looked at directly, these were much as they had appeared by night, so stunted they seemed to be straining over in an attempt to flee back under their own coiling roots. This was bad enoughbad enough for Rational Richard, anyhow. But when you saw one of these trees obliquely, out of the side of your eye, then you saw a living creature in tormentthe straining branches were arms thrown up over an agonized face caught in a frozen scream. As long as Jack was not looking directly at the trees, he saw their tortured faces in perfect detail, the open O of the mouth, the staring eyes and the drooping nose, the long, agonized wrinkles running down the cheeks. They were cursing, pleading, howling at himtheir unheard voices hung in the air like smoke. Jack groaned. Like all the Blasted Lands, these trees had been poisoned. The reddish land stretched out for miles on either side, dotted here and there with patches of acridlooking yellow grass bright as urine or new paint. If it had not been for the hideous coloration of the long grass, these areas would have resembled oases, for each lay beside a small round body of water. The water was black, and oily patches floated on its skin. Thicker than water, somehow; itself oily, poisonous. The second of these false oases that Jack saw began to ripple sluggishly as the train went past, and at first Jack thought with horror that the black water itself was alive, a being as tormented as the trees he no longer wished to see. Then he momentarily saw something break the surface of the thick fluid, a broad black back or side which rolled over before a wide, ravenous mouth appeared, biting down on nothing. A suggestion of scales that would have been iridescent if the creature had not been discolored by the pool. Holy cow, Jack thought, was that a fish? It seemed to him to have been nearly twenty feet long, too big to inhabit the little pool. A long tail roiled the water before the entire enormous creature slipped back down into what must have been the pools considerable depth. Jack looked up sharply at the horizon, imagining that he had momentarily seen the round shape of a head peering over it. And then he had another of those shocks of a sudden displacement, similar to that the Loch Ness monster, or whatever it was, had given him. How could a head peer over the horizon, for Gods sake? Because the horizon wasnt the real horizon, he finally understoodall night, and for as long as it took him to really see what lay at the end of his vision, he had drastically underestimated the size of the Blasted Lands. Jack finally understood, as the sun began to force its way up into the world again, that he was in a broad valley, and the rim far off to either side was not the edge of the world but the craggy top of a range of hills. Anybody or anything could be tracking him, keeping just out of sight past the rim of the surrounding hills. He remembered the humanoid being with the crocodiles tail that had slipped around the side of the little shed. Could he have been following Jack all night, waiting for him to fall asleep? The train pooppooped through the lurid valley, moving with a suddenly maddening lack of speed. He scanned the entire rim of hills about him, seeing nothing but new morning sunlight gild the upright rocks far above him. Jack turned around completely in the cab, fear and tension for the moment completely negating his tiredness. Richard threw one arm over his eyes, and slept on. Anything, anybody might have been keeping pace with them, waiting them out. A slow, almost hidden movement off to his left made him catch his breath. A movement huge, slithery . . . Jack had a vision of a halfdozen of the crocodilemen crawling over the rim of the hills toward him, and he shielded his eyes with his hands and stared at the place where he thought he had seen them. The rocks were stained the same red as the powdery soil, and between them a deep trail wound its way over the crest of the hills through a cleft in the highstanding rocks. What was moving between two of the standing rocks was a shape not even vaguely human. It was a snakeat least, Jack thought it was . . . It had slipped into a concealed section of the trail, and Jack saw only a huge sleek round reptilian body disappearing behind the rocks. The skin of the creature seemed oddly ridged; burned, tooa suggestion, just before it disappeared, of ragged black holes in its side . . . Jack craned to see the place where it would emerge, and in seconds witnessed the wholly unnerving spectacle of the head of a giant worm, onequarter buried in the thick red dust, swivelling toward him. It had hooded, filmy eyes, but it was the head of a worm. Some other animal bolted from under a rock, heavy head and dragging body, and as the worms big head darted toward it, Jack saw that the fleeing creature was one of the mutant dogs. The worm opened a mouth like the slot of a corner mailbox and neatly scooped up the frantic dogthing. Jack clearly heard the snapping of bones. The dogs wailing ceased. The huge worm swallowed the dog as neatly as if it were a pill. Now, immediately before the worms monstrous form, lay one of the black trails left by the fireballs, and as Jack watched, the long creature burrowed into the dust like a cruise ship sinking beneath the surface of the ocean. It apparently understood that the traces of the fireballs could do it damage and, wormlike, it would dig beneath them. Jack watched as the ugly thing completely disappeared into the red powder. And then cast his eyes uneasily over the whole of the long red slope dotted with pubic outpatches of the shiny yellow grass, wondering where it would surface again. When he could be at least reasonably certain that the worm was not going to try to ingest the train, Jack went back to inspecting the ridge of rocky hills about him. 7 Before Richard woke up late that afternoon, Jack saw at least one unmistakable head peering over the rim of the hills; two more jouncing and deadly fireballs careering down at him; the headless skeleton of what he at first took to be a large rabbit, then sickeningly knew was a human baby, picked shining clean, lying beside the tracks and closely followed by the round babyish gleaming skull of the same baby, halfsunk in the loose soil. And he saw a pack of the bigheaded dogs, more damaged than the others he had seen, pathetically come crawling after the train, drooling with hunger; three board shacks, human habitations, propped up over the thick dust on stilts, promising that somewhere out in that stinking poisoned wilderness which was the Blasted Lands other people schemed and hunted for food; a small leathery bird, featherless, withthis a real Territories toucha bearded monkeylike face, and clearly delineated fingers protruding from the tips of its wings; and worst of all (apart from what he thought he saw), two completely unrecognizable animals drinking from one of the black poolsanimals with long teeth and human eyes and forequarters like those of pigs, hindquarters like those of big cats. Their faces were matted with hair. As the train pulled past the animals, Jack saw that the testicles of the male had swollen to the size of pillows and sagged onto the ground. What had made such monstrosities? Nuclear damage, Jack supposed, since scarcely anything else had such power to deform nature. The creatures, themselves poisoned from birth, snuffled up the equally poisoned water and snarled at the little train as it passed. Our world could look like this someday, Jack thought. What a treat. 8 Then there were the things he thought he saw. His skin began to feel hot and itchyhe had already dumped the serapelike overgarment which had replaced Myles P. Kigers coat onto the floor of the cab. Before noon he stripped off his homespun shirt, too. There was a terrible taste in his mouth, an acidic combination of rusty metal and rotten fruit. Sweat ran from his hairline into his eyes. He was so tired he began to dream standing up, eyes open and stinging with sweat. He saw great packs of the obscene dogs scuttling over the hills; he saw the reddish clouds overhead open up and reach down for Richard and himself with long flaming arms, devils arms.

When at last his eyes finally did close, he saw Morgan of Orris, twelve feet tall and dressed in black, shooting thunderbolts all around him, tearing the earth into great dusty spouts and craters. Richard groaned and muttered, No, no, no. Morgan of Orris blew apart like a wisp of fog, and Jacks painful eyes flew open. Jack? Richard said. The red land ahead of the train was empty but for the blackened trails of the fireballs. Jack wiped his eyes and looked at Richard, feebly stretching. Yeah, he said. How are you? Richard lay back against the stiff seat, blinking out of his drawn gray face. Sorry I asked, Jack said. No, Richard said, Im better, really, and Jack felt at least a portion of his tension leave him. I still have a headache, but Im better. You were making a lot of noise in your . . . um . . . Jack said, unsure of how much reality his friend could stand. In my sleep. Yeah, I guess I probably did. Richards face worked, but for once Jack did not brace himself against a scream. I know Im not dreaming now, Jack. And I know I dont have a brain tumor. Do you know where you are? On that train. That old mans train. In what he called the Blasted Lands. Well, Ill be doubledamned, Jack said, smiling. Richard blushed beneath his gray pallor. What brought this on? Jack asked, still not quite sure that he could trust Richards transformation. Well, I knew I wasnt dreaming, Richard said, and his cheeks grew even redder. I guess I . . . I guess it was just time to stop fighting it. If were in the Territories, then were in the Territories, no matter how impossible it is. His eyes found Jacks, and the trace of humor in them startled his friend. You remember that gigantic hourglass back in The Depot? When Jack nodded, Richard said, Well, that was it, really . . . when I saw that thing, I knew I wasnt just making everything up. Because I knew I couldnt have made up that thing. Couldnt. Just . . . couldnt. If I were going to invent a primitive clock, itd have all sorts of wheels, and big pulleys . . . it wouldnt be so simple. So I didnt make it up. Therefore it was real. Therefore everything else was real, too. Well, how do you feel now? Jack asked. Youve been asleep for a long time. Im still so tired I can hardly hold my head up. I dont feel very good in general, Im afraid. Richard, I have to ask you this. Is there some reason why youd be afraid to go to California? Richard looked down and shook his head. Have you ever heard of a place called the black hotel? Richard continued to shake his head. He was not telling the truth, but as Jack recognized, he was facing as much of it as he could. Anything morefor Jack was suddenly sure that there was more, quite a lot of itwould have to wait. Until they actually reached the black hotel, maybe. Rushtons Twinner, Jasons Twinner yes, together they would reach the Talismans home and prison. Well, all right, he said. Can you walk okay? I guess so. Good, because theres something I want to do nowsince youre not dying of a brain tumor anymore, I mean. And I need your help. Whats that? Richard asked. He wiped his face with a trembling hand. I want to open up one or two of those cases on the flatcar and see if we can get ourselves some weapons. I hate and detest guns, Richard said. You should, too. If nobody had any guns, your father Yeah, and if pigs had wings theyd fly, Jack said. Im pretty sure somebodys following us. Well, maybe its my dad, Richard said in a hopeful voice. Jack grunted, and eased the little gearshift out of the first slot. The train appreciably began to lose power. When it had coasted to a halt, Jack put the shift in neutral. Can you climb down okay, do you think? Oh sure, Richard said, and stood up too quickly. His legs bowed out at the knees, and he sat down hard on the bench. His face now seemed even grayer than it had been, and moisture shone on his forehead and upper lip. Ah, maybe not, he whispered. Just take it easy, Jack said, and moved beside him and placed one hand on the crook of his elbow, the other on Richards damp, warm forehead. Relax. Richard closed his eyes briefly, then looked into Jacks own eyes with an expression of perfect trust. I tried to do it too fast, he said. Im all pins and needles from staying in the same position for so long. Nice and easy, then, Jack said, and helped a hissing Richard get to his feet. Hurts. Only for a little while. I need your help, Richard. Richard experimentally stepped forward, and hissed in air again. Ooch. He moved the other leg forward. Then he leaned forward slightly and slapped his palms against his thighs and calves. As Jack watched, Richards face altered, but this time not with paina look of almost rubbery astonishment had printed itself there. Jack followed the direction of his friends eyes and saw one of the featherless, monkeyfaced birds gliding past the front of the train. Yeah, therere a lot of funny things out here, Jack said. Im going to feel a lot better if we can find some guns under that tarp. What do you suppose is on the other side of those hills? Richard asked. More of the same? No, I think there are more people over there, Jack said. If you can call them people. Ive caught somebody watching us twice. At the expression of quick panic which flooded into Richards face, Jack said, I dont think it was anybody from your school. But it could be something just as badIm not trying to scare you, buddy, but Ive seen a little more of the Blasted Lands than you have. The Blasted Lands, Richard said dubiously. He squinted out at the red dusty valley with its scabrous patches of pisscolored grass. Ohthat treeah . . . I know, Jack said. You have to just sort of learn to ignore it. Who on earth would create this kind of devastation? Richard asked. This isnt natural, you know. Maybe well find out someday. Jack helped Richard leave the cab, so that both stood on a narrow running board that covered the tops of the wheels. Dont get down in that dust, he warned Richard. We dont know how deep it is. I dont want to have to pull you out of it. Richard shudderedbut it may have been because he had just noticed out of the side of his eye another of the screaming, anguished trees. Together the two boys edged along the side of the stationary train until they could swing onto the coupling of the empty boxcar. From there a narrow metal ladder led to the roof of the car. On the boxcars far end another ladder let them descend to the flatcar. Jack pulled at the thick hairy rope, trying to remember how Anders had loosened it so easily. I think its here, Richard said, holding up a twisted loop like a hangmans noose. Jack? Give it a try. Richard was not strong enough to loosen the knot by himself, but when Jack helped him tug on the protruding cord, the noose smoothly disappeared, and the tarpaulin collapsed over the nest of boxes. Jack pulled the edge back over those closestMACHINE PARTSand over a smaller set of boxes Jack had not seen before, marked LENSES. There they are, he said. I just wish we had a crowbar. He glanced up toward the rim of the valley, and a tortured tree opened its mouth and silently yowled. Was that another head up there, peering over? It might have been one of the enormous worms, sliding toward them. Come on, lets try to push the top off one of these boxes, he said, and Richard meekly came toward him. After six mighty heaves against the top of one of the crates, Jack finally felt movement and heard the nails creak. Richard continued to strain at his side of the box. Thats all right, Jack said to him. Richard seemed even grayer and less healthy than he had before exerting himself. Ill get it, next push. Richard stepped back and almost collapsed over one of the smaller boxes. He straightened himself and began to probe further under the loose tarpaulin. Jack set himself before the tall box and clamped his jaw shut. He placed his hands on the corner of the lid. After taking in a long breath, he pushed up until his muscles began to shake. Just before he was going to have to ease up, the nails creaked again and began to slide out of the wood. Jack yelled AAAGH! and heaved the top off the box. Stacked inside the carton, slimy with grease, were half a dozen guns of a sort Jack had never seen beforelike greaseguns metamorphosing into butterflies, halfmechanical, halfinsectile. He pulled one out and looked at it more closely, trying to see if he could figure out how it worked. It was an automatic weapon, so it would need a clip. He bent down and used the barrel of the weapon to pry off the top of one of the LENSES cartons. As he had expected, in the second, smaller box stood a little pile of heavily greased clips packed in plastic beads. Its an Uzi, Richard said behind him. Israeli machinegun. Pretty fashionable weapon, I gather. The terrorists favorite toy. How do you know that? Jack asked, reaching in for another of the guns. I watch television. How do you think? Jack experimented with the clip, at first trying to fit it into the cavity upsidedown, then finding the correct position. Next he found the safety and clicked it off, then on again. Those things are so damn ugly, Richard said. You get one, too, so dont complain. Jack took a second clip for Richard, and after a moments consideration took all the clips out of the box, put two in his pockets, tossed two to Richard, who managed to catch them both, and slid the remaining clips into his haversack. Ugh, Richard said. I guess its insurance, Jack said. 9 Richard collapsed on the seat as soon as they got back to the cabthe trips up and down the two ladders and inching along the narrow strip of metal above the wheels had taken nearly all of his energy. But he made room for Jack to sit down and watched with heavylidded eyes while his friend started the train rolling again. Jack picked up his serape and began massaging his gun with it. What are you doing? Rubbing the grease off. Youd better do it, too, when Im done. For the rest of the day the two boys sat in the open cab of the train, sweating, trying not to take into account the wailing trees, the corrupt stink of the passing landscape, their hunger. Jack noticed that a little garden of open sores had bloomed around Richards mouth. Finally Jack took Richards Uzi from his hand, wiped it free of grease, and pushed in the clip. Sweat burned saltily in cracks on his lips. Jack closed his eyes. Maybe he had not seen those heads peering over the rim of the valley; maybe they were not being followed after all. He heard the batteries sizzle and send off a big snapping spark, and felt Richard jump at it. An instant later he was asleep, dreaming of food. 10 When Richard shook Jacks shoulder, bringing him up out of a world in which he had been eating a pizza the size of a truck tire, the shadows were just beginning to spread across the valley, softening the agony of the wailing trees. Even they, bending low and spreading their hands across their faces, seemed beautiful in the low, receding light. The deep red dust shimmered and glowed. The shadows printed themselves out along it, almost perceptibly lengthening. The terrible yellow grass was melting toward an almost mellow orange. Fading red sunlight painted itself slantingly along the rocks at the valleys rim. I just thought you might want to see this, Richard said. A few more small sores seemed to have appeared about his mouth. Richard grinned weakly. It seemed sort of specialthe spectrum, I mean. Jack feared that Richard was going to launch into a scientific explanation of the color shift at sunset, but his friend was too tired or sick for physics. In silence the two boys watched the twilight deepen all the colors about them, turning the western sky into purple glory. You know what else youre carrying on this thing? Richard asked. What else? Jack asked. In truth, he hardly cared. It could be nothing good. He hoped he might live to see another sunset as rich as this one, as large with feeling. Plastic explosive. All wrapped up in twopound packagesI think two pounds, anyhow. Youve got enough to blow up a whole city. If one of these guns goes off accidentally, or if someone else puts a bullet into those bags, this train is going to be nothing but a hole in the ground. I wont if you wont, Jack said. And let himself be taken by the sunsetit seemed oddly premonitory, a dream of accomplishment, and led him into memories of all he had undergone since leaving the Alhambra Inn and Gardens. He saw his mother drinking tea in the little shop, suddenly a tired old woman; Speedy Parker sitting at the base of a tree; Wolf tending his herd; Smokey and Lori from Oatleys horrible Tap; all the hated faces from the Sunlight Home Heck Bast, Sonny Singer, and the others. He missed Wolf with a particular and sharp poignancy, for the unfolding and deepening sunset summoned him up wholly, though Jack could not have explained why. He wished he could take Richards hand. Then he thought, Well, why not? and moved his hand along the bench until he encountered his friends rather grubby, clammy paw. He closed his fingers around it. I feel so sick, Richard said. This isnt likebefore. My stomach feels terrible, and my whole face is tingling. I think youll get better once we finally get out of this place, Jack said. But what proof do you have of that, doctor? he wondered. What proof do you have that youre not just poisoning him? He had none. He consoled himself with his newly invented (newly discovered?) idea that Richard was an essential part of whatever was going to happen at the black hotel. He was going to need Richard Sloat, and not just because Richard Sloat could tell plastic explosive from bags of fertilizer. Had Richard ever been to the black hotel before? Had he actually been in the Talismans vicinity? He glanced over at his friend, who was breathing shallowly and laboriously. Richards hand lay in his own like a cold waxen sculpture. I dont want this gun anymore, Richard said, pushing it off his lap. The smell is making me sick. Okay, Jack said, taking it onto his own lap with his free hand. One of the trees crept into his peripheral vision and howled soundlessly in torment. Soon the mutant dogs would begin foraging. Jack glanced up toward the hills to his leftRichards sideand saw a manlike figure slipping through the rocks. 11 Hey, he said, almost not believing. Indifferent to his shock, the lurid sunset continued to beautify the unbeautifiable. Hey, Richard. What? You sick, too? I think I saw somebody up there. On your side. He peered up at the tall rocks again, but saw no movement. I dont care, Richard said. Youd better care. See how theyre timing it? They want to get to us just when its too dark for us to see them. Richard cracked his left eye open and made a halfhearted inspection. Dont see anybody. Neither do I, now, but Im glad we went back and got these guns. Sit up straight and pay attention, Richard, if you want to get out of here alive. Youre such a cornball. Jeez. But Richard did pull himself up straight and open both his eyes. I really dont see anything up there, Jack. Its getting too dark. You probably imagined Hush, Jack said. He thought he had seen another body easing itself between the rocks at the valleys top. Theres two. I wonder if therell be another one? I wonder if therell be anything at all, Richard said. Why would anyone want to hurt us, anyhow? I mean, its not Jack turned his head and looked down the tracks ahead of the train. Something moved behind the trunk of one of the screaming trees. Something larger than a dog, Jack recorded. Uhoh, Jack said. I think another guy is up there waiting for us. For a moment, fear castrated himhe could not think of what to do to protect himself from the three assailants. His stomach froze. He picked up the Uzi from his lap and looked at it dumbly, wondering if he really would be able to use this weapon. Could Blasted Lands hijackers have guns, too? Richard, Im sorry, he said, but this time I think the shit is really going to hit the fan, and Im going to need your help. What can I do? Richard asked, his voice squeaky. Take your gun, Jack said, handing it to him. And I think we ought to kneel down so we dont give them so much of a target. He got on his knees and Richard imitated him in a slowmoving, underwater fashion. From behind them came a long cry, from above them another. They know we saw them, Richard said. But where are they? The question was almost immediately answered. Still visible in the dark purplish twilight, a manor what looked like a manburst out of cover and began running down the slope toward the train. Rags fluttered out behind him. He was screaming like an Indian and raising something in his hands. It appeared to be a flexible pole, and Jack was still trying to work out its function when he heardmore than sawa narrow shape slice through the air beside his head. Holy mackerel! Theyve got bows and arrows! he said. Richard groaned, and Jack feared that he would vomit all over both of them. I have to shoot him, he said. Richard gulped and made some noise that wasnt quite a word. Oh, hell, Jack said, and flicked off the safety on his Uzi. He raised his head and saw the ragged being behind him just loosing off another arrow. If the shot had been accurate, he would never have seen another thing, but the arrow whanged harmlessly into the side of the cab. Jack jerked up the Uzi and depressed the trigger. He expected none of what happened. He had thought that the gun would remain still in his hands and obediently expel a few shells. Instead, the Uzi jumped in his hands like an animal, making a series of noises loud enough to damage his eardrums. The stink of powder burned in his nose. The ragged man behind the train threw out his arms, but in amazement, not because he had been wounded. Jack finally thought to take his finger off the trigger. He had no idea of how many shots he had just wasted, or how many bullets remained in the clip. Didja get him, didja get him? Richard asked. The man was now running up the side of the valley, huge flat feet flapping. Then Jack saw that they were not feetthe man was walking on huge platelike constructions, the Blasted Lands equivalent of snowshoes. He was trying to make it to one of the trees for cover. He raised the Uzi with both hands and sighted down the short barrel. Then he gently squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked in his hands, but less than the first time. Bullets sprayed out in a wide arc, and at least one of them found its intended target, for the man lurched over sideways as though a truck had just smacked into him. His feet flew out of the snowshoes. Give me your gun, Jack said, and took the second Uzi from Richard. Still kneeling, he fired half a clip into the shadowy dark in front of the train and hoped he had killed the creature waiting up there. Another arrow rattled against the train, and another thunked solidly into the side of the boxcar. Richard was shaking and crying in the bottom of the cab. Load mine, Jack said, and jammed a clip from his pocket under Richards nose. He peered up the side of the valley for the second attacker. In less than a minute it would be too dark to see anything beneath the rim of the valley. I see him, Richard shouted. I saw himright there! He pointed toward a shadow moving silently, urgently, among the rocks, and Jack spent the rest of the second Uzis clip noisily blasting at it. When he was done, Richard took the machinegun from him and placed the other in his hands. Nize boyz, goot boyz, came a voice from the right sidehow far ahead of them it was impossible to tell. You stop now, I stop now, too, geddit? All done now, dis bizness. You nize boys, maybe you zell me dat gun. You kill plenty goot dat way, I zee. Jack! Richard whispered frantically, warning him. Throw away the bow and arrows, Jack yelled, still crouching beside Richard. Jack, you cant! Richard whispered. I trow dem way now, the voice came, still ahead of them. Something light puffed into the dust. You boyz stop going, zell me gun, geddit? Okay, Jack said. Come up here where we can see you. Geddit, the voice said. Jack pulled back on the gearshift, letting the train coast to a halt. When I holler, he whispered to Richard, jam it forward as fast as you can, okay? Oh, Jesus, Richard breathed. Jack checked that the safety was off on the gun Richard had just given him. A trickle of sweat ran from his forehead directly into his right eye. All goot now, yaz, the voice said. Boyz can siddup, yaz. Siddup, boys. Waygup, waygup, pleeze, pleeze. The train coasted toward the speaker. Put your hand on the shift, Jack whispered. Its coming soon. Richards trembling hand, looking too small and childlike to accomplish anything even slightly important, touched the gear lever. Jack had a sudden, vivid memory of old Anders kneeling before him on a rippling wooden floor, asking, But will you be safe, my Lord? He had answered flippantly, hardly taking the question seriously. What were the Blasted Lands to a boy who had humped out kegs for Smokey Updike? Now he was a lot more afraid that he was going to soil his pants than that Richard was going to lose his lunch all over the Territories version of Myles P. Kigers loden coat. A shout of laughter erupted in the darkness beside the cab, and Jack pulled himself upright, bringing up the gun, and yelled just as a heavy body hit the side of the cab and clung there. Richard shoved the gearshift forward, and the trainjerked forward. A naked hairy arm clamped itself on the side of the cab. So much for the wild west, Jack thought, and then the mans entire trunk reared up over them. Richard screeched, and Jack very nearly did evacuate his bowels into his underwear. The face was nearly all teethit was a face as instinctively evil as that of a rattler baring its fangs, and a drop of what Jack as instinctively assumed to be venom fell off one of the long, curved teeth. Except for the tiny nose, the creature looming over the boys looked very like a man with the head of a snake. In one webbed hand he raised a knife. Jack squeezed off an aimless, panicky shot. Then the creature altered and wavered back for a moment, and it took Jack a fraction of a second to see that the webbed hand and the knife were gone. The creature swung forward a bloody stump and left a smear of red on Jacks shirt. Jacks mind conveniently left him, and his fingers were able to point the Uzi straight at the creatures chest and pull the trigger back. A great hole opened redly in the middle of the mottled chest, and the dripping teeth snapped together. Jack kept the trigger depressed, and the Uzi raised its barrel by itself and destroyed the creatures head in a second or two of total carnage. Then it was gone. Only a large bloodstain on the side of the cab, and the smear of blood on Jacks shirt, showed that the two boys had not dreamed the entire encounter. Watch out! Richard yelled. I got him, Jack breathed. Whered he go? He fell off, Jack said. Hes dead. You shot his hand off, Richard whispered. Howd you do that? Jack held up his hands before him and saw how they shook. The stink of gunpowder encased them. I just sort of imitated someone with good aim. He put his hands down and licked his lips. Twelve hours later, as the sun came up again over the Blasted Lands, neither boy had sleptthey had spent the entire night as rigid as soldiers, holding their guns in their laps and straining to hear the smallest of noises. Remembering how much ammunition the train was carrying, every now and then Jack randomly aimed a few rounds at the lip of the valley. And that second entire day, if there were people or monsters in this far sector of the Blasted Lands, they let the boys pass unmolested. Which could mean, Jack tiredly thought, that they knew about the guns. Or that out here, so near to the western shore, nobody wanted to mess with Morgans train. He said none of this to Richard, whose eyes were filmy and unfocused, and who seemed feverish much of the time. 12 By evening of that day, Jack began to smell saltwater in the acrid air. 36 Jack and Richard Go to War 1 The sunset that night was widerthe land had begun to open out again as they approached the oceanbut not so spectacular. Jack stopped the train at the top of an eroded hill and climbed back to the flatcar again. He poked about for nearly an houruntil the sullen colors had faded from the sky and a quarter moon had risen in the eastand brought back six boxes, all marked LENSES. Open those, he told Richard. Get a count. Youre appointed Keeper of the Clips. Marvelous, Richard said in a wan voice. I knew I was getting all that education for something. Jack went back to the flatcar again and pried up the lid of one of the crates marked MACHINE PARTS. While he was doing this he heard a harsh, hoarse cry somewhere off in the darkness, followed by a shrill scream of pain. Jack? Jack, you back there? Right here! Jack called. He thought it very unwise for the two of them to be yelling back and forth like a couple of washerwomen over a back fence, but Richards voice suggested that he was close to panicking. You coming back pretty soon? Be right there! Jack called, levering faster and harder with the Uzis barrel. They were leaving the Blasted Lands behind, but Jack still didnt want to stand at a stop for too long. It would have been simpler if he could have just carried the box of machineguns back to the engine, but it was too heavy. They aint heavy, theyre my Uzis, Jack thought, and giggled a little in the dark. Jack? Richards voice was highpitched, frantic. Hold your water, chum, he said. Dont call me chum, Richard said. Nails shrieked out of the crates lid, and it came up enough for Jack to be able to pull it off. He grabbed two of the greaseguns and was starting back when he saw another boxit was about the size of a portableTV carton. A fold of the tarp had covered it previously. Jack went skittering across the top of the boxcar under the faint moonlight, feeling the breeze blow into his face. It was cleanno taint of rotted perfume, no feeling of corruption, just clean dampness and the unmistakable scent of salt. What were you doing? Richard scolded. Jack, we have guns! And we have bullets! Why did you want to go back and get more? Something could have climbed up here while you were playing around! More guns because machineguns have a tendency to overheat, Jack said. More bullets because we may have to shoot a lot. I watch TV, too, you see. He started back toward the flatcar again. He wanted to see what was in that square box. Richard grabbed him. Panic turned his hand into a birdlike talon. Richard, its going to be all right Something might grab you off! I think were almost out of the Bl Something might grab me off! Jack, dont leave me alone! Richard burst into tears. He did not turn away from Jack or put his hands to his face; he only stood there, his face twisted, his eyes spouting tears. He looked cruelly naked to Jack just then. Jack folded him into his arms and held him. If something gets you and kills you, what happens to me? Richard sobbed. How would I ever, ever, get out of this place? I dont know, Jack thought. I really dont know. 2 So Richard came with him on Jacks last trip to the travelling ammo dump on the flatcar. This meant boosting him up the ladder and then supporting him along the top of the boxcar and helping him carefully down, as one might help a crippled old lady across a street. Rational Richard was making a mental comebackbut physically he was growing steadily worse. Although preservative grease was bleeding out between its boards, the square box was marked FRUIT. Nor was that completely inaccurate, Jack discovered when they got it open. The box was full of pineapples. The exploding kind. Holy Hannah, Richard whispered. Whoever she is, Jack agreed. Help me. I think we can each get four or five down our shirts. Why do you want all this firepower? Richard asked. Are you expecting to fight an army? Something like that. 3 Richard looked up into the sky as he and Jack were recrossing the top of the boxcar, and a wave of faintness overtook him. Richard tottered and Jack had to grab him to keep him from toppling over the side. He had realized that he could recognize constellations of neither the Northern Hemisphere nor the Southern. Those were alien stars up there . . . but there were patterns, and somewhere in this unknown, unbelievable world, sailors might be navigating by them. It was that thought which brought the reality of all this home to Richardbrought it home with a final, undeniable thud. Then Jacks voice was calling him back from far away Hey, Richie! Jason! You almost fell over the side! Finally they were in the cab again. Jack pushed the lever into the forward gear, pressed down on the accelerator bar, and Morgan of Orriss oversized flashlight started to move forward again. Jack glanced down at the floor of the cab four Uzi machineguns, almost twenty piles of clips, ten to a pile, and ten hand grenades with pullpins that looked like the poptops of beercans. If we havent got enough stuff now, Jack said, we might as well forget it. What are you expecting, Jack? Jack only shook his head. Guess you must think Im a real jerk, huh? Richard asked. Jack grinned. Always have, chum. Dont call me chum! Chumchumchum! This time the old joke raised a small smile. Not much, and it rather highlighted the growing line of lipblisters on Richards mouth . . . but better than nothing. Will you be okay if I go back to sleep? Richard asked, brushing machinegun clips aside and settling in a corner of the cab with Jacks serape over him. All that climbing and carrying . . . I think I really must be sick because I feel really bushed. Ill be fine, Jack said. Indeed, he seemed to be getting a second wind. He supposed he would need it before long. I can smell the ocean, Richard said, and in his voice Jack heard an amazing mixture of love, loathing, nostalgia, and fear. Richards eyes slipped closed. Jack pushed the accelerator bar all the way down. His feeling that the endsome sort of endwas now close had never been stronger. 4 The last mean and miserable vestiges of the Blasted Lands were gone before the moon set. The grain had reappeared. It was coarser here than it had been in EllisBreaks, but it still radiated a feeling of cleanness and health. Jack heard the faint calling of birds which sounded like gulls. It was an inexpressibly lonely sound, in these great open rolling fields which smelled faintly of fruit and more pervasively of ocean salt. After midnight the train began to hum through stands of treesmost of them were evergreens, and their piney scent, mixed with the salty tang in the air, seemed to cement the connection between this place he was coming to and the place from which he had set out. He and his mother had never spent a great deal of time in northern Californiaperhaps because Bloat vacationed there oftenbut he remembered Lilys telling him that the land around Mendocino and Sausalito looked very much like New England, right down to the saltboxes and Cape Cods. Film companies in need of New England settings usually just went upstate rather than travelling all the way across the country, and most audiences never knew the difference. This is how it should be. In a weird way, Im coming back to the place I left behind. Richard Are you expecting to fight an army? He was glad Richard had gone to sleep, so he wouldnt have to answer that questionat least, not yet. Anders Devilthings. For the bad Wolfs. To take to the black hotel. The devilthings were Uzi machineguns, plastic explosive, grenades. The devilthings were here. The bad Wolfs were not. The boxcar, however, was empty, and Jack found that fact terribly persuasive. Heres a story for you, Richieboy, and Im very glad youre asleep so I dont have to tell it to you. Morgan knows Im coming, and hes planning a surprise party.

Only its werewolves instead of naked girls who are going to jump out of the cake, and theyre supposed to have Uzi machineguns and grenades as partyfavors. Well, we sort of hijacked his train, and were running ten or twelve hours ahead of schedule, but if were heading into an encampment full of Wolfs waiting to catch the Territories choochooand I think thats just what were doingwere going to need all the surprise we can get. Jack ran a hand up the side of his face. It would be easier to stop the train well away from wherever Morgans hitsquad was, and make a big circle around the encampment. Easier and safer, too. But that would leave the bad Wolfs around, Richie, can you dig it? He looked down at the arsenal on the floor of the cab and wondered if he could really be planning a commando raid on Morgans Wolf Brigade. Some commandos. Good old Jack Sawyer, King of the Vagabond Dishwashers, and His Comatose Sidekick, Richard. Jack wondered if he had gone crazy. He supposed he had, because that was exactly what he was planningit would be the last thing any of them would expect . . . and there had been too much, too much, too goddam much. He had been whipped; Wolf had been killed. They had destroyed Richards school and most of Richards sanity, and, for all he knew, Morgan Sloat was back in New Hampshire, harrying his mother. Crazy or not, payback time had come. Jack bent over, picked up one of the loaded Uzis, and held it over his arm as the tracks unrolled in front of him and the smell of salt grew steadily stronger. 5 During the small hours of the morning Jack slept awhile, leaning against the accelerator bar. It would not have comforted him much to know such a device was called a deadmans switch. When dawn came, it was Richard who woke him up. Something up ahead. Before looking at that, Jack took a good look at Richard. He had hoped that Richard would look better in daylight, but not even the cosmetic of dawn could disguise the fact that Richard was sick. The color of the new day had changed the dominant color in his skintone from gray to yellow . . . that was all. Hey! Train! Hello you big fuckin train! This shout was guttural, little more than an animal roar. Jack looked forward again. They were closing in on a narrow little pillbox of a building. Standing outside the guardhouse was a Wolfbut any resemblance to Jacks Wolf ended with the flaring orange eyes. This Wolfs head looked dreadfully flattened, as if a great hand had scythed off the curve of skull at the top. His face seemed to jut over his underslung jaw like a boulder teetering over a long drop. Even the present surprised joy on that face could not conceal its thick, brutal stupidity. Braided pigtails of hair hung from his cheeks. A scar in the shape of an X rode his forehead. The Wolf was wearing something like a mercenarys uniformor what he imagined a mercenarys uniform would look like. Baggy green pants were bloused out over black bootsbut the toes of the boots had been cut off, Jack saw, to allow the Wolfs longnailed, hairy toes to protrude. Train! he barkgrowled as the engine closed the last fifty yards. He began to jump up and down, grinning savagely. He was snapping his fingers like Cab Calloway. Foam flew from his jaws in unlovely clots. Train! Train! Fuckin train RIGHT HERE AND NOW! His mouth yawned open in a great and alarming grin, showing a mouthful of broken yellow spears. You guys some kinda fuckin early, okay, okay! Jack, what is it? Richard asked. His hand was clutching Jacks shoulder with panicky tightness, but to his credit, his voice was fairly even. Its a Wolf. One of Morgans. There, Jack, you said his name. Asshole! But there was no time to worry about that now. They were coming abreast of the guardhouse, and the Wolf obviously meant to swing aboard. As Jack watched, he cut a clumsy caper in the dust, cutoff boots thumping. He had a knife in the leather belt he wore across his naked chest like a bandoleer, but no gun. Jack flicked the control on the Uzi to singlefire. Morgan? Whos Morgan? Which Morgan? Not now, Jack said. His concentration narrowed down to a fine pointthe Wolf. He manufactured a big, plastic grin for his benefit, holding the Uzi down and well out of sight. Anderstrain! Allfuckinright! Here and now! A handle like a big staple stuck off from the right side of the engine, above a wide step like a running board. Grinning wildly, drizzling foam over his chin and obviously insane, the Wolf grabbed the handle and leaped lightly up onto the step. Hey, wheres the old man? Wolf! Wheres Jack raised the Uzi and put a bullet into the Wolfs left eye. The glaring orange light puffed out like a candleflame in a strong gust of wind. The Wolf fell backward off the step like a man doing a rather stupid dive. He thudded loosely on the ground. Jack! Richard pulled him around. His face looked as wild as the Wolfs face had beenonly it was terror, not joy, that distorted it. Did you mean my father? Is my father involved in this? Richard, do you trust me? Yes, but Then let it go. Let it go. This is not the time. But Get a gun. Jack Richard, get a gun! Richard bent over and got one of the Uzis. I hate guns, he said again. Yeah, I know. Im not particularly keen on them myself, Richieboy. But its payback time. 6 The tracks were now approaching a high stockade wall. From behind it came grunts and yells, cheers, rhythmic clapping, the sound of bootheels punching down on bare earth in steady rhythms. There were other, less identifiable sounds as well, but all of them fell into a vague set for Jackmilitary training operation. The area between the guardhouse and the approaching stockade wall was half a mile wide, and with all this other stuff going on, Jack doubted that anyone had heard his single shot. The train, being electric, was almost silent. The advantage of surprise should still be on their side. The tracks disappeared beneath a closed double gate in the side of the stockade wall. Jack could see chinks of daylight between the roughpeeled logs. Jack, you better slow down. They were now a hundred and fifty yards from the gate. From behind it, bellowing voices chanted, SoundHOFF! Huntoo! HreeFO! SoundHOFF! Jack thought again of H. G. Wellss manimals and shivered. No way, chum. Were through the gate. You got just about time to do the Fish Cheer. Jack, youre crazy! I know. A hundred yards. The batteries hummed. A blue spark jumped, sizzling. Bare earth flowed past them on either side. No grain here, Jack thought. If Nol Coward had written a play about Morgan Sloat, I guess he would have called it Blight Spirit. Jack, what if this creepy little train jumps its tracks? Well, it might, I guess, Jack said. Or what if it breaks through the gate and the tracks just end? Thatd be one on us, wouldnt it? Fifty yards. Jack, you really have lost your mind, havent you? I guess so. Take your gun off safety, Richard. Richard flicked the safety. Thuds . . . grunts . . . marching men . . . the creak of leather . . . yells . . . an inhuman, laughing shriek that made Richard cringe. And yet Jack saw a clear resolution in Richards face that made Jack grin with pride. He means to stick by meold Rational Richard or not, he really means to stick by me. Twentyfive yards. Shrieks . . . squeals . . . shouted commands . . . and a thick, reptilian cryGrooooOOOO!that made the hair stand up on the back of Jacks neck. If we get out of this, Jack said, Ill buy you a chilidog at Dairy Queen. Barf me out! Richard yelled, and, incredibly, he began to laugh. In that instant the unhealthy yellow seemed to fade a bit from his face. Five yardsand the peeled posts which made up the gate looked solid, yes, very solid, and Jack just had time to wonder if he hadnt made a great big fat mistake. Get down, chum! Dont call m The train hit the stockade gate, throwing them both forward. 7 The gate was really quite strong, and in addition it was doublebarred across the inside with two large logs. Morgans train was not terribly big, and the batteries were nearly flat after its long run across the Blasted Lands. The collision surely would have derailed it, and both boys might well have been killed in the wreck, but the gate had an Achilles heel. New hinges, forged according to modern American processes, were on order. They had not yet arrived, however, and the old iron hinges snapped when the engine hit the gate. The train came rolling into the stockade at twentyfive miles an hour, pushing the amputated gate in front of it. An obstacle course had been built around the stockades perimeter, and the gate, acting like a snowplow, began shoving makeshift wooden hurdles in front of it, turning them, rolling them, snapping them into splinters. It also struck a Wolf who had been doing punishment laps. His feet disappeared under the bottom of the moving gate and were chewed off, customized boots and all. Shrieking and growling, his Change beginning, the Wolf began to clawclimb his way up the gate with fingernails which were growing rapidly to the length and sharpness of a telephonelinemans spikes. The gate was now forty feet inside the stockade. Amazingly, he got almost to the top before Jack dropped the gearlever into neutral. The train stopped. The gate fell over, puffing up big dust and crushing the unfortunate Wolf beneath it. Underneath the last car of the train, the Wolfs severed feet continued to grow hair, and would for several more minutes. The situation inside the camp was better than Jack had dared hope. The place apparently woke up early, as military installations have a way of doing, and most of the troops seemed to be out, going through a bizarre menu of drills and bodybuilding exercises. On the right! he shouted at Richard. Do what? Richard shouted back. Jack opened his mouth and cried out for Uncle Tommy Woodbine, run down in the street; for an unknown carter, whipped to death in a muddy courtyard; for Ferd Janklow; for Wolf, dead in Sunlight Gardeners filthy office; for his mother; but most of all, he discovered, for Queen Laura DeLoessian, who was also his mother, and for the crime that was being carried out on the body of the Territories. He cried out as Jason, and his voice was thunder. TEAR THEM UP! Jack SawyerJason DeLoessian bellowed, and opened fire on the left. 8 There was a rough parade ground on Jacks side, a long log building on Richards. The log building looked like the bunkhouse in a Roy Rogers movie, but Richard guessed that it was a barracks. In fact, this whole place looked more familiar to Richard than anything he had seen so far in this weird world Jack had taken him into. He had seen places like it on the TV news. CIAsupported rebels training for takeovers of South and Central American countries trained in places like this. Only, the training camps were usually in Florida, and those werent cubanos pouring out of the barracksRichard didnt know what they were. Some of them looked a bit like medieval paintings of devils and satyrs. Some looked like degenerate human beingscavepeople, almost. And one of the things lurching into the earlymorning sunlight had scaly skin and nictitating eyelids . . . it looked to Richard Sloat like an alligator that was somehow walking upright. As he looked, the thing lifted its snout and uttered that cry he and Jack had heard earlier GroooOOOOO! He just had time to see that most of these hellish creatures looked totally bewildered, and then Jacks Uzi split the world with thunder. On Jacks side, roughly two dozen Wolfs had been doing callies on the parade ground. Like the guardhouse Wolf, most wore green fatigue pants, boots with cutoff toes, and bandoleer belts. Like the guard, they looked stupid, flatheaded, and essentially evil. They had paused in the middle of a spastic set of jumping jacks to watch the train come roaring in, the gate and the unfortunate fellow who had been running laps at the wrong place and time plastered to the front. At Jacks cry they began to move, but by then they were too late. Most of Morgans carefully culled Wolf Brigade, handpicked over a period of five years for their strength and brutality, their fear of and loyalty to Morgan, were wiped out in one spitting, raking burst of the machinegun in Jacks hands. They went stumbling and reeling backward, chests blown open, heads bleeding. There were growls of bewildered anger and howls of pain . . . but not many. Most of them simply died. Jack popped the clip, grabbed another one, slammed it in. On the left side of the parade ground, four of the Wolfs had escaped; in the center two more had dropped below the line of fire. Both of these had been wounded but now both were coming at him, longnailed toes digging divots in the packed dust, faces sprouting hair, eyes flaring. As they ran at the engine, Jack saw fangs grow out of their mouths and push through fresh, wiry hair growing from their chins. He pulled the trigger on the Uzi, now holding the hot barrel down only with an effort; the heavy recoil was trying to force the muzzle up. Both of the attacking Wolfs were thrown back so violently that they flipped through the air headoverheels like acrobats. The other four Wolfs did not pause; they headed for the place where the gate had been two minutes before. The assorted creatures which had spilled out of the bunkhousestyle barracks building seemed to be finally getting the idea that, although the newcomers were driving Morgans train, they were a good deal less than friendly. There was no concentrated charge, but they began to move forward in a muttering clot. Richard laid the Uzis barrel on the chesthigh side of the engine cab and opened fire. The slugs tore them open, drove them backward. Two of the things which looked like goats dropped to hands and kneesor hoovesand scurried back inside. Richard saw three others spin and drop under the force of the slugs. A joy so savage that it made him feel faint swept through him. Bullets also tore open the whitishgreen belly of the alligatorthing, and a blackish fluidichor, not bloodbegan to pour out of it. It fell backward, but its tail seemed to cushion it. It sprang back up and leaped at Richards side of the train. It uttered its rough, powerful cry again . . . and this time it seemed to Richard that there was something hideously feminine in that cry. He pulled the trigger of the Uzi. Nothing happened. The clip was spent. The alligatorthing ran with slow, clumsy, thudding determination. Its eyes sparkled with murderous fury . . . and intelligence. The vestiges of breasts bounced on its scaly chest. He bent, groped, without taking his eyes off the werealligator, and found one of the grenades. Seabrook Island, Richard thought dreamily. Jack calls this place the Territories, but its really Seabrook Island, and there is no need to be afraid, really no need; this is all a dream and if that things scaly claws settle around my neck I will surely wake up, and even if its not all a dream, Jack will save me somehowI know he will, I know it, because over here Jack is some kind of a god. He pulled the pin on the grenade, restrained the strong urge he felt to simply chuck it in a panicky frenzy, and lobbed it gently, underhand. Jack, get down! Jack dropped below the level of the engine cabs sides at once, without looking. Richard did, too, but not before he had seen an incredible, blackly comic thing the alligatorcreature had caught the grenade . . . and was trying to eat it. The explosion was not the dull crump Richard had expected but a loud, braying roar that drilled into his ears, hurting them badly. He heard a splash, as if someone had thrown a bucket of water against his side of the train. He looked up and saw that the engine, boxcar and flatcar were covered with hot guts, black blood, and shreds of the alligatorcreatures flesh. The entire front of the barracks building had been blown away. Much of the splintered rubble was bloody. In the midst of it he saw a hairy foot in a boot with a cutoff toe. The jackstraw blowdown of logs was thrown aside as he watched, and two of the goatlike creatures began to pull themselves out. Richard bent, found a fresh clip, and slammed it into his gun. It was getting hot, just as Jack had said it would. Whoopee! Richard thought faintly, and opened fire again. 9 When Jack popped up after the grenade explosion, he saw that the four Wolfs who had escaped his first two fusillades were just running through the hole where the gate had been. They were howling with terror. They were running side by side, and Jack had a clear shot at them. He raised the Uzithen lowered it again, knowing he would see them later, probably at the black hotel, knowing he was a fool . . . but, fool or not, he was unable to just let them have it in the back. Now a high, womanish shrieking began from behind the barracks. Get out there! Get out there, I say! Move! Move! There was the whistling crack of a whip. Jack knew that sound, and he knew that voice. He had been wrapped up in a straitjacket when he had last heard it. Jack would have known that voice anywhere. If his retarded friend shows up, shoot him. Well, you managed that, but maybe now its payback timeand maybe, from the way your voice sounds, you know it. Get them, whats the matter with you cowards? Get them, do I have to show you how to do everything? Follow us, follow us! Three creatures came from behind what remained of the barracks, and only one of them was clearly humanOsmond. He carried his whip in one hand, a Sten gun in the other. He wore a red cloak and black boots and white silk pants with wide, flowing legs. They were splattered with fresh blood. To his left was a shaggy goatcreature wearing jeans and Westernstyle boots. This creature and Jack looked at each other and shared a moment of complete recognition. It was the dreadful barroom cowboy from the Oatley Tap. It was Randolph Scott. It was Elroy. It grinned at Jack; its long tongue snaked out and lapped its wide upper lip. Get him! Osmond screamed at Elroy. Jack tried to lift the Uzi, but it suddenly seemed very heavy in his arms. Osmond was bad, the reappearance of Elroy was worse, but the thing between the two of them was a nightmare. It was the Territories version of Reuel Gardener, of course; the son of Osmond, the son of Sunlight. And it did indeed look a bit like a childa child as drawn by a bright kindergarten student with a cruel turn of mind. It was curdywhite and skinny; one of its arms ended in a wormy tentacle that somehow reminded Jack of Osmonds whip. Its eyes, one of them adrift, were on different levels. Fat red sores covered its cheeks. Some of its radiation sickness . . . Jason, I think Osmonds boy might have gotten a little too close to one of those fireballs . . . but the rest of it . . . Jason . . . Jesus . . . what was its mother? In the name of all the worlds, WHAT WAS ITS MOTHER? Get the Pretender! Osmond was shrieking. Save Morgans son but get the Pretender! Get the false Jason! Get out here, you cowards! Theyre out of bullets! Roars, bellows. In a moment, Jack knew, a fresh contingent of Wolfs, supported by Assorted Geeks and Freaks, was going to appear from the back end of the long barracks, where they would have been shielded from the explosion, where they had probably been cowering with their heads down, and where they would have remained . . . except for Osmond. Should have stayed off the road, little chicken, Elroy grunted, and ran at the train. His tail was swishing through the air. Reuel Gardeneror whatever Reuel was in this worldmade a thick mewling sound and attempted to follow. Osmond reached out and hauled him back; his fingers, Jack saw, appeared to slide right into the monsterboys slatlike, repulsive neck. Then he raised the Uzi and fired an entire clip, pointblank, into Elroys face. It tore the goatthings entire head off, and yet Elroy, headless, continued to climb for a moment, and one of his hands, the fingers melted together in two clumps to make a parody of a cloven hoof, pawed blindly for Jacks head before it tumbled backward. Jack stared at it, stunnedhe had dreamed that final nightmarish confrontation at the Oatley Tap over and over again, trying to stumble away from the monster through what seemed to be a dark jungle filled with bedsprings and broken glass. Now here was that creature, and he had somehow killed it. It was hard to get his mind around the fact. It was as if he had killed childhoods bogeyman. Richard was screamingand his machinegun roared, nearly deafening Jack. Its Reuel! Oh Jack oh my God oh Jason its Reuel, its Reuel The Uzi in Richards hands coughed out another short burst before falling silent, its clip spent. Reuel shook free of his father. He lurched and hopped toward the train, mewling. His upper lip curled back, revealing long teeth that looked false and flimsy, like the wax teeth children don at Halloween. Richards final burst took him in the chest and neck, punching holes in the brown kiltcumjumper he wore, ripping open flesh in long, ragged furrows. Sluggish rills of dark blood flowed from these wounds, but no more. Reuel might once have been humanJack supposed it was just possible. If so, he was not human now; the bullets did not even slow him down. The thing which leaped clumsily over Elroys body was a demon. It smelled like a wet toadstool. Something was growing warm against Jacks leg. Just warm at first . . . then hot. What was it? Felt like he had a teakettle in his pocket. But he didnt have time to think. Things were unfolding in front of him. In Technicolor. Richard dropped his Uzi and staggered back, clapping his hands to his face. His horrified eyes stared out at the Reuelthing through the bars of his fingers. Dont let him get me, Jack! Dont let him get meeeee. . . . Reuel bubbled and mewled. His hands slapped against the side of the engine and the sound was like large fins slapping down on thick mud. Jack saw there were indeed thick, yellowish webs between the fingers. Come back! Osmond was yelling at his son, and the fear in his voice was unmistakable. Come back, hes bad, hell hurt you, all boys are bad, its axiomatic, come back, come back! Reuel burbled and grunted enthusiastically. He pulled himself up and Richard screamed insanely, backing into the far corner of the cab. DONT LET HIM GET MEEEEEEE More Wolfs, more strange freaks charging around the corner. One of them, a creature with curly rams horns jutting from the sides of its head and wearing only a pair of patched Lil Abner britches, fell down and was trampled by the others. Heat against Jacks leg in a circle. Reuel, now throwing one reedy leg over the side of the cab. It was slobbering, reaching for him, and the leg was writhing, it wasnt a leg at all, it was a tentacle. Jack raised the Uzi and fired. Half of the Reuelthings face sheered away like pudding. A flood of worms began to fall out of what was left. Reuel was still coming. Reaching for him with those webbed fingers. Richards shrieks, Osmonds shrieks merging, melting together into one. Heat like a branding iron against his leg and suddenly he knew what it was, even as Reuels hands squashed down on his shoulders he knewit was the coin Captain Farren had given him, the coin Anders had refused to take. He drove his hand into his pocket. The coin was like a chunk of ore in his handhe made a fist around it, and felt power ram through him in big volts. Reuel felt it, too. His triumphant slobberings and grunts became mewlings of fear. He tried to back away, his one remaining eye rolling wildly. Jack brought the coin out. It glowed redhot in his hand. He felt the heat clearlybut it was not burning him. The profile of the Queen glowed like the sun. In her name, you filthy, aborted thing! Jack shouted. Get you off the skin of this world! He opened his fist and slammed his hand into Reuels forehead. Reuel and his father shrieked in harmonyOsmond a tenorvergingonsoprano, Reuel a buzzing, insectile bass. The coin slid into Reuels forehead like the tip of a hot poker into a tub of butter. A vile dark fluid, the color of overbrewed tea, ran out of Reuels head and over Jacks wrist. The fluid was hot. There were tiny worms in it. They twisted and writhed on Jacks skin. He felt them biting. Nevertheless, he pressed the first two fingers of his right hand harder, driving the coin farther into the monsters head. Get you off the skin of this world, vileness! In the name of the Queen and in the name of her son, get you off the skin of this world! It shrieked and wailed; Osmond shrieked and wailed with it. The reinforcements had stopped and were milling behind Osmond, their faces full of superstitious terror. To them Jack seemed to have grown; he seemed to be giving off a bright light. Reuel jerked. Uttered one more bubbling screech. The black stuff running out of his head turned yellow. A final worm, long and thickly white, wriggled out of the hole the coin had made. It fell to the floor of the engine compartment. Jack stepped on it. It broke open under his heel and splattered. Reuel fell in a wet heap. Now such a screaming wail of grief and fury arose in the dusty stockade yard that Jack thought his skull might actually split open with it. Richard had curled into a fetal ball with his arms wrapped around his head. Osmond was wailing. He had dropped his whip and the machinepistol. Oh, filthy! he cried, shaking his fists at Jack. Look what youve done! Oh, you filthy, bad boy! I hate you, hate you forever and beyond forever! Oh, filthy Pretender! Ill kill you! Morgan will kill you! Oh my darling only son! FILTHY! MORGAN WILL KILL YOU FOR WHAT YOUVE DONE! MORGAN The others took up the cry in a whispering voice, reminding Jack of the boys in the Sunlight Home can you gimme hallelujah. And then they fell silent, because there was the other sound. Jack was tumbled back instantly to the pleasant afternoon he had spent with Wolf, the two of them sitting by the stream, watching the herd graze and drink as Wolf talked about his family. It had been pleasant enough . . . pleasant enough, that is, until Morgan came. And now Morgan was coming againnot flipping over but bludgeoning his way through, raping his way in. Morgan! Its Morgan, Lord Lord of Orris Morgan . . . Morgan . . . Morgan . . . The ripping sound grew louder and louder. The Wolfs were abasing themselves in the dust. Osmond danced a shuffling jig, his black boots trampling the steeltipped rawhide thongs woven into his whip. Bad boy! Filthy boy! Now youll pay! Morgans coming! Morgans coming! The air about twenty feet to Osmonds right began to blur and shimmer, like the air over a burning incinerator. Jack looked around, saw Richard curled up in the litter of machineguns and ammunition and grenades like a very small boy who has fallen asleep while playing war. Only Richard wasnt asleep, he knew, and this was no game, and if Richard saw his father stepping through a hole between the worlds, he feared, Richard would go insane. Jack sprawled beside his friend and wrapped his arms tightly around him. That rippingbedsheet sound grew louder, and suddenly he heard Morgans voice bellow in terrible rage What is the train doing here NOW, you fools? He heard Osmond wail, The filthy Pretender has killed my son! Here we go, Richie, Jack muttered, and tightened his grip around Richards wasted upper body. Time to jump ship. He closed his eyes, concentrated . . . and there was that brief moment of spinning vertigo as the two of them flipped. 37 Richard Remembers 1 There was a sensation of rolling sideways and down, as if there were a short ramp between the two worlds. Dimly, fading, at last wavering into nothingness, Jack heard Osmond screaming, Bad! All boys! Axiomatic! All boys! Filthy! Filthy! For a moment they were in thin air. Richard cried out. Then Jack thudded to the ground on one shoulder. Richards head bounced against his chest. Jack did not open his eyes but only lay there on the ground hugging Richard, listening, smelling. Silence. Not utter and complete, but largeits size counterpointed by two or three singing birds. The smell was cool and salty. A good smell . . . but not as good as the world could smell in the Territories. Even herewherever here wasJack could smell a faint underodor, like the smell of old oil ground into the concrete floors of gasstation garage bays. It was the smell of too many people running too many motors, and it had polluted the entire atmosphere. His nose had been sensitized to it and he could smell it even here, in a place where he could hear no cars. Jack? Are we okay? Sure, Jack said, and opened his eyes to see whether he was telling the truth. His first glance brought a terrifying idea somehow, in his frantic need to get out of there, to get away before Morgan could arrive, he had not flipped them into the American Territories but pushed them somehow forward in time. This seemed to be the same place, but older, now abandoned, as if a century or two had gone by. The train still sat on the tracks, and the train looked just as it had. Nothing else did. The tracks, which crossed the weedy exercise yard they were standing in and went on to God knew where, were old and thick with rust. The crossties looked spongy and rotted. High weeds grew up between them. He tightened his hold on Richard, who squirmed weakly in his grasp and opened his eyes. Where are we? he asked Jack, looking around. There was a long Quonset hut with a rustsplotched corrugatedtin roof where the bunkhousestyle barracks had been. The roof was all either of them could see clearly; the rest was buried in rambling woods ivy and wild weeds. There were a couple of poles in front of it which had perhaps once supported a sign. If so, it was long gone now. I dont know, Jack said, and then, looking at where the obstacle course had beenit was now a barely glimpsed dirt rut overgrown with the remains of wild phlox and goldenrodhe brought out his worst fear I may have pushed us forward in time. To his amazement, Richard laughed. Its good to know nothing much is going to change in the future, then, he said, and pointed to a sheet of paper nailed to one of the posts standing in front of the Quonsetbarracks. It was somewhat weatherfaded but still perfectly readable NO TRESPASSING! By Order of the Mendocino County Sheriffs Department By Order of the California State Police VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED! 2 Well, if you knew where we were, Jack said, feeling simultaneously foolish and very relieved, why did you ask? I just saw it, Richard replied, and any urge Jack might have had to chaff Richard anymore over it blew away. Richard looked awful; he looked as if he had developed some weird tuberculosis which was working on his mind instead of on his lungs. Nor was it just his sanityshaking round trip to the Territories and backhe had actually seemed to be adapting to that. But now he knew something else as well. It wasnt just a reality which was radically different from all of his carefully developed notions; that he might have been able to adapt to, if given world enough and time. But finding out that your dad is one of the guys in the black hats, Jack reflected, can hardly be one of lifes groovier moments. Okay, he said, trying to sound cheerfulhe actually did feel a little cheerful. Getting away from such a monstrosity as Reuel would have made even a kid dying of terminal cancer feel a little cheerful, he figured. Up you go and up you get, Richieboy. Weve got promises we must keep, miles to go before we sleep, and you are still an utter creep. Richard winced. Whoever gave you the idea you had a sense of humor should be shot, chum. Bitez mon crank, mon ami. Where are we going? I dont know, Jack said, but its somewhere around here. I can feel it. Its like a fishhook in my mind. Point Venuti? Jack turned his head and looked at Richard for a long time. Richards tired eyes were unreadable. Why did you ask that, chum? Is that where were going? Jack shrugged. Maybe. Maybe not.

They began walking slowly across the weedgrown parade ground and Richard changed the subject. Was all of that real? They were approaching the rusty double gate. A lane of faded blue sky showed above the green. Was any of it real? We spent a couple of days on an electric train that ran at about twentyfive miles an hour, thirty tops, Jack said, and somehow we got from Springfield, Illinois, into northern California, near the coast. Now you tell me if it was real. Yes . . . yes, but . . . Jack held out his arms. The wrists were covered with angry red weals that itched and smarted. Bites, Jack said. From the worms. The worms that fell out of Reuel Gardeners head. Richard turned away and was noisily sick. Jack held him. Otherwise, he thought, Richard simply would have fallen sprawling. He was appalled at how thin Richard had become, at how hot his flesh felt through his preppy shirt. Im sorry I said that, Jack said when Richard seemed a little better. It was pretty crude. Yeah, it was. But I guess maybe its the only thing that could have . . . you know . . . Convinced you? Yeah. Maybe. Richard looked at him with his naked, wounded eyes. There were now pimples all across his forehead. Sores surrounded his mouth. Jack, I have to ask you something, and I want you to answer me . . . you know, straight. I want to ask you Oh, I know what you want to ask me, Richieboy. In a few minutes, Jack said. Well get to all the questions and as many of the answers as I know in a few minutes. But weve got a piece of business to take care of first. What business? Instead of answering, Jack went over to the little train. He stood there for a moment, looking at it stubby engine, empty boxcar, flatcar. Had he somehow managed to flip this whole thing into northern California? He didnt think so. Flipping with Wolf had been a chore, dragging Richard into the Territories from the Thayer campus had nearly torn his arm out of its socket, and doing both had been a conscious effort on his part. So far as he could remember, he hadnt been thinking of the train at all when he flippedonly getting Richard out of the Wolfs paramilitary training camp before he saw his old man. Everything else had taken a slightly different form when it went from one world into the otherthe act of Migrating seemed to demand an act of translation, as well. Shirts might become jerkins; jeans might become woolen trousers; money might become jointed sticks. But this train looked exactly the same here as it had over there. Morgan had succeeded in creating something which lost nothing in the Migration. Also, they were wearing blue jeans over there, JackO. Yeah. And although Osmond had his trusty whip, he also had a machinepistol. Morgans machinepistol. Morgans train. Chilly gooseflesh rippled up his back. He heard Anders muttering, A bad business. It was that, all right. A very bad business. Anders was right; it was devils all hurtled down together. Jack reached into the engine compartment, got one of the Uzis, slapped a fresh clip into it, and started back toward where Richard stood looking around with pallid, contemplative interest. This looks like an old survivalist camp, he said. You mean the kind of place where soldieroffortune types get ready for World War Three? Yes, sort of. There are quite a few places like that in northern California . . . they spring up and thrive for a while, and then the people lose interest when World War Three doesnt start right away, or they get busted for illegal guns or dope, or something. My . . . my father told me that. Jack said nothing. What are you going to do with the gun, Jack? Im going to try and get rid of that train. Any objections? Richard shuddered; his mouth pulled down in a grimace of distaste. None whatever. Will the Uzi do it, do you think? If I shoot into that plastic junk? One bullet wouldnt. A whole clip might. Lets see. Jack pushed off the safety. Richard grabbed his arm. It might be wise to remove ourselves to the fence before making the experiment, he said. Okay. At the ivycovered fence, Jack trained the Uzi on the flat and squashy packages of plastique. He pulled the trigger, and the Uzi bellowed the silence into rags. Fire hung mystically from the end of the barrel for a moment. The gunfire was shockingly loud in the chapellike silence of the deserted camp. Birds squawked in surprised fear and headed out for quieter parts of the forest. Richard winced and pressed his palms against his ears. The tarpaulin flirted and danced. Then, although he was still pulling the trigger, the gun stopped firing. The clip was exhausted, and the train just sat there on the track. Well, Jack said, that was great. Have you got any other i The flatcar erupted in a sheet of blue fire and a bellowing roar. Jack saw the flatcar actually starting to rise from the track, as if it were taking off. He grabbed Richard around the neck, shoved him down. The explosions went on for a long time. Metal whistled and flew overhead. It made a steady metallic rainshower on the roof of the Quonset hut. Occasionally a larger piece made a sound like a Chinese gong, or a crunch as something really big just punched on through. Then something slammed through the fence just above Jacks head, leaving a hole bigger than both of his fists laced together, and Jack decided it was time to cut out. He grabbed Richard and started pulling him toward the gates. No! Richard shouted. The tracks! What? The tr Something whickered over them and both boys ducked. Their heads knocked together. The tracks! Richard shouted, rubbing his skull with one pale hand. Not the road! Go for the tracks! Gotcha! Jack was mystified but unquestioning. They had to go somewhere. The two boys began to crawl along the rusting chainlink fence like soldiers crossing nomansland. Richard was slightly ahead, leading them toward the hole in the fence where the tracks exited the far side of the compound. Jack looked back over his shoulder as they wenthe could see as much as he needed to, or wanted to, through the partially open gates. Most of the train seemed to have been simply vaporized. Twisted chunks of metal, some recognizable, most not, lay in a wide circle around the place where it had come back to America, where it had been built, bought, and paid for. That they had not been killed by flying shrapnel was amazing; that they had not been even so much as scratched seemed wellnigh impossible. The worst was over now. They were outside the gate, standing up (but ready to duck and run if there were residual explosions). My fathers not going to like it that you blew up his train, Jack, Richard said. His voice was perfectly calm, but when Jack looked at him, he saw that Richard was weeping. Richard No, he wont like it at all, Richard said, as if answering himself. 3 A thick and luxuriant stripe of weeds, kneehigh, grew up the center of the railroad tracks leading away from the camp, leading away in a direction Jack believed to be roughly south. The tracks themselves were rusty and long unused; in places they had twisted strangelyrippled. Earthquakes did that, Jack thought with queasy awe. Behind them, the plastic explosive continued to explode. Jack would think it was finally over, and then there would be another long, hoarse BREEEAPPP!it was, he thought, the sound of a giant clearing its throat. Or breaking wind. He glanced back once and saw a black pall of smoke hanging in the sky. He listened for the thick, heavy crackle of firelike anyone who has lived for any length of time on the California coast, he was afraid of firebut heard none. Even the woods here seemed New Englandy, thick and heavy with moisture. Certainly it was the antithesis of the palebrown country around Baja, with its clear, bonedry air. The woods were almost smug with life; the railway itself was a slowly closing lane between the encroaching trees, shrubs, and ubiquitous ivy (poison ivy, I bet, Jack thought, scratching unconsciously at the bites on his hands), with the faded blue sky an almost matching lane overhead. Even the cinders on the railroad bed were mossy. This place seemed secret, a place for secrets. He set a hard pace, and not only to get the two of them off his track before the cops or the firemen showed up. The pace also assured Richards silence. He was toiling too hard to keep up to talk . . . or ask questions. They had gone perhaps two miles and Jack was still congratulating himself on this conversionstrangling ploy when Richard called out in a tiny, whistling voice, Hey Jack Jack turned just in time to see Richard, who had fallen a bit behind, toppling forward. The blemishes stood out on his paperwhite skin like birthmarks. Jack caught himbarely. Richard seemed to weigh no more than a paper bag. Oh, Christ, Richard! Felt okay until a second or two ago, Richard said in that same tiny, whistling voice. His respiration was very fast, very dry. His eyes were halfclosed. Jack could only see whites and tiny arcs of blue irises. Just got . . . faint. Sorry. From behind them came another heavy, belching explosion, followed by the rattling sound of traindebris falling on the tin roof of the Quonset hut. Jack glanced that way, then anxiously up the tracks. Can you hang on to me? Ill piggyback you a ways. Shades of Wolf, he thought. I can hang on. If you cant, say so. Jack, Richard said with a heartening trace of that old fussy Richardirritation, if I couldnt hang on, I wouldnt say I could. Jack set Richard on his feet. Richard stood there, swaying, looking as if someone could blow once in his face and topple him over backward. Jack turned and squatted, the soles of his sneakers on one of the old rotted ties. He made his arms into thighstirrups, and Richard put his own arms around Jacks neck. Jack got to his feet and started to shag along the crossties at a fast walk that was very nearly a jog. Carrying Richard seemed to be no problem at all, and not just because Richard had lost weight. Jack had been running kegs of beer, carrying cartons, picking apples. He had spent time picking rocks in Sunlight Gardeners Far Field, can you gimme hallelujah. It had toughened him, all of that. But the toughening went deeper into the fiber of his essential self than something as simple and mindless as physical exercise could go. Nor was all of it a simple function of flipping back and forth between the two worlds like an acrobat, or of that other worldgorgeous as it could berubbing off on him like wet paint. Jack recognized in a dim sort of way that he had been trying to do more than simply save his mothers life; from the very beginning he had been trying to do something greater than that. He had been trying to do a good work, and his dim realization now was that such mad enterprises must always be toughening. He did begin to jog. If you make me seasick, Richard said, his voice jiggling in time with Jacks footfalls, Ill just vomit on your head. I knew I could count on you, Richieboy, Jack panted, grinning. I feel . . . extremely foolish up here. Like a human pogo stick. Probably just how you look, chum. Dont . . . call me chum, Richard whispered, and Jacks grin widened. He thought, Oh Richard, you bastard, live forever. 4 I knew that man, Richard whispered from above Jack. It startled him, as if out of a doze. He had picked Richard up ten minutes ago, they had covered another mile, and there was still no sign of civilization of any kind. Just the tracks, and that smell of salt in the air. The tracks, Jack wondered. Do they go where I think they go? What man? The man with the whip and the machinepistol. I knew him. I used to see him around. When? Jack panted. A long time ago. When I was a little kid. Richard then added with great reluctance, Around the time that I had that . . . that funny dream in the closet. He paused. Except I guess it wasnt a dream, was it? No. I guess it wasnt. Yes. Was the man with the whip Reuels dad? What do you think? It was, Richard said glumly. Sure it was. Jack stopped. Richard, where do these tracks go? You know where they go, Richard said with a strange, empty serenity. YeahI think I do. But I want to hear you say it. Jack paused. I guess I need to hear you say it. Where do they go? They go to a town called Point Venuti, Richard said, and he sounded near tears again. Theres a big hotel there. I dont know if its the place youre looking for or not, but I think it probably is. So do I, Jack said. He set off once more, Richards legs in his arms, a growing ache in his back, following the tracks that would take himboth of themto the place where his mothers salvation might be found. 5 As they walked, Richard talked. He did not come on to the subject of his fathers involvement in this mad business all at once, but began to circle slowly in toward it. I knew that man from before, Richard said. Im pretty sure I did. He came to the house. Always to the back of the house. He didnt ring the bell, or knock. He kind of . . . scratched on the door. It gave me the creeps. Scared me so bad I felt like peeing my pants. He was a tall manoh, all grown men seem tall to little kids, but this guy was very talland he had white hair. He wore dark glasses most of the time. Or sometimes the kind of sunglasses that have the mirror lenses. When I saw that story on him they had on Sunday Report, I knew Id seen him somewhere before. My father was upstairs doing some paperwork the night that show was on. I was sitting in front of the tube, and when my father came in and saw what was on, he almost dropped the drink he was holding. Then he changed the station to a Star Trek rerun. Only the guy wasnt calling himself Sunlight Gardener when he used to come and see my father. His name . . . I cant quite remember. But it was something like Banlon . . . or Orlon . . . Osmond? Richard brightened. That was it. I never heard his first name. But he used to come once every month or two. Sometimes more often. Once he came almost every other night, for a week, and then he was gone for almost half a year. I used to lock myself in my room when he came. I didnt like his smell. He wore some kind of scent . . . cologne, I suppose, but it really smelled stronger than that. Like perfume. Cheap dimestore perfume. But underneath it Underneath it he smelled like he hadnt had a bath for about ten years. Richard looked at him, wideeyed. I met him as Osmond, too, Jack explained. He had explained beforeat least some of thisbut Richard had not been listening then. He was listening now. In the Territories version of New Hampshire, before I met him as Sunlight Gardener in Indiana. Then you must have seen that . . . that thing. Reuel? Jack shook his head. Reuel must have been out in the Blasted Lands then, having a few more radical cobalt treatments. Jack thought of the running sores on the creatures face, thought of the worms. He looked at his red, puffy wrists where the worms had bitten, and shuddered. I never saw Reuel until the end, and I never saw his American Twinner at all. How old were you when Osmond started showing up? I must have been four. The thing about the . . . you know, the closet . . . that hadnt happened yet. I remember I was more afraid of him after that. After the thing touched you in the closet. Yes. And that happened when you were five. Yes. When we were both five. Yes. You can put me down. I can walk for a while. Jack did. They walked in silence, heads down, not looking at each other. At five, something had reached out of the dark and touched Richard. When they were both six (six, Jacky was six) Jack had overheard his father and Morgan Sloat talking about a place they went to, a place that Jacky called the Daydreamcountry. And later that year, something had reached out of the dark and had touched him and his mother. It had been nothing more or less than Morgan Sloats voice. Morgan Sloat calling from Green River, Utah. Sobbing. He, Phil Sawyer, and Tommy Woodbine had left three days before on their yearly November hunting tripanother college chum, Randy Glover, owned a luxurious hunting lodge in Blessington, Utah. Glover usually hunted with them, but that year he had been cruising in the Caribbean. Morgan called to say that Phil had been shot, apparently by another hunter. He and Tommy Woodbine had packed him out of the wilderness on a lashedtogether stretcher. Phil had regained consciousness in the back of Glovers Jeep Cherokee, Morgan said, and had asked that Morgan send his love to Lily and Jack. He died fifteen minutes later, as Morgan drove wildly toward Green River and the nearest hospital. Morgan had not killed Phil; there was Tommy to testify that the three of them had been together when the shot rang out, if any testimony had ever been required (and, of course, none ever was). But that was not to say he couldnt have hired it done, Jack thought now. And it was not to say that Uncle Tommy might not have harbored his own long doubts about what had happened. If so, maybe Uncle Tommy hadnt been killed just so that Jack and his dying mother would be totally unprotected from Morgans depredations. Maybe he had died because Morgan was tired of wondering if the old faggot might finally hint to the surviving son that there might have been more to Phil Sawyers death than an accident. Jack felt his skin crawl with dismay and revulsion. Was that man around before your father and my father went hunting together that last time? Jack asked fiercely. Jack, I was four years old No, you werent, you were six. You were four when he started coming, you were six when my father got killed in Utah. And you dont forget much, Richard. Did he come around before my father died? That was the time he came almost every night for a week, Richard said, his voice barely audible. Just before that last hunting trip. Although none of this was precisely Richards fault, Jack was unable to contain his bitterness. My dad dead in a hunting accident in Utah, Uncle Tommy run down in L.A. The deathrate among your fathers friends is very fucking high, Richard. Jack Richard began in a small, trembling voice. I mean its all water over the dam, or spilled milk, or pick your clich, Jack said. But when I showed up at your school, Richard, you called me crazy. Jack, you dont under No, I guess I dont. I was tired and you gave me a place to sleep. Fine. I was hungry and you got me some food. Great. But what I needed most was for you to believe me. I knew it was too much to expect, but jeepers! You knew the guy I was talking about! You knew hed been in your fathers life before! And you just said something like Good old Jacks been spending too much time in the hot sun out there on Seabrook Island and blahblahblah! Jesus, Richard, I thought we were better friends than that. You still dont understand. What? That you were too afraid of Seabrook Island stuff to believe in me a little? Jacks voice wavered with tired indignation. No. I was afraid of more than that. Oh yeah? Jack stopped and looked at Richards pale, miserable face truculently. What could be more than that for Rational Richard? I was afraid, Richard said in a perfectly calm voice. I was afraid that if I knew any more about those secret pockets . . . that man Osmond, or what was in the closet that time, I wouldnt be able to love my father anymore. And I was right. Richard covered his face with his thin, dirty fingers and began to cry. 6 Jack stood watching Richard cry and damned himself for twenty kinds of fool. No matter what else Morgan was, he was still Richard Sloats father; Morgans ghost lurked in the shape of Richards hands and in the bones of Richards face. Had he forgotten those things? Nobut for a moment his bitter disappointment in Richard had covered them up. And his increasing nervousness had played a part. The Talisman was very, very close now, and he felt it in his nerveendings the way a horse smells water in the desert or a distant grassfire in the plains. That nerviness was coming out in a kind of prancy skittishness. Yeah, well, this guys supposed to be your best buddy, JackOget a little funky if you have to, but dont trample Richard. The kids sick, just in case you hadnt noticed. He reached for Richard. Richard tried to push him away. Jack was having none of that. He held Richard. The two of them stood that way in the middle of the deserted railroad bed for a while, Richards head on Jacks shoulder. Listen, Jack said awkwardly, try not to worry too much about . . . you know . . . everything . . . just yet, Richard. Just kind of try to roll with the changes, you know? Boy, that sounded really stupid. Like telling somebody they had cancer but dont worry because pretty soon were going to put Star Wars on the VCR and itll cheer you right up. Sure, Richard said. He pushed away from Jack. The tears had cut clean tracks on his dirty face. He wiped an arm across his eyes and tried to smile. A wi be well an a wi be well An a manner a things wi be well, Jack chimed inthey finished together, then laughed together, and that was all right. Come on, Richard said. Lets go. Where? To get your Talisman, Richard said. The way youre talking, it must be in Point Venuti. Its the next town up the line. Come on, Jack. Lets get going. But walk slowIm not done talking yet. Jack looked at him curiously, and then they started walking againbut slowly. 7 Now that the dam had broken and Richard had allowed himself to begin remembering things, he was an unexpected fountain of information. Jack began to feel as if he had been working a jigsaw puzzle without knowing that several of the most important pieces were missing. It was Richard who had had most of those pieces all along. Richard had been in the survivalist camp before; that was the first piece. His father had owned it. Are you sure it was the same place, Richard? Jack asked doubtfully. Im sure, Richard said. It even looked a little familiar to me on the other side, there. When we got back over . . . over here . . . I was sure. Jack nodded, unsure what else to do. We used to stay in Point Venuti. Thats where we always stayed before we came here. The train was a big treat. I mean, how many dads have their own private train? Not many, Jack said. I guess Diamond Jim Brady and some of those guys had private trains, but I dont know if they were dads or not. Oh, my dad wasnt in their league, Richard said, laughing a little, and Jack thought Richard, you might be surprised. Wed drive up to Point Venuti from L.A. in a rental car. There was a motel we stayed at. Just the two of us. Richard stopped. His eyes had gone misty with love and remembering. Thenafter we hung out there for a whilewed take my dads train up to Camp Readiness. It was just a little train. He looked at Jack, startled. Like the one we came on, I guess. Camp Readiness? But Richard appeared not to have heard him. He was looking at the rusted tracks. They were whole here, but Jack thought Richard might be remembering the twisted ripples they had passed some way back. In a couple of places the ends of railsections actually curved up into the air, like broken guitarstrings. Jack guessed that in the Territories those tracks would be in fine shape, neatly and lovingly maintained. See, there used to be a trolley line here, Richard said. This was back in the thirties, my father said. The Mendocino County Red Line. Only it wasnt owned by the county, it was owned by a private company, and they went broke, because in California . . . you know . . . Jack nodded. In California, everyone used cars. Richard, why didnt you ever tell me about this place? That was the one thing my dad said never to tell you. You and your parents knew we sometimes took vacations in northern California and he said that was all right, but I wasnt to tell you about the train, or Camp Readiness. He said if I told, Phil would be mad because it was a secret. Richard paused. He said if I told, hed never take me again. I thought it was because they were supposed to be partners. I guess it was more than that. The trolley line went broke because of the cars and the freeways. He paused thoughtfully. That was one thing about the place you took me to, Jack. Weird as it was, it didnt stink of hydrocarbons. I could get into that. Jack nodded again, saying nothing. The trolley company finally sold the whole linegrandfather clause and allto a development company. They thought people would start to move inland, too. Except it didnt happen. Then your father bought it. Yes, I guess so. I dont really know. He never talked much about buying the line . . . or how he replaced the trolley tracks with these railroad tracks. That would have taken a lot of work, Jack thought, and then he thought of the orepits, and Morgan of Orriss apparently unlimited supply of slave labor. I know he replaced them, but only because I got a book on railroads and found out theres a difference in gauge. Trolleys run on tengauge track. This is sixteengauge. Jack knelt, and yes, he could see a very faint double indentation inside the existing tracksthat was where the trolley tracks had been. He had a little red train, Richard said dreamily. Just an engine and two cars. It ran on diesel fuel. He used to laugh about it and say that the only thing that separated the men from the boys was the price of their toys. There was an old trolley station on the hill above Point Venuti, and wed go up there in the rental car and park and go on in. I remember how that station smelledkind of old, but nice . . . full of old sunlight, sort of. And the train would be there. And my dad . . . hed say, All aboard for Camp Readiness, Richard! You got your ticket? And thered be lemonade . . . or iced tea . . . and we sat up in the cab . . . sometimes hed have stuff . . . supplies . . . behind . . . but wed sit up front . . . and . . . and . . . Richard swallowed hard and swiped a hand across his eyes. And it was a nice time, he finished. Just him and me. It was pretty cool. He looked around, his eyes shiny with unshed tears. There was a plate to turn the train around at Camp Readiness, he said. Back in those days. The old days. Richard uttered a terrible strangled sob. Richard Jack tried to touch him. Richard shook him off and stepped away, brushing tears from his cheeks with the backs of his hands. Wasnt so grownup then, he said, smiling. Trying to. Nothing was so grownup then, was it, Jack? No, Jack said, and now he found he was crying himself. Oh Richard. Oh my dear one. No, Richard said, smiling, looking around at the encroaching woods and brushing the tears away with the dirty backs of his hands, nothing was so grownup back then. In the old days, when we were just kids. Back when we all lived in California and nobody lived anywhere else. He looked at Jack, trying to smile. Jack, help me, he said. I feel like my leg is caught in some stuhstupid truhtruhhap and I . . . I . . . Then Richard fell on his knees with his hair in his tired face, and Jack got down there with him, and I can bear to tell you no moreonly that they comforted each other as well as they could, and, as you probably know from your own bitter experience, that is never quite good enough. 8 The fence was new back then, Richard said when he could continue speaking. They had walked on a ways. A whippoorwill sang from a tall sturdy oak. The smell of salt in the air was stronger. I remember that. And the signCAMP READINESS, thats what it said. There was an obstacle course, and ropes to climb, and other ropes that you hung on to and then swung over big puddles of water. It looked sort of like bootcamp in a World War Two movie about the Marines. But the guys using the equipment didnt look much like Marines. They were fat, and they were all dressed the samegray sweatsuits with CAMP READINESS written on the chest in small letters, and red piping on the sides of the sweatpants. They all looked like they were going to have heartattacks or strokes any minute. Maybe both at the same time. Sometimes we stayed overnight. A couple of times we stayed the whole weekend. Not in the Quonset hut; that was like a barracks for the guys who were paying to get in shape. If thats what they were doing. Yeah, right. If thats what they were doing. Anyway, we stayed in a big tent and slept on cots. It was a blast. Again, Richard smiled wistfully. But youre right, Jacknot all the guys shagging around the place looked like businessmen trying to get in shape. The others What about the others? Jack asked quietly. Some of thema lot of themlooked like those big hairy creatures in the other world, Richard said in a low voice Jack had to strain to hear. The Wolfs. I mean, they looked sort of like regular people, but not too much. They looked . . . rough. You know? Jack nodded. He knew. I remember I was a little afraid to look into their eyes very closely. Every now and then thered be these funny flashes of light in them . . . like their brains were on fire. Some of the others . . . A light of realization dawned in Richards eyes. Some of the others looked like that substitute basketball coach I told you about. The one who wore the leather jacket and smoked. How far is this Point Venuti, Richard? I dont know, exactly. But we used to do it in a couple of hours, and the train never went very fast. Running speed, maybe, but not much more. It cant be much more than twenty miles from Camp Readiness, all told. Probably a little less. Then were maybe fifteen miles or less from it. From (from the Talisman) Yeah. Right. Jack looked up as the day darkened. As if to show that the pathetic fallacy wasnt so pathetic after all, the sun now sailed behind a deck of clouds. The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees and the day seemed to grow dullthe whippoorwill fell silent. 9 Richard saw the sign firsta simple whitewashed square of wood painted with black letters. It stood on the left side of the tracks, and ivy had grown up its post, as if it had been here for a very long time. The sentiment, however, was quite current. It read GOOD BIRDS MAY FLY; BAD BOYS MUST DIE. THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE GO HOME. You can go, Richie, Jack said quietly. Its okay by me. Theyll let you go, no sweat. None of this is your business. I think maybe it is, Richard said. I dragged you into it. No, Richard said. My father dragged me into it. Or fate dragged me into it. Or God. Or Jason. Whoever it was, Im sticking. All right, Jack said. Lets go. As they passed the sign, Jack lashed out with one foot in a passably good kungfu kick and knocked it over. Way to go, chum, Richard said, smiling a little. Thanks. But dont call me chum. 10 Although he had begun to look wan and tired again, Richard talked for the next hour as they walked down the tracks and into the steadily strengthening smell of the Pacific Ocean. He spilled out a flood of reminiscences that had been bottled up inside of him for years. Although his face didnt reveal it, Jack was stunned with amazement . . . and a deep, welling pity for the lonely child, eager for the last scrap of his fathers affection, that Richard was revealing to him, inadvertently or otherwise. He looked at Richards pallor, the sores on his cheeks and forehead and around his mouth; listened to that tentative, almost whispering voice that nevertheless did not hesitate or falter now that the chance to tell all these things had finally come; and was glad once more that Morgan Sloat had never been his father. He told Jack that he remembered landmarks all along this part of the railroad. They could see the roof of a barn over the trees at one point, with a faded ad for Chesterfield Kings on it. Twenty great tobaccos make twenty wonderful smokes, Richard said, smiling. Only, in those days you could see the whole barn. He pointed out a big pine with a double top, and fifteen minutes later told Jack, There used to be a rock on the other side of this hill that looked just like a frog. Lets see if its still there. It was, and Jack supposed it did look like a frog. A little. If you stretched your imagination.

And maybe it helps to be three. Or four. Or seven. Or however old he was. Richard had loved the railroad, and had thought Camp Readiness was really neat, with its track to run on and its hurdles to jump over and its ropes to climb. But he hadnt liked Point Venuti itself. After some selfprodding, Richard even remembered the name of the motel at which he and his father had stayed during their time in the little coastal town. The Kingsland Motel, he said . . . and Jack found that name did not surprise him much at all. The Kingsland Motel, Richard said, was just down the road from the old hotel his father always seemed interested in. Richard could see the hotel from his window, and he didnt like it. It was a huge, rambling place with turrets and gables and gambrels and cupolas and towers; brass weathervanes in strange shapes twirled from all of the latter. They twirled even when there was no wind, Richard saidhe could clearly remember standing at the window of his room and watching them go around and around and around, strange brass creations shaped like crescent moons and scarab beetles and Chinese ideograms, winking in the sun while the ocean foamed and roared below. Ah yes, doc, it all comes back to me now, Jack thought. It was deserted? Jack asked. Yes. For sale. What was its name? The Agincourt. Richard paused, then added another childs colorthe one most small children are apt to leave in the box. It was black. It was made of wood, but the wood looked like stone. Old black stone. And thats what my father and his friends called it. The Black Hotel. 11 It was partlybut not entirelyto divert Richard that Jack asked, Did your father buy that hotel? Like he did Camp Readiness? Richard thought about it awhile and then nodded. Yes, he said. I think he did. After a while. There was a For Sale sign on the gates in front of the place when he first started taking me there, but one time when we went there it was just gone. But you never stayed there? God, no! Richard shuddered. The only way he could have gotten me in there would have been with a towing chain . . . even then I might not have gone. Never even went in? No. Never did, never will. Ah, Richieboy, didnt anyone ever teach you to never say never? That goes for your father as well? He never even went in? Not to my knowledge, Richard said in his best professorial voice. His forefinger went to the bridge of his nose, as if to push up the glasses that werent there. Id be willing to bet he never went in. He was as scared of it as I was. But with me, thats all I felt . . . just scared. For my father, there was something more. He was . . . Was what? Reluctantly, Richard said, He was obsessed with the place, I think. Richard paused, eyes vague, thinking back. Hed go and stand in front of it every day we were in Point Venuti. And I dont mean just for a couple of minutes, or something like thathed stand in front of it for, like, three hours. Sometimes more. He was alone most of those times. But not always. He had . . . strange friends. Wolfs? I guess so, Richard said, almost angrily. Yeah, I guess some of them could have been Wolfs, or whatever you call them. They looked uncomfortable in their clothesthey were always scratching themselves, usually in those places where nice people arent supposed to scratch. Others looked like the substitute coach. Kind of hard and mean. Some of those guys I used to see out at Camp Readiness, too. Ill tell you one thing, Jackthose guys were even more scared of that place than my father was. They just about cringed when they got near it. Sunlight Gardener? Was he ever there? Uhhuh, Richard said. But in Point Venuti he looked more like the man we saw over there. . . . Like Osmond. Yes. But those people didnt come very often. Mostly it was just my father, by himself. Sometimes hed get the restaurant at our motel to pack him some sandwiches, and hed sit on a sidewalk bench and eat his lunch looking at the hotel. I stood at the window in the lobby of the Kingsland and looked at my father looking at the hotel. I never liked his face at those times. He looked afraid, but he also looked like . . . like he was gloating. Gloating, Jack mused. Sometimes he asked me if I wanted to come with him, and I always said no. Hed nod and I remember once he said, Therell be time. Youll understand everything, Rich . . . in time. I remember thinking that if it was about that black hotel, I didnt want to understand. Once, Richard said, when he was drunk, he said there was something inside that place. He said it had been there for a long time. We were lying in our beds, I remember. The wind was high that night. I could hear the waves hitting the beach, and the squeaky sound of those weathervanes turning on top of the Agincourts towers. It was a scary sound. I thought about that place, all those rooms, all of them empty Except for the ghosts, Jack muttered. He thought he heard footsteps and looked quickly behind them. Nothing; no one. The roadbed was deserted for as far as he could see. Thats right; except for the ghosts, Richard agreed. So I said, Is it valuable, Daddy? Its the most valuable thing there is, he said. Then some junkie will probably break in and steal it, I said. It wasnthow can I say this?it wasnt a subject I wanted to pursue, but I didnt want him to go to sleep, either. Not with that wind blowing outside, and the sound of those vanes squeaking in the night. He laughed, and I heard a clink as he poured himself a little more bourbon from the bottle on the floor. Nobody is going to steal it, Rich, he said. And any junkie who went into the Agincourt would see things he never saw before. He drank his drink, and I could tell he was getting sleepy. Only one person in the whole world could ever touch that thing, and hell never even get close to it, Rich. I can guarantee that. One thing that interests me is that its the same over there as over here. It doesnt changeat least, as far as I can tell, it doesnt change. Id like to have it, but Im not even going to try, at least not now, and maybe not ever. I could do things with ityou bet!but on the whole, I think I like the thing best right where it is. I was getting sleepy myself by then, but I asked him what it was that he kept talking about. What did he say? Jack asked, drymouthed. He called it Richard hesitated, frowning in thought. He called it the axle of all possible worlds. Then he laughed. Then he called it something else. Something you wouldnt like. What was that? Itll make you mad. Come on, Richard, spill it. He called it . . . well . . . he called it Phil Sawyers folly. It was not anger he felt but a burst of hot, dizzying excitement. That was it, all right; that was the Talisman. The axle of all possible worlds. How many worlds? God alone knew. The American Territories; the Territories themselves; the hypothetical Territories Territories; and on and on, like the stripes coming ceaselessly up and out of a turning barber pole. A universe of worlds, a dimensional macrocosm of worldsand in all of them one thing that was always the same; one unifying force that was undeniably good, even if it now happened to be imprisoned in an evil place; the Talisman, axle of all possible worlds. And was it also Phil Sawyers folly? Probably so. Phils folly . . . Jacks folly . . . Morgan Sloats . . . Gardeners . . . and the hope, of course, of two Queens. Its more than Twinners, he said in a low voice. Richard had been plodding along, watching the rotted ties disappear beneath his feet. Now he looked nervously up at Jack. Its more than Twinners, because there are more than two worlds. There are triplets . . . quadruplets . . . who knows? Morgan Sloat here; Morgan of Orris over there; maybe Morgan, Duke of Azreel, somewhere else. But he never went inside the hotel! I dont know what youre talking about, Richard said in a resigned voice. But Im sure youll go right on, anyway, that resigned tone said, progressing from nonsense to outright insanity. All aboard for Seabrook Island! He cant go inside. That is, Morgan of California cantand do you know why? Because Morgan of Orris cant. And Morgan of Orris cant because Morgan of California cant. If one of them cant go into his version of the black hotel, then none of them can. Do you see? No. Jack, feverish with discovery, didnt hear what Richard said at all. Two Morgans, or dozens. It doesnt matter. Two Lilys, or dozensdozens of Queens in dozens of worlds, Richard, think of that! How does that mess your mind? Dozens of black hotelsonly in some worlds it might be a black amusement park . . . or a black trailer court . . . or I dont know what. But Richard He stopped, turned Richard by the shoulders, and stared at him, his eyes blazing. Richard tried to draw away from him for a moment, and then stopped, entranced by the fiery beauty on Jacks face. Suddenly, briefly, Richard believed that all things might be possible. Suddenly, briefly, he felt healed. What? he whispered. Some things are not excluded. Some people are not excluded. They are . . . well . . . singlenatured. Thats the only way I can think of to say it. They are like itthe Talisman. Singlenatured. Me. Im singlenatured. I had a Twinner, but he died. Not just in the Territories world, but in all worlds but this one. I know thatI feel that. My dad knew it, too. I think thats why he called me Travelling Jack. When Im here, Im not there. When Im there, Im not here. And Richard, neither are you! Richard stared at him, speechless. You dont remember; you were mostly in Freakout City while I was talking to Anders. But he said Morgan of Orris had a boychild. Rushton. Do you know what he was? Yes, Richard whispered. He was still unable to pull his eyes away from Jacks. He was my Twinner. Thats right. The little boy died, Anders said. The Talisman is singlenatured. Were singlenatured. Your father isnt. Ive seen Morgan of Orris in that other world, and hes like your father, but hes not your father. He couldnt go into the black hotel, Richard. He cant now. But he knew you were singlenatured, just as he knows I am. Hed like me dead. He needs you on his side. Because then, if he decided he did want the Talisman, he could always send you in to get it, couldnt he? Richard began to tremble. Never mind, Jack said grimly. He wont have to worry about it. Were going to bring it out, but hes not going to have it. Jack, I dont think I can go into that place, Richard said, but he spoke in a low, strengthless whisper, and Jack, who was already walking on, didnt hear him. Richard trotted to catch up. 12 Conversation lapsed. Noon came and went. The woods had become very silent, and twice Jack had seen trees with strange, gnarly trunks and tangled roots growing quite close to the tracks. He did not much like the looks of these trees. They looked familiar. Richard, staring at the ties as they disappeared beneath his feet, at last stumbled and fell over, hitting his head. After that, Jack piggybacked him again. There, Jack! Richard called, after what seemed an eternity. Up ahead, the tracks disappeared into an old carbarn. The doors hung open on a shadowy darkness that looked dull and motheaten. Beyond the carbarn (which might once have been as pleasant as Richard had said, but which only looked spooky to Jack now) was a highway101, Jack guessed. Beyond that, the oceanhe could hear the pounding waves. I guess were here, he said in a dry voice. Almost, Richard said. Point Venutis a mile or so down the road. God, I wish we didnt have to go there, Jack . . . Jack? Where are you going? But Jack didnt look around. He stepped off the tracks, detoured around one of those strangelooking trees (this one not even shrubhigh), and headed for the road. High grasses and weeds brushed his roadbattered jeans. Something inside the trolleybarnMorgan Sloats private trainstation of yoremoved with a nasty slithering bump, but Jack didnt even look toward it. He reached the road, crossed it, and walked to the edge. 13 Near the middle of December in the year 1981, a boy named Jack Sawyer stood where the water and the land came together, hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking out at the steady Pacific. He was twelve years old and extraordinarily beautiful for his age. His brown hair was longprobably too longbut the seabreeze swept it back from a fine, clear brow. He stood thinking of his mother, who was dying, and of friends, both absent and present, and worlds within worlds, turning in their courses. Ive come the distance, he thought, and shivered. Coast to coast with Travelling Jack Sawyer. His eyes abruptly filled with tears. He breathed deeply of the salt. Here he wasand the Talisman was close by. Jack! Jack didnt look at him at first; his gaze was held by the Pacific, by the sunlight gleaming gold on top of the waves. He was here; he had made it. He Jack! Richard struck his shoulder, bringing him out of his daze. Huh? Look! Richard was gaping, pointing at something down the road, in the direction in which Point Venuti presumably lay. Look there! Jack looked. He understood Richards surprise, but he felt none himselfor no more than he had felt when Richard had told him the name of the motel where he and his father had stayed in Point Venuti. No, not much surprise, but But it was damned good to see his mother again. Her face was twenty feet high, and it was a younger face than Jack could remember. It was Lily as she had looked at the height of her career. Her hair, a glorious bebop shade of brassy blond, was pulled back in a Tuesday Weld ponytail. Her insouciant gotohell grin was, however, all her own. No one else in films had ever smiled that wayshe had invented it, and she still held the patent. She was looking back over one bare shoulder. At Jack . . . at Richard . . . at the blue Pacific. It was his mother . . . but when he blinked, the face changed the slightest bit. The line of chin and jaw grew rounder, the cheekbones less pronounced, the hair darker, the eyes an even deeper blue. Now it was the face of Laura DeLoessian, mother of Jason. Jack blinked again, and it was his mother againhis mother at twentyeight, grinning her cheerful fuckyaifyoucanttakeajoke defiance at the world. It was a billboard. Across the top of it ran this legend THIRD ANNUAL KILLER B FILM FESTIVAL POINT VENUTI, CALIFORNIA BITKER THEATER DECEMBER 10THDECEMBER 20TH THIS YEAR FEATURING LILY CAVANAUGH QUEEN OF THE BS Jack, its your mother, Richard said. His voice was hoarse with awe. Is it just a coincidence? It cant be, can it? Jack shook his head. No, not a coincidence. The word his eyes kept fixing on, of course, was QUEEN. Come on, he said to Richard. I think were almost there. The two of them walked side by side down the road toward Point Venuti. 38 The End of the Road 1 Jack inspected Richards drooping posture and glistening face carefully as they walked along. Richard now looked as though he were dragging himself along on will power alone. A few more wetlooking pimples had blossomed on his face. Are you okay, Richie? No. I dont feel too good. But I can still walk, Jack. You dont have to carry me. He bent his head and plodded glumly on. Jack saw that his friend, who had so many memories of that peculiar little railway and that peculiar little station, was suffering far more than he from the reality that now existedrusty, broken ties, weeds, poison ivy . . . and at the end, a ramshackle building from which all the bright, remembered paint had faded, a building where something slithered uneasily in the dark. I feel like my leg is caught in some stupid trap, Richard had said, and Jack thought he could understand that well enough . . . but not with the depth of Richards understanding. That was more understanding than he was sure he could bear. A slice of Richards childhood had been burned out of him, turned insideout. The railway and the dead station with its staring glassless windows must have seemed like dreadful parodies of themselves to Richardyet more bits of the past destroyed in the wake of everything he was learning or admitting about his father. Richards entire life, as much as Jacks, had begun to fold into the pattern of the Territories, and Richard had been given much less preparation for this transformation. 2 As for what he had told Richard about the Talisman, Jack would have sworn it was the truththe Talisman knew they were coming. He had begun feeling it just about when he had seen the billboard shining out with his mothers picture; now the feeling was urgent and powerful. It was as if a great animal had awakened some miles away, and its purring made the earth resonate . . . or as if every single bulb inside a hundredstory building just over the horizon had just gone on, making a blaze of light strong enough to conceal the stars . . . or as if someone had switched on the biggest magnet in the world, which was tugging at Jacks belt buckle, at the change in his pockets and the fillings in his teeth, and would not be satisfied until it had pulled him into its heart. That great animal purring, that sudden and drastic illumination, that magnetic yearningall these echoed in Jacks chest. Something out there, something in the direction of Point Venuti, wanted Jack Sawyer, and what Jack Sawyer chiefly knew of the object calling him so viscerally was that it was big. Big. No small thing could own such power. It was elephantsized, citysized. And Jack wondered about his capacity to handle something so monumental. The Talisman had been imprisoned in a magical and sinister old hotel; presumably it had been put there not only to keep it from evil hands but at least in part because it was hard for anybody to handle it, whatever his intentions. Maybe, Jack wondered, Jason had been the only being capable of handling itcapable of dealing with it without doing harm either to himself or to the Talisman itself. Feeling the strength and urgency of its call to him, Jack could only hope that he would not weaken before the Talisman. Youll understand, Rich, Richard surprised him by saying. His voice was dull and low. My father said that. He said Id understand. Youll understand, Rich. Yeah, Jack said, looking worriedly at his friend. How are you feeling, Richard? In addition to the sores surrounding his mouth, Richard now had a collection of angrylooking raised red dots or bumps across his pimply forehead and his temples. It was as though a swarm of insects had managed to burrow just under the surface of his protesting skin. For a moment Jack had a flash of Richard Sloat on the morning he had climbed in his window at Nelson House, Thayer School; Richard Sloat with his glasses riding firmly on the bridge of his nose and his sweater tucked neatly into his pants. Would that maddeningly correct, unbudgeable boy ever return? I can still walk, Richard said. But is this what he meant? Is this the understanding I was supposed to get, or have, or whatever the hell . . . ? Youve got something new on your face, Jack said. You want to rest for a while? Naw, Richard said, still speaking from the bottom of a muddy barrel. And I can feel that rash. It itches. I think I got it all over my back, too. Let me see, Jack said. Richard stopped in the middle of the road, obedient as a dog. He closed his eyes and breathed through his mouth. The red spots blazed on his forehead and temples. Jack stepped behind him, raised his jacket, and lifted the back of his stained and dirty blue buttondown shirt. The spots were smaller here, not as raised or as angrylooking; they spread from Richards thin shoulder blades to the small of his back, no larger than ticks. Richard let out a big dispirited unconscious sigh. You got em there, but its not so bad, Jack said. Thanks, Richard said. He inhaled, lifted his head. Overhead the gray sky seemed heavy enough to come crashing to earth. The ocean seethed against the rocks, far down the rough slope. Its only a couple of miles, really, Richard said. Ill make it. Ill piggyback you when you need it, Jack said, unwittingly exposing his conviction that before long Richard would need to be carried again. Richard shook his head and made an inefficient stab at shoving his shirt back in his trousers. Sometimes I think I . . . sometimes I think I cant Were going to go into that hotel, Richard, Jack said, putting his arm through Richards and halfforcing him to step forward. You and me. Together. I dont have the faintest idea of what happens once we get in there, but you and I are going in. No matter who tries to stop us. Just remember that. Richard gave him a look halffearful, halfgrateful. Now Jack could see the irregular outlines of future bumps crowding beneath the surface of Richards cheeks. Again he was conscious of a powerful force pulling at him, forcing him along as he had forced Richard. You mean my father, Richard said. He blinked, and Jack thought he was trying not to cryexhaustion had magnified Richards emotions. I mean everything, Jack said, not quite truthfully. Lets get going, old pal. But what am I supposed to understand? I dont get Richard looked around, blinking his unprotected eyes. Most of the world, Jack remembered, was a blur to Richard. You understand a lot more already, Richie, Jack pointed out. And then for a moment a disconcertingly bitter smile twisted Richards mouth. He had been made to understand a great deal more than he had ever wished to know, and his friend found himself momentarily wishing that he had run away from Thayer School in the middle of the night by himself. But the moment in which he might have preserved Richards innocence was far behind him, if it had ever really existedRichard was a necessary part of Jacks mission. He felt strong hands fold around his heart Jasons hands, the Talismans hands. Were on our way, he said, and Richard settled back into the rhythm of his strides. Were going to see my dad down there in Point Venuti, arent we? he asked. Jack said, Im going to take care of you, Richard. Youre the herd now. What? Nobodys going to hurt you, not unless you scratch yourself to death. Richard muttered to himself as they plodded along. His hands slid over his inflamed temples, rubbing and rubbing. Now and then he dug his fingers in his hair, scratched himself like a dog, and grunted in an only partially fulfilled satisfaction. 3 Shortly after Richard lifted his shirt, revealing the red blotches on his back, they saw the first of the Territories trees. It grew on the inland side of the highway, its tangle of dark branches and column of thick, irregular bark emerging from a reddish, waxy tangle of poison ivy. Knotholes in the bark gaped, mouths or eyes, at the boys. Down in the thick mat of poison ivy a rustling, rustling of unsatisfied roots agitated the waxy leaves above them, as if a breeze blew through them. Jack said, Lets cross the road, and hoped that Richard had not seen the tree. Behind him he could still hear the thick, rubbery roots prowling through the stems of the ivy. Is that a BOY? Could that be a BOY up there? A SPECIAL boy perhaps? Richards hands flew from his sides to his shoulders to his temples to his scalp. On his cheeks, the second wave of raised bumps resembled horrormovie makeuphe could have been a juvenile monster from one of Lily Cavanaughs old films. Jack saw that on the backs of Richards hands the red bumps of the rash had begun to grow together into great red welts. Can you really keep going, Richard? he asked. Richard nodded. Sure. For a while. He squinted back across the road. That wasnt a regular tree, was it? I never saw a tree like that before, not even in a book. It was a Territories tree, wasnt it? Fraid so, Jack said. That means the Territories are really close, doesnt it? I guess it does. So therell be more of those trees up ahead, wont there? If you know the answers, why ask the questions? Jack asked. Oh Jason, what a dumb thing to say. Im sorry, RichieI guess I was hoping that you didnt see it. Yeah, I suppose therell be more of them up there. Lets just not get too close to them. In any case, Jack thought, up there was hardly an accurate way to describe where they were going the highway slid resolutely down a steady grade, and every hundred feet seemed to take it farther from the light. Everything seemed invaded by the Territories. Could you take a look at my back? Richard asked. Sure. Jack again lifted Richards shirt. He kept himself from saying anything, though his instinct was to groan. Richards back was now covered with raised red blotches which seemed almost to radiate heat. Its a little worse, he said. I thought it had to be. Only a little, huh? Only a little. Before long, Jack thought, Richard was going to look one hell of a lot like an alligator suitcaseAlligator Boy, son of Elephant Man. Two of the trees grew together a short way ahead, their warty trunks twisted around each other in a way that suggested violence more than love. As Jack stared at them while they hurried past, he thought he saw the black holes in the bark mouthing at them, blowing curses or kisses and he knew that he heard the roots gnashing together at the base of the joined trees. (BOY! A BOYs out there! OUR boys out there!) Though it was only midafternoon, the air was dark, oddly grainy, like an old newspaper photograph. Where grass had grown on the inland side of the highway, where Queen Annes lace had bloomed delicately and whitely, low unrecognizable weeds blanketed the earth. With no blossoms and few leaves, they resembled snakes coiled together and smelled faintly of diesel oil. Occasionally the sun flared through the granular murk like a dim orange fire. Jack was reminded of a photograph he had once seen of Gary, Indiana, at nighthellish flames feeding on poison in a black, poisoned sky. From down there the Talisman pulled at him as surely as if it were a giant with its hands on his clothes. The nexus of all possible worlds. He would take Richard into that helland fight for his life with all his strengthif he had to haul him along by the ankles. And Richard must have seen this determination in Jack, for, scratching at his sides and shoulders, he toiled along beside him. Im going to do this, Jack said to himself, and tried to ignore how greatly he was merely trying to bolster his courage. If I have to go through a dozen different worlds, Im going to do it. 4 Three hundred yards farther down the road a stand of the ugly Territories trees hovered by the side of the highway like muggers. As he passed by on the other side of the road, Jack glanced at their coiling roots and saw halfembedded in the earth through which they wove a small bleached skeleton, once a boy of eight or nine, still wearing a moldering greenandblack plaid shirt. Jack swallowed and hurried on, trailing Richard behind like a pet on a leash. 5 A few minutes later Jack Sawyer beheld Point Venuti for the first time. 39 Point Venuti 1 Point Venuti hung low in the landscape, clinging to the sides of the cliff leading down to the ocean. Behind it, another range of cliffs rose massively but raggedly into the dark air. They looked like ancient elephants, hugely wrinkled. The road led down past high wooden walls until it turned a corner by a long brown metal building that was a factory or warehouse, where it disappeared into a descending series of terraces, the dull roofs of other warehouses. From Jacks perspective, the road did not reappear again until it began to mount the rise opposite, going uphill and south toward San Francisco. He saw only the stairlike descent of the warehouse roofs, the fencedin parking lots, and, way off to the right, the wintry gray of the water. No people moved on any portion of the road visible to him; nobody appeared in the row of little windows at the back of the nearest factory. Dust swirled through the empty parking lots. Point Venuti looked deserted, but Jack knew that it was not. Morgan Sloat and his cohortsthose who had survived the surprise arrival of the Territories choochoo, anywaywould be waiting for the arrival of Travelling Jack and Rational Richard. The Talisman boomed out to Jack, urging him forward, and he said, Well, this is it, kiddo, and stepped forward. Two new facets of Point Venuti immediately came into view. The first was the appearance of approximately nine inches of the rear of a Cadillac limousineJack saw the glossy black paint, the shiny bumper, part of the right taillight. Jack wished fervently that the renegade Wolf behind the wheel had been one of the Camp Readiness casualties. Then he looked out toward the ocean again. Gray water lathered toward the shore. A slow movement up above the factory and warehouse roofs took his attention in the middle of his next step. COME HERE, the Talisman called in that urgent, magnetic manner. Point Venuti seemed somehow to contract like a hand into a fist. Up above the roofs, and only now visible, a dark but colorless weathervane shaped like the head of a wolf spun erratically back and forth, obeying no wind. When Jack saw the lawless weathervane tracking leftright, then rightleft, and continuing around in a complete circle, he knew that he had just had his first sight of the black hotelat least a portion of it. From the roofs of the warehouses, from the road ahead, from all of the unseen town, rose an unmistakable feeling of enmity as palpable as a slap in the face. The Territories were bleeding through into Point Venuti, Jack realized; here, reality had been sanded thin. The wolfs head whirled meaninglessly in midair, and the Talisman continued to pull at Jack. COME HERE COME HERE COME NOW COME NOW NOW . . . Jack realized that along with its incredible and increasing pull, the Talisman was singing to him. Wordlessly, tunelessly, but singing, a curving rise and fall of whales melody that would be inaudible to anyone else. The Talisman knew he had just seen the hotels weathervane. Point Venuti might be the most depraved and dangerous place in all North and South America, Jack thought, suddenly bolder by half, but it could not keep him from going into the Agincourt Hotel. He turned to Richard, feeling now as if he had been doing nothing but resting and exercising for a month, and tried not to let his dismay at his friends condition show in his face. Richard could not stop him, eitherif he had to, hed shove Richard right through the walls of the damned hotel. He saw tormented Richard drag his fingernails through his hair and down the hivelike rash on his temples and cheeks. Were going to do this, Richard, he said. I know we are. I dont care how much crazy bullshit they throw at us. We are going to do this. Our troubles are going to have troubles with us, said Richard, quotingsurely unconsciouslyfrom Dr. Seuss. He paused. I dont know if I can make it. Thats the truth. Im dead on my feet. He gave Jack a look of utterly naked anguish. Whats happening to me, Jack? I dont know, but I know how to stop it. And hoped that that was true. Is my father doing this to me? Richard asked miserably. He ran his hands experimentally over his puffy face. Then he lifted his shirt out of his trousers and examined the red coalescing rash on his stomach. The bumps, shaped vaguely like the state of Oklahoma, began at his waistline and extended around both sides and up nearly to his neck. It looks like a virus or something. Did my father give it to me? I dont think he did it on purpose, Richie, Jack said. If that means anything. It doesnt, Richard said. Its all going to stop. The Seabrook Island Express is coming to the end of the line. Richard right beside him, Jack stepped forwardand saw the taillights of the Cadillac flash on, then off, before the car slipped forward out of his sight. There would be no surprise attack this time, no wonderful slambang arrival through a fence with a trainful of guns and ammunition, but even if everybody in Point Venuti knew they were coming, Jack was on his way. He felt suddenly as if he had strapped on armor, as if he held a magic sword.

Nobody in Point Venuti had the power to harm him, at least not until he got to the Agincourt Hotel. He was on his way, Rational Richard beside him, and all would be well. And before he had taken three more steps, his muscles singing along with the Talisman, he had a better, more accurate image of himself than of a knight going out to do battle. The image came straight from one of his mothers movies, delivered by celestial telegram. It was as if he were on a horse, a broadbrimmed hat on his head and a gun tied to his hip, riding in to clean up Deadwood Gulch. Last Train to Hangtown, he remembered Lily Cavanaugh, Clint Walker, and Will Hutchins, 1960. So be it. 2 Four or five of the Territories trees struggled out of the hard brown soil beside the first of the abandoned buildings. Maybe they had been there all along, snaking their branches over the road nearly to the white line, maybe not; Jack could not remember seeing them when he first looked down toward the concealed town. It was scarcely more conceivable, though, that he could overlook the trees than he could a pack of wild dogs. He could hear their roots rustling along the surface of the ground as he and Richard approached the warehouse. (OUR boy? OUR boy?) Lets get on the other side of the road, he said to Richard, and took his lumpy hand to lead him across. As soon as they reached the opposite side of the road, one of the Territories trees visibly stretched out, root and branch, for them. If trees had stomachs, they could have heard its stomach growl. The gnarly branch and the smooth snakelike root whipped across the yellow line, then across half the remaining distance to the boys. Jack prodded gasping Richard in the side with his elbow, then grasped his arm and pulled him along. (MY MY MY MY BOY! YESSS!!) A tearing, ripping sound suddenly filled the air, and for a moment Jack thought that Morgan of Orris was raping a passage through the worlds again, becoming Morgan Sloat . . . Morgan Sloat with a final, nottoberefused offer involving a machinegun, a blowtorch, a pair of redhot pincers . . . but instead of Richards furious father, the crown of the Territories tree struck the middle of the road, bounced once in a snapping of branches, then rolled over on its side like a dead animal. Oh my God, Richard said. It came right out of the ground after us. Which was precisely what Jack had been thinking. Kamikaze tree, he said. I think things are going to be a little wild here in Point Venuti. Because of the black hotel? Surebut also because of the Talisman. He looked down the road and saw another clump of the carnivorous trees about ten yards down the hill. The vibes or the atmosphere or whatever the dingdong you want to call it are all screwed upbecause everythings evil and good, black and white, all mixed up. Jack was keeping his eye on the clump of trees they now slowly approached as he talked, and saw the nearest tree twitch its crown toward them, as if it had heard his voice. Maybe this whole town is a big Oatley, Jack was thinking, and maybe he would come through after allbut if there was a tunnel up ahead, the last thing Jack Sawyer was going to do was enter it. He really did not want to meet the Point Venuti version of Elroy. Im afraid, Richard said behind him. Jack, what if more of those trees can jump out of the ground like that? You know, Jack said, Ive noticed that even when trees are mobile, they cant actually get very far. Even a turkey like you ought to be able to outrun a tree. He was rounding the last curve in the road, going downhill past the final warehouses. The Talisman called and called, as vocal as the giants singing harp in Jack and the Beanstalk. At last Jack came around the curve, and the rest of Point Venuti lay beneath him. His Jasonside kept him going. Point Venuti might once have been a pleasant little resort town, but those days had passed long ago. Now Point Venuti itself was the Oatley tunnel, and he would have to walk through all of it. The cracked, broken surface of the road dipped toward an area of burnedout houses surrounded by Territories treesthe workers in the empty factories and warehouses would have lived in these small frame houses. Enough was left of one or two of them to show what they had been. The twisted hulks of burned cars lay here and there about the houses, entwined with thick weeds. Through the wasted foundations of the little houses, the roots of the Territories trees slowly prowled. Blackened bricks and boards, upended and smashed bathtubs, twisted pipes littered the burnedout lots. A flash of white caught Jacks eye, but he looked away as soon as he saw that it was the white bone of a disarranged skeleton hooked beneath the tangle of roots. Once children had piloted bikes through these streets, housewives had gathered in kitchens to complain about wages and unemployment, men had waxed their cars in their drivewaysall gone, now. A tippedover swingset, powdery with rust, poked its limbs through rubble and weeds. Reddish little flares winked on and off in the murky sky. Below the twoblocksquare area of burned houses and feeding trees, a dead stoplight hung over an empty intersection. Across the intersection, the side of a charred building still showed letters reading UH OH! BETTER GET MAA over a pocked, blistered picture of the front end of a car protruding through a plateglass window. The fire had gone no farther, but Jack wished that it had. Point Venuti was a blighted town; and fire was better than rot. The building with the halfdestroyed advertisement for Maaco paint stood first in a row of shops. The Dangerous Planet Bookstore, Tea Sympathy, Ferdys Wholefood Healthstore, Neon Village Jack could read only a few of the names of the shops, for above most of them the paint had long ago flaked and curdled off the facades. These shops appeared to be closed, as abandoned as the factories and warehouses up the hill. Even from where he stood, Jack could see that the plateglass windows had been broken so long ago they were like empty eyeglass frames, blank idiot eyes. Smears of paint decorated the fronts of the shops, red and black and yellow, oddly bright and scarlike in the dull gray air. A naked woman, so starved Jack could have counted her ribs, twisted slowly and ceremoniously as a weathervane in the littered street before the shops. Above her pale body with its drooping breasts and mop of pubic hair, her face had been painted blazing orange. Orange, too, was her hair. Jack stopped moving and watched the insane woman with the painted face and dyed hair raise her arms, twist her upper body as deliberately as one doing a Tai Chi movement, kick her left foot out over the flyblown corpse of a dog, and freeze into position like a statue. An emblem of all Point Venuti, the madwoman held her posture. Slowly the foot came down, and the skinny body revolved. Past the woman, past the row of empty shops, Main Street turned residentialat least Jack supposed that it had once been residential. Here, too, bright scars of paint defaced the buildings, tiny twostory houses once bright white, now covered with the slashes of paint and graffiti. One slogan jumped out at him YOURE DEAD NOW, scrawled up the side of an isolated peeling building that had surely once been a boarding house. The words had been there a long time. JASON, I NEED YOU, the Talisman boomed out at him in a language both above and beneath speech. I cant, Richard whispered beside him. Jack, I know I cant. After the row of peeling, hopelesslooking houses, the road dipped again, and Jack could see only the backs of a pair of black Cadillac limousines, one on either side of Main Street, parked with their noses pointed downhill, motors running. Like a trick photograph, looking impossibly large, impossibly sinister, the tophalf? third?of the black hotel reared up over the back ends of the Cadillacs and the despairing little houses. It seemed to float, cut off by the curve of the final hill. I cant go in there, Richard repeated. Im not even sure we can get past those trees, Jack said. Hold your water, Richie. Richard uttered an odd, snuffling noise which it took Jack a second to recognize as the sound of crying. He put his arm over Richards shoulder. The hotel owned the landscapethat much was obvious. The black hotel owned Point Venuti, the air above it, the ground beneath. Looking at it, Jack saw the weathervanes spin in contradictory directions, the turrets and gambrels rise like warts into the gray air. The Agincourt did look as if it were made of stonethousandyearold stone, black as tar. In one of the upper windows, a light suddenly flashedto Jack, it was as if the hotel had winked at him, secretly amused to find him at last so near. A dim figure seemed to glide away from the window a second later the reflection of a cloud swam across the glass. From somewhere inside, the Talisman trilled out its song only Jack could hear. 3 I think it grew, Richard breathed. He had forgotten to scratch since he had seen the hotel floating past the final hill. Tears ran over and through the raised red bumps on his cheeks, and Jack saw that his eyes were now completely encased by the raised rashRichard didnt have to squint to squint anymore. Its impossible, but the hotel used to be smaller, Jack. Im sure of it. Right now, nothings impossible, Jack said, almost unnecessarilythey had long ago passed into the realm of the impossible. And the Agincourt was so large, so dominating, that it was wildly out of scale with the rest of the town. The architectural extravagance of the black hotel, all the turrets and brass weathervanes attached to fluted towers, the cupolas and gambrels which should have made it a playful fantasy, instead made it menacing, nightmarish. It looked as though it belonged in some kind of antiDisneyland where Donald Duck had strangled Huey, Dewey, and Louie and Mickey shot Minnie Mouse full of heroin. Im afraid, Richard said; and JASON COME NOW, sang out the Talisman. Just stick close to me, pal, and well go through that place like grease through a goose. JASON COME NOW! The clump of Territories trees just ahead rustled as Jack stepped forward. Richard, frightened, hung backit might have been, Jack realized, that Richard was nearly blind by now, deprived of his glasses and with his eyes gradually being squeezed shut. He reached behind him and pulled Richard forward, feeling as he did so how thin Richards hand and wrist had become. Richard came stumbling along. His skinny wrist burned in Jacks hand. Whatever you do, dont slow down, Jack said. All we have to do is get by them. I cant, Richard sobbed. Do you want me to carry you? Im being serious, Richard. I mean, this could be a lot worse. I bet if we hadnt blown so many of his troops away back there, hed have guards every fifty feet. You couldnt move fast enough if you carried me. Id slow you down. What in the Sam Hill do you think youre doing now? went through Jacks mind, but he said, Stay on my far side and go like hell, Richie. When I say three. Got it? One . . . two . . . three! He jerked Richards arm and began sprinting past the trees. Richard stumbled, gasped, then managed to right himself and keep on moving without falling down. Geysers of dust appeared at the base of the trees, a commotion of shredding earth and scrambling things that looked like enormous beetles, shiny as shoe polish. A small brown bird took off out of the weeds near the clump of conspiring trees, and a limber root like an elephants trunk whipped out of the dust and snatched it from the air. Another root snaked toward Jacks left ankle, but fell short. The mouths in the coarse bark howled and screamed. (LOVERRR? LOVER BOYYY?) Jack clenched his teeth together and tried to force Richard Sloat to fly. The heads of the complicated trees had begun to sway and bow. Whole nests and families of roots were slithering toward the white line, moving as though they had independent wills. Richard faltered, then unambiguously slowed as he turned his head to look past Jack toward the reaching trees. Move! Jack yelled, and yanked at Richards arm. The red lumps felt like hot stones buried beneath the skin. He hauled away at Richard, seeing too many of the whickering roots crawl gleefully toward them across the white line. Jack put his arm around Richards waist at the same instant that a long root whistled through the air and wrapped itself around Richards arm. Jesus! Richard yelled. Jason! It got me! It got me! In horror Jack saw the tip of the root, a blind worms head, lift up and stare at him. It twitched almost lazily in the air, then wound itself once again around Richards burning arm. Other roots came sliding toward them across the road. Jack yanked Richard back as hard as he could, and gained another six inches. The root around Richards arm grew taut. Jack locked his arms around Richards waist and hauled him mercilessly backward. Richard let out an unearthly, floating scream. For a second, Jack was afraid that Richards shoulder had separated, but a voice large within him said PULL! and he dug in his heels and pulled back even harder. Then they both nearly went tumbling into a nest of crawling roots, for the single tendril around Richards arm had neatly snapped. Jack stayed on his feet only by backpedalling frantically, bending over at the waist to keep Richard, too, off the road. In this way they got past the last of the trees just as they heard the rending, snapping sounds they had heard once before. This time, Jack did not have to tell Richard to run for it. The nearest tree came roaring up out of the ground and fell with a groundshaking thud only three or four feet behind Richard. The others crashed to the surface of the road behind it, waving their roots like wild hair. You saved my life, Richard said. He was crying again, more from weakness and exhaustion and shock than from fear. From now on, my old pal, you ride piggyback, Jack said, panting, and bent down to help Richard get on his back. 4 I should have told you, Richard was whispering. His face burned against Jacks neck, his mouth against Jacks ear. I dont want you to hate me, but I wouldnt blame you if you did, really I wouldnt. I know I should have told you. He seemed to weigh no more than the husk of himself, as if nothing were left inside him. About what? Jack settled Richard squarely in the center of his back, and again had the unsettling feeling that he was carrying only an empty sack of flesh. The man who came to visit my father . . . and Camp Readiness . . . and the closet. Richards hollowseeming body trembled against his friends back. I should have told you. But I couldnt even tell myself. His breath, hot as his skin, blew agitatedly into Jacks ear. Jack thought, The Talisman is doing this to him. An instant later he corrected himself. No. The black hotel is doing this to him. The two limousines which had been parked nosedown at the brow of the next hill had disappeared sometime during the fight with the Territories trees, but the hotel endured, growing larger with every forward step Jack took. The skinny naked woman, another of the hotels victims, still performed her mad slow dance before the bleak row of shops. The little red flares danced, winked out, danced in the murky air. It was no time at all, neither morning nor afternoon nor nightit was times Blasted Lands. The Agincourt Hotel did seem made of stone, though Jack knew it was notthe wood seemed to have calcified and thickened, to have blackened of itself, from the inside out. The brass weathervanes, wolf and crow and snake and circular cryptic designs Jack did not recognize, swung about to contradictory winds. Several of the windows flashed a warning at Jack; but that might have been merely a reflection of one of the red flares. He still could not see the bottom of the hill and the Agincourts ground floor, and would not be able to see them until he had gone past the bookstore, tea shop, and other stores that had escaped the fire. Where was Morgan Sloat? Where, for that matter, was the whole godforsaken reception committee? Jack tightened his grip on Richards sticklike legs, hearing the Talisman call him again, and felt a tougher, stronger being rear up within him. Dont hate me because I couldnt . . . Richard said, his voice trailing off at the end. JASON, COME NOW COME NOW! Jack gripped Richards thin legs and walked down past the burnedover area where so many houses had once stood. The Territories trees which used these wasted blocks as their own private lunch counter whispered and stirred, but they were too far away to trouble Jack. The woman in the midst of the empty littered street slowly swivelled around as she became aware of the boys progress down the hill. She was in the midst of a complex exercise, but all suggestion of Tai Chi Chuan left her when she dropped her arms and one outstretched leg and stood stockstill beside a dead dog, watching burdened Jack come down the hill toward her. For a moment she seemed to be a mirage, too hallucinatory to be real, this starved woman with her stickout hair and face the same brilliant orange; then she awkwardly bolted across the street and into one of the shops without a name. Jack grinned, without knowing he was going to do itthe sense of triumph and of something he could only describe as armored virtue took him so much by surprise. Can you really make it there? Richard gasped, and Jack said, Right now I can do anything. He could have carried Richard all the way back to Illinois if the great singing object imprisoned in the hotel had ordered him to do it. Again Jack felt that sense of coming resolution, and thought, Its so dark here because all those worlds are crowded together, jammed up like a triple exposure on film. 5 He sensed the people of Point Venuti before he saw them. They would not attack himJack had known that with absolute certainty ever since the madwoman had fled into one of the shops. They were watching him. From beneath porches, through lattices, from the backs of empty rooms, they peered out at him, whether with fear, rage, or frustration he could not tell. Richard had fallen asleep or passed out on his back, and was breathing in heated harsh little puffs. Jack skirted the body of the dog and glanced sideways into the hole where the window of the Dangerous Planet Bookstore should have been. At first he saw only the messy macaroni of used hypodermic needles which covered the floor, atop and beside the splayed books spread here and there. On the walls, the tall shelves stood empty as yawns. Then a convulsive movement in the dim back of the store caught his eye, and two pale figures coalesced out of the gloom. Both had beards and long naked bodies in which the tendons stood out like cords. The whites of four mad eyes flashed at him. One of the naked men had only one hand and was grinning. His erection waved before him, a thick pale club. He couldnt have seen that, he told himself. Where was the mans other hand? He glanced back. Now he saw only a tangle of skinny white limbs. Jack did not look into the windows of any of the other shops, but eyes tracked him as he passed. Soon he was walking past the tiny twostory houses. YOURE DEAD NOW splayed itself on a side wall. He would not look in the windows, he promised himself, he could not. Orange faces topped with orange hair wagged through a downstairs window. Baby, a woman whispered from the next house. Sweet baby Jason. This time he did look. Youre dead now. She stood just on the other side of a broken little window, twiddling the chains that had been inserted in her nipples, smiling at him lopsidedly. Jack stared at her vacant eyes, and the woman dropped her hands and hesitantly backed away from the window. The length of chain drooped between her breasts. Eyes watched Jack from the backs of dark rooms, between lattices, from crawl spaces beneath porches. The hotel loomed before him, but no longer straight ahead. The road must have delicately angled, for now the Agincourt stood decidedly off to his left. And did it, in fact, actually loom as commandingly as it had? His Jasonside, or Jason himself, blazed up within Jack, and saw that the black hotel, though still very large, was nothing like mountainous. COME I NEED YOU NOW, sang out the Talisman. YOU ARE RIGHT IT IS NOT AS GREAT AS IT WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE. At the top of the last hill he stopped and looked down. There they were, all right, all of them. And there was the black hotel, all of it. Main Street descended to the beach, which was white sand interrupted by big outcroppings of rocks like jagged discolored teeth. The Agincourt reared up a short distance off to his left, flanked on the ocean side by a massive stone breakwater running far out into the water. Before it, stretching out in a line, a dozen long black limousines, some dusty, others as polished as mirrors, sat, their motors running. Streamers of white exhaust, lowflying clouds whiter than the air, drifted out from many of the cars. Men in FBIagent black suits patrolled along the fence, holding their hands up to their eyes. When Jack saw two red flashes of light stab out before one of the mens faces, he reflexively dodged sideways around the side of the little houses, moving before he was actually conscious that the men carried binoculars. For a second or two, he must have looked like a beacon, standing upright at the brow of a hill. Knowing that a momentary carelessness had nearly led to his capture, Jack breathed hard for a moment and rested his shoulder against the peeling gray shingles of the house. Jack hitched Richard up to a more comfortable position on his back. Anyhow, now he knew that he would somehow have to approach the black hotel from its sea side, which meant getting across the beach unseen. When he straightened up again, he peeked around the side of the house and looked downhill. Morgan Sloats reduced army sat in its limousines or, random as ants, milled before the high black fence. For a crazy moment Jack recalled with total precision his first sight of the Queens summer palace. Then, too, he had stood above a scene crowded with people moving back and forth with apparent randomness. What was it like there, now? On that daywhich seemed to have taken place in prehistory, so far must he look backthe crowds before the pavillion, the entire scene, had in spite of all an undeniable aura of peace, of order. That would be gone now, Jack knew. Now Osmond would rule the scene before the great tentlike structure, and those people brave enough to enter the pavillion would scurry in, heads averted. And what of the Queen? Jack wondered. He could not help remembering that shockingly familiar face cradled in the whiteness of bed linen. And then Jacks heart nearly froze, and the vision of the pavillion and the sick Queen dropped back into a slot in Jacks memory. Sunlight Gardener strolled into Jacks line of vision, a bullhorn in his hand. Wind from the sea blew a thick strand of white hair across his sunglasses. For a second Jack was sure that he could smell his odor of sweet cologne and jungle rot. Jack forgot to breathe for perhaps five seconds, and just stood beside the cracked and peeling shingle wall, staring down as a madman yelled orders to blacksuited men, pirouetted, pointed at something hidden from Jack, and made an expressive move of disapproval. He remembered to breathe. Well, weve got an interesting situation here, Richard, Jack said. We got a hotel that can double its size whenever it wants to, I guess, and down there we also have the worlds craziest man. Richard, who Jack had thought was asleep, surprised him by mumbling something audible only as guffuf. What? Go for it, Richard whispered weakly. Move it, chum. Jack actually laughed. A second later, he was carefully moving downhill past the backs of houses, going through tall horsetail grass toward the beach. 40 Speedy on the Beach 1 At the bottom of the hill, Jack flattened out in the grass and crawled, carrying Richard as he had once carried his backpack. When he reached the border of high yellow weeds alongside the edge of the road, he inched forward on his belly and looked out. Directly ahead of him, on the other side of the road, the beach began. Tall weatherbeaten rocks jutted out of the grayish sand; grayish water foamed onto the shore. Jack looked leftward down the street. A short distance past the hotel, on the inland side of the beach road, stood a long crumbling structure like a slicedoff wedding cake. Above it a wooden sign with a great hole in it read KINGSLAND MOTEL. The Kingsland Motel, Jack remembered, where Morgan Sloat had installed himself and his little boy during his obsessive inspections of the black hotel. A flash of white that was Sunlight Gardener roamed farther up the street, clearly berating several of the blacksuited men and flapping his hand toward the hill. He doesnt know Im down here already, Jack realized as one of the men began to trudge across the beach road, looking from side to side. Gardener made another abrupt, commanding gesture, and the limousine parked at the foot of Main Street wheeled away from the hotel and began to coast alongside the man in the black suit. He unbuttoned his jacket as soon as he hit the sidewalk of Main Street and took out a pistol from a shoulder holster. In the limousines the drivers turned their heads and stared up the hill. Jack blessed his luckfive minutes later, and a renegade Wolf with an oversized gun would have ended his quest for that great singing thing in the hotel. He could see only the top two floors of the hotel, and the madly spinning devices attached to the architectural extravagances on the roof. Because of his wormseye angle, the breakwater bisecting the beach on the right side of the hotel seemed to rear up twenty feet or more, marching down the sand and on into the water. COME NOW COME NOW, called the Talisman in words that were not words, but almost physical expressions of urgency. The man with the gun was now out of sight, but the drivers still stared after him as he went uphill toward Point Venutis lunatics. Sunlight Gardener lifted his bullhorn and roared, Root him out! I want him rooted out! He jabbed the bullhorn at another blacksuited man, just raising his binoculars to look down the street in Jacks direction. You! Pigbrains! Take the other side of the street . . . and root that bad boy out, oh yes, that baddest baddest boy, baddest . . . His voice trailed away as the second man trotted across the street to the opposite sidewalk, his pistol already lengthening his fist. It was the best chance hed ever get, Jack realizednobody was facing down the length of the beach road. Hang on tight, he whispered to Richard, who did not move. Time to boogie. He got his feet up under him, and knew that Richards back was probably visible above the yellow weeds and tall grass. Bending over, he burst out of the weeds and set his feet on the beach road. In seconds Jack Sawyer was flat on his stomach in the gritty sand. He pushed himself forward with his feet. One of Richards hands tightened on his shoulder. Jack wiggled forward across the sand until he had made it behind the first tall outcropping of rock; then he simply stopped moving and lay with his head on his hands, Richard light as a leaf on his back, breathing hard. The water, no more than twenty feet away, beat against the edge of the beach. Jack could still hear Sunlight Gardener screeching about imbeciles and incompetents, his crazy voice drifting down from uphill on Main Street. The Talisman urged him forward, urged him on, on, on. . . . Richard fell off his back. You okay? Richard raised a thin hand and touched his forehead with his fingers, his cheekbone with his thumb. I guess. You see my father? Jack shook his head. Not yet. But hes here. I guess. He has to be. The Kingsland, Jack remembered, seeing in his mind the dingy facade, the broken wooden sign. Morgan Sloat would have holed up in the hotel he had used so often six or seven years ago. Jack immediately felt the furious presence of Morgan Sloat near him, as if knowing where Sloat was had summoned him up. Well, dont worry about him. Richards voice was paperthin. I mean, dont worry about me worrying about him. I think hes dead, Jack. Jack looked at his friend with a fresh anxiety could Richard actually be losing his mind? Certainly Richard was feverish. Up on the hill, Sunlight Gardener bawled SPREAD OUT! through his bullhorn. You think And then Jack heard another voice, one that had first whispered beneath Gardeners angry command. It was a halffamiliar voice, and Jack recognized its timbre and cadence before he had truly identified it. And, oddly, he recognized that the sound of this particular voice made him feel relaxedalmost as if he could stop scheming and fretting now, for everything would be taken care ofbefore he could name its owner. Jack Sawyer, the voice repeated. Over here, sonny. The voice was Speedy Parkers. I do, Richard said, and closed his puffy eyes again and looked like a corpse washed up by the tide. I do think my father is dead, Richard meant, but Jacks mind was far from the ravings of his friend. Over here, Jacky, Speedy called again, and the boy saw that the sound came from the largest group of tall rocks, three joined vertical piles only a few feet from the edge of the water. A dark line, the hightide mark, cut across the rocks a quarter of the way up. Speedy, Jack whispered. Yeahbob, came the reply. Get yourself over here without them zombies seein you, can you? And bring your frien along, too. Richard still lay faceup on the sand, his hand over his face. Come on, Richie, Jack whispered into his ear. We have to move a little bit down the beach. Speedys here. Speedy? Richard whispered back, so quietly Jack had trouble hearing the word. A friend. See the rocks down there? He lifted Richards head on the reedlike neck. Hes behind them. Hell help us, Richie. Right now, we could use a little help. I cant really see, Richard complained. And Im so tired . . . Get on my back again. He turned around and nearly flattened out on the sand. Richards arms came over his shoulders and feebly joined. Jack peered around the edge of the rock. Down the beach road, Sunlight Gardener stroked his hair into place as he strode toward the front door of the Kingsland Motel. The black hotel reared up awesomely. The Talisman opened its throat and called for Jack Sawyer. Gardener hesitated outside the door of the motel, swept both hands over his hair, shook his head, and turned smartly about and began walking much more rapidly back up the long line of limousines. The bullhorn lifted. REPORTS EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES! he screeched. YOU POINT MENTELL ME IF YOU SEE A BUG MOVE! I MEAN IT, YES I DO! Gardener was walking away; everybody else watched him. It was time. Jack kicked off away from his shelter of rock and, bending over while he clasped Richards skimpy forearms, raced down the beach. His feet kicked up scallops of damp sand. The three joined pillars of rocks, which had seemed so close while he talked to Speedy, now appeared to be half a mile awaythe open space between himself and them would not close. It was as if the rocks receded while he ran. Jack expected to hear the crack of a shot. Would he feel the bullet first, or would he hear the report before the bullet knocked him down? At last the three rocks grew larger and larger in his vision, and then he was there, falling onto his chest and skidding behind their protection. Speedy! he said, almost laughing in spite of everything. But the sight of Speedy, who was sitting down beside a colorful little blanket and leaning against the middle pillar of rock, killed the laughter in his throatkilled at least half of his hope, too. 2 For Speedy Parker looked worse than Richard. Much worse.

His cracked, leaking face gave Jack a weary nod, and the boy thought that Speedy was confirming his hopelessness. Speedy wore only a pair of old brown shorts, and all of his skin seemed horribly diseased, as if with leprosy. Settle down now, ole Travellin Jack, Speedy whispered in a hoarse, crackling voice. Theres lots you got to hear, so open your ears up good. How are you? Jack asked. I mean . . . Jesus, Speedy . . . is there anything I can do for you? He gently placed Richard down on the sand. Open your ears, like I said. Dont you go worryin bout Speedy. I aint too comfable, the way you see me now, but I can be comfable again, if you does the right thing. Your little friends dad put this hurtin on meon his own boy, too, looks like. Old Bloat dont want his child in that hotel, no sir. But you got to take him there, son. There aint but one way about it. You got to do it. Speedy seemed to be fading in and out as he talked to Jack, who wanted to scream or wail more than he had at any time since the death of Wolf. His eyes smarted, and he knew he wanted to cry. I know, Speedy, he said. I figured that out. You a good boy, the old man said. He cocked his head back and regarded Jack carefully. You the one, all right. The road laid its mark on you, I see. You the one. You gonna do it. Hows my mom, Speedy? Jack asked. Please tell me. Shes still alive, isnt she? You can call her soons you can, find out shes okay, Speedy answered. But first you got to get it, Jack. Because if you dont get it, she be dead. And so be Laura, the Queen. She be dead, too. Speedy hitched himself up, wincing, to straighten his back. Let me tell you. Most everybody at the court gave up on hergave her up for dead already. His face expressed his disgust. They all afraid of Morgan. Because they know Morganll take they skin off they backs if they dont swear allegiance to him now. While Laura still got a few breaths in her. But out in the far Territories, twolegged snakes like Osmond and his gang been goin around, tellin folks she already dead. And if she dies, Travellin Jack, if she dies . . . He levelled his ruined face at the boy. Then we got black horror in both worlds. Black horror. And you can call your momma. But first you has to get it. You has to. Its all thats left, now. Jack did not have to ask him what he meant. Im glad you understand, son. Speedy closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the stone. A second later his eyes slowly opened again. Destinies. Thats what all this is about. More destinies, more lives, than you know. You ever hear the name Rushton? I suspect you might have, all this time gone by. Jack nodded. All those destinies be the reason your momma brought you all the way to the Alhambra Hotel, Travellin Jack. I was just sittin and waitin, knowin youd show up. The Talisman pulled you here, boy. Jason. Thats a name you heard, too, I spect. Its me, Jack said. Then get the Talisman. I brought this lil thing along, hep you out some. He wearily picked up the blanket, which, Jack saw, was of rubber and therefore not a blanket after all. Jack took the bundle of rubber from Speedys charredlooking hand. How can I get into the hotel, though? he asked. I cant get over the fence, and I cant swim in with Richard. Blow it up. Speedys eyes had closed again. Jack unfolded the object. It was an inflatable raft in the shape of a legless horse. Recognize her? Speedys voice, ruined as it was, bore a nostalgic lightness. You and me picked her up, sometime back. I explained about the names. Jack suddenly remembered coming to Speedy, that day that seemed filled with slashes of black and white, and finding him sitting inside a round shed, repairing the merrygoround horses. You be takin liberties with the Lady, but I guess she aint gonna mind if youre helpin me get her back where she belongs. Now that, too, had a larger meaning. Another piece of the world locked into place for Jack. Silver Lady, he said. Speedy winked at him, and again Jack had the eerie sense that everything in his life had conspired to get him to precisely this point. Your friend here all right? It wasalmosta deflection. I think so. Jack looked uneasily at Richard who had rolled on his side and was breathing shallowly, his eyes shut. Then longs you think so, blow up ole Silver Lady here. You gotta bring that boy in with you no matter what. Hes a part of it, too. Speedys skin seemed to be getting worse as they sat on the beachit had a sickly ashgray tinge. Before Jack put the air nozzle to his mouth he asked, Cant I do anything for you, Speedy? Sure. Go to the Point Venuti drugstore and fetch me a bottle of Lydia Pinkhams ointment. Speedy shook his head. You know how to hep Speedy Parker, boy. Get the Talisman. Thats all the hep I need. Jack blew into the nozzle. 3 A very short time later he was pushing in the stopper located beside the tail of a raft shaped like a fourfootlong rubber horse with an abnormally broad back. I dont know if Ill be able to get Richard on this thing, he said, not complaining but merely thinking out loud. He be able to follow orders, ole Travellin Jack. Just sit behind him, kind of hep hold him on. Thats all he needs. And in fact Richard had pulled himself into the lee of the standing rocks and was breathing smoothly and regularly through his open mouth. He might have been either asleep or awake, Jack could not tell which. All right, Jack said. Is there a pier or something out behind that place? Better than a pier, Jacky. Once you gets out beyond the breakwater, youll see big pilinsthey built part of the hotel right out over the water. Youll see a ladder down in them pilins. Get Richard there up the ladder and you be on the big deck out back. Big windows right therethe kind of windows that be doors, you know? Open up one of them windowdoors and you be in the dinin room. He managed to smile. Once you in the dinin room, I reckon youll be able to sniff out the Talisman. And dont be afraid of her, sonny. Shes been waitin for youshell come to your hand like a good hound. Whats to stop all these guys from coming in after me? Shoo, they cant go in the black hotel. Disgust with Jacks stupidity was printed in every line on Speedys face. I know, I mean in the water. Why wouldnt they come after me with a boat or something? Now Speedy managed a painful but genuine smile. I think you gonna see why, Travellin Jack. Ole Bloat and his boys gotta steer clear of the water, hee hee. Dont worry bout that nowjust remember what I told you and get to gettin, hear? Im already there, Jack said, and edged toward the rocks to peer around at the beach road and the hotel. He had managed to get across the road and to Speedys cover without being seen surely he could drag Richard the few feet down to the water and get him on the raft. With any luck at all, he should be able to make it unseen all the way to the pilingsGardener and the men with binoculars were concentrating on the town and the hillside. Jack peeked around the side of one of the tall columns. The limousines still stood before the hotel. Jack put his head out an inch or two farther to look across the street. A man in a black suit was just stepping through the door of the wreck of the Kingsland Motelhe was trying, Jack saw, to keep from looking at the black hotel. A whistle began to shrill, as high and insistent as a womans scream. Move! Speedy whispered hoarsely. Jack jerked his head up and saw at the top of the grassy rise behind the crumbling houses a blacksuited man blasting away at the whistle and pointing straight downhill at him. The mans dark hair swayed around his shouldershair, black suit, and sunglasses, he looked like the Angel of Death. FOUND HIM! FOUND HIM! Gardener bawled. SHOOT HIM! A THOUSAND DOLLARS TO THE BROTHER WHO BRINGS ME HIS BALLS! Jack recoiled back into the safety of the rocks. A halfsecond later a bullet spanged off the front of the middle pillar just before the sound of the shot reached them. So now I know, Jack thought as he grabbed Richards arm and pulled him toward the raft. First you get knocked down, then you hear the gun go off. You gotta go now, Speedy said in a breathless rush of words. In thirty seconds, theres gonna be a lot more shootin. Stay behind the breakwater as longs you can and then cut over. Get her, Jack. Jack gave Speedy a frantic, driven look as a second bullet smacked into the sand before their little redoubt. Then he pushed Richard down in the front of the raft and saw with some satisfaction that Richard had enough presence of mind to grasp and hang on to the separate rubbery tufts of the mane. Speedy lifted his right hand in a gesture both wave and blessing. On his knees Jack gave the raft a shove which sent it almost to the edge of the water. He heard another trilling blast of the whistle. Then he scrambled to his feet. He was still running when the raft hit the water, and was wet to the waist when he pulled himself into it. Jack paddled steadily out to the breakwater. When he reached the end, he turned into unprotected open water and began paddling. 4 After that, Jack concentrated on his paddling, firmly putting out of his mind any considerations of what he would do if Morgans men had killed Speedy. He had to get under the pilings, and that was that. A bullet hit the water, causing a tiny eruption of droplets about six feet to his left. He heard another ricochet off the breakwater with a ping. Jack paddled forward with his whole strength. Some time, he knew not how long, went by. At last he rolled off the side of the raft and swam to the back, so that he could push it even faster by scissoring his legs. An almost imperceptible current swept him nearer his goal. At last the pilings began, high crusty columns of wood as thick around as telephone poles. Jack raised his chin out of the water and saw the immensity of the hotel lifting itself above the wide black deck, leaning out over him. He glanced back and to his right, but Speedy had not moved. Or had he? Speedys arms looked different. Maybe There was a flurry of movement on the long grassy descent behind the row of fallingdown houses. Jack looked up and saw four of the men in black suits racing down toward the beach. A wave slapped the raft, almost taking it from his grasp. Richard moaned. Two of the men pointed toward him. Their mouths moved. Another high wave rocked the raft and threatened to push both raft and Jack Sawyer back toward the beach. Wave, Jack thought, what wave? He looked up over the front of the raft as soon as it dipped again into a trough. The broad gray back of something surely too large to be a mere fish was sinking beneath the surface. A shark? Jack was uneasily conscious of his two legs fluttering out behind him in the water. He ducked his head under, afraid hed see a long cigarshaped stomach with teeth sweeping toward him. He did not see that shape, not exactly, but what he saw astounded him. The water, which appeared now to be very deep, was as full as an aquarium, though one containing no fish of normal size or description. In this aquarium only monsters swam. Beneath Jacks legs moved a zoo of outsize, sometimes horrendously ugly animals. They must have been beneath him and the raft ever since the water had grown deep enough to accommodate them, for the water was crowded everywhere. The thing that had frightened the renegade Wolfs glided by ten feet down, long as a southbound freight train. It moved upward as he watched. A film over its eyes blinked. Long whiskers trailed back from its cavernous mouthit had a mouth like an elevator door, Jack thought. The creature glided past him, pushing Jack closer to the hotel with the weight of the water it displaced, and raised its dripping snout above the surface. Its furry profile resembled Neanderthal Mans. Ole Bloat and his boys gotta steer clear of the water, Speedy had told him, and laughed. Whatever force had sealed the Talisman in the black hotel had set these creatures in the waters off Point Venuti to make sure that the wrong people kept away; and Speedy had known it. The great bodies of the creatures in the water delicately nudged the raft nearer and nearer the pilings, but the waves they made kept Jack from getting all but the most fragmentary view of what was happening on shore. He rode up a crest and saw Sunlight Gardener, his hair flowing out behind him, standing beside the black fence levelling a long heavy hunting rifle at his head. The raft sank into the trough; the shell sizzled past far overhead with the noise of a hummingbirds passing; the report came. When Gardener shot next, a fishlike thing ten feet long with a great sail of a dorsal fin rose straight up out of the water and stopped the bullet. In one motion, the creature rolled back down and sliced into the water again. Jack saw a great ragged hole in its side. The next time he rode up a crest, Gardener was trotting off across the beach, clearly on his way to the Kingsland Motel. The giant fish continued to wash him diagonally forward toward the pilings. 5 A ladder, Speedy had said, and as soon as Jack was under the wide deck he peered through the gloom to try to find it. The thick pilings, encrusted with algae and barnacles and dripping with seaweed, stood in four rows. If the ladder had been installed at the time the deck was built it might easily be useless nowat the least a wooden ladder would be hard to see, overgrown with weed and barnacles. The big shaggy pilings were now much thicker than they had been originally. Jack got his forearms over the back of the raft and used the thick rubbery tail to lever himself back inside. Then, shivering, he unbuttoned his sodden shirtthe same white buttondown, at least one size too small, Richard had given him on the other side of the Blasted Landsand dropped it squashily in the bottom of the raft. His shoes had fallen off in the water, and he peeled off the wet socks and tossed them on top of the shirt. Richard sat in the bow of the raft, slouching forward over his knees, his eyes shut and his mouth closed. Were looking for a ladder, Jack said. Richard acknowledged this with a barely perceptible movement of his head. Do you think you could get up a ladder, Richie? Maybe, Richard whispered. Well, its around here somewhere. Probably attached to one of these pilings. Jack paddled with both hands, bringing the raft between two of the pilings in the first row. The Talismans call was continuous now, and seemed nearly strong enough to pick him up out of the raft and deposit him on the deck. They were drifting between the first and second rows of pilings, already under the heavy black line of the deck above; here as well as outside, little red flares ignited in the air, twisted, winked out. Jack counted four rows of pilings, five pilings in each row. Twenty places where the ladder might be. With the darkness beneath the deck and the endless refinements of corridors suggested by the pilings, being here was like taking a tour of the Catacombs. They didnt shoot us, Richard said without affect. In the same tone of voice he might have said, The store is out of bread. We had some help. He looked at Richard, slumped over his knees. Richard would never be able to get up a ladder unless he were somehow galvanized. Were coming up to a piling, Jack said. Lean forward and shove us off, will you? What? Keep us from bumping into the piling, Jack repeated. Come on, Richard. I need your help. It seemed to work. Richard cracked open his left eye and put his right hand on the edge of the raft. As they drifted nearer to the thick piling he held out his left hand to deflect them. Then something on the pillar made a smacking sound, as of lips pulled wetly apart. Richard grunted and retracted his hand. What was it? Jack said, and Richard did not have to answernow both boys saw the sluglike creatures clinging to the pilings. Their eyes had been closed, too, and their mouths. Agitated, they began to shift positions on their pillars, clattering their teeth. Jack put his hands in the water and swung the bow of the raft around the piling. Oh God, Richard said. Those lipless tiny mouths held a quantity of teeth. God, I cant take You have to take it, Richard, Jack said. Didnt you hear Speedy back there on the beach? He might even be dead now, Richard, and if he is, he died so he could be certain that I knew you had to go in the hotel. Richard had closed his eyes again. And I dont care how many slugs we have to kill to get up the ladder, you are going up the ladder, Richard. Thats all. Thats it. Shit on you, Richard said. You dont have to talk to me like that. Im sick of you being so high and mighty. I know Im going up the ladder, wherever it is. I probably have a fever of a hundred and five, but I know Im going up that ladder. I just dont know if I can take it. So to hell with you. Richard had uttered this entire speech with his eyes shut. He effortfully forced both eyes open again. Nuts. I need you, Jack said. Nuts. Ill get up the ladder, you asshole. In that case, Id better find it, Jack said, pushed the raft forward toward the next row of pilings, and saw it. 6 The ladder hung straight down between the two inner rows of pilings, ending some four feet above the surface of the water. A dim rectangle at the top of the ladder indicated that a trapdoor opened onto the deck. In the darkness it was only the ghost of a ladder, halfvisible. Were in business, Richie, Jack said. He guided the raft carefully past the next piling, making sure not to scrape against it. The hundreds of sluglike creatures clinging to the piling bared their teeth. In seconds the horses head at the front of the raft was gliding beneath the bottom of the ladder, and then Jack could reach up to grab the bottom rung. Okay, he said. First he tied one sleeve of his sodden shirt around the rung, the other around the stiff rubbery tail next to him. At least the raft would still be thereif they ever got out of the hotel. Jacks mouth abruptly dried. The Talisman sang out, calling to him. He stood up carefully in the raft and hung on to the ladder. You first, he said. Its not going to be easy, but Ill help you. Dont need your help, Richard said. Standing up, he nearly pitched forward and threw both of them out of the raft. Easy now. Dont easy me. Richard extended both arms and steadied himself. His mouth was pinched. He looked afraid to breathe. He stepped forward. Good. Asshole. Richard moved his left foot forward, raised his right arm, brought his right foot forward. Now he could find the bottom of the ladder with his hands, as he fiercely squinted through his right eye. See? Okay, Jack said, holding both hands palmout before him, fingers extended, indicating that he would not insult Richard with the offer of physical aid. Richard pulled on the ladder with his hands, and his feet slid irresistibly forward, pushing the raft with them. In a second he was suspended half over the wateronly Jacks shirt kept the raft from zooming out from under Richards feet. Help! Pull your feet back. Richard did so, and stood upright again, breathing hard. Let me give you a hand, okay? Okay. Jack crawled along the raft until he was immediately before Richard. He stood up with great care. Richard gripped the bottom rung with both hands, trembling. Jack put his hands on Richards skinny hips. Im going to help lift you. Try not to kick out with your feetjust pull yourself up high enough to get your knee on the rung. First put your hands up on the next one. Richard cracked open an eye and did so. You ready? Go. The raft slid forward, but Jack yanked Richard upright so high that he could easily place his right knee on the bottom rung. Then Jack grabbed the sides of the ladder and used the strength in his arms and legs to stabilize the raft. Richard was grunting, trying to get his other knee on the rung; in a second he had done it. In another two seconds, Richard Sloat stood upright on the ladder. I cant go any farther, he said. I think Im going to fall off. I feel so sick, Jack. Just go up one more, please. Please. Then I can help you. Richard wearily moved his hands up a rung. Jack, looking toward the deck, saw that the ladder must be thirty feet long. Now move your feet. Please, Richard. Richard slowly placed one foot, then the next, on the second rung. Jack placed his hands on the outsides of Richards feet and pulled himself up. The raft swung out in a looping halfcircle, but he raised his knees and got both legs securely on the lowest rung. Held by Jacks outstretched shirt, the raft swung back around like a dog on a leash. A third of the way up the ladder, Jack had to put one arm around Richards waist to keep him from falling into the black water. At last the rectangular square of the trapdoor floated in the black wood directly above Jacks head. He clamped Richard to himselfhis unconscious head fell against Jacks chestby reaching around both Richard and ladder with his left hand, and tried the trapdoor with his right. Suppose it had been nailed shut? But it swung up immediately and banged flat against the top of the deck. Jack got his left arm firmly under Richards armpits and hauled him up out of the blackness and through the hole in the deck. Interlude Sloat in This World (V) The Kingsland Motel had been empty for nearly six years, and it had the mouldy yellownewspaper smell of buildings that have been deserted for a long time. This smell had disturbed Sloat at first. His maternal grandmother had died at home when Sloat was a boyit had taken her four years, but she had finally made the gradeand the smell of her dying had been like this. He did not want such a smell, or such memories, at a moment which was supposed to be his greatest triumph. Now, however, it didnt matter. Not even the infuriating losses inflicted on him by Jacks early arrival at Camp Readiness mattered. His earlier feelings of dismay and fury had turned into a frenzy of nervous excitement. Head down, lips twitching, eyes bright, he strode back and forth through the room where he and Richard had stayed in the old days. Sometimes he locked his hands behind his back, sometimes he slammed one fist into the other palm, sometimes he stroked his bald pate. Mostly, however, he paced as he had in college, with his hands clenched into tight and somehow anal little fists, the hidden nails digging viciously into his palms. His stomach was by turns sour and giddily light. Things were coming to a head. No; no. Right idea, wrong phrase. Things were coming together. Richard is dead by now. My son is dead. Got to be. He survived the Blasted Landsbarelybut hell never survive the Agincourt. Hes dead. Hold out no false hope for yourself on that score. Jack Sawyer killed him, and Ill gouge the eyes out of his living head for it. But I killed him, too, Morgan whispered, stopping for a moment. Suddenly he thought of his father. Gordon Sloat had been a dour Lutheran minister in OhioMorgan had spent his whole boyhood trying to flee that harsh and frightening man. Finally he had escaped to Yale. He had set his entire mind and spirit on Yale in his sophomore year of high school for one reason above all others, unadmitted by his conscious mind but as deep as bedrock it was a place where his rude, rural father would never dare to come. If his father ever tried to set foot on the Yale campus, something would happen to him. Just what that something might be, the highschoolage Sloat was not sure . . . but it would be roughly akin, he felt, to what had happened to the Wicked Witch when Dorothy threw the bucket of water over her. And this insight seemed to have been true his father never had set foot on the Yale campus. From Morgans first day there, Gordon Sloats power over his son had begun to wanethat alone made all the striving and effort seem worthwhile. But now, as he stood with his fists clenched and his nails digging into his soft palms, his father spoke up What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, if he should lose his own son? For a moment that wet yellow smellthe emptymotelsmell, the grandmothersmell, the deathsmellfilled his nostrils, seeming to choke him, and Morgan SloatMorgan of Orris was afraid. What does it profit a man For it says in The Book of Good Farming that a man shall not bring the get of his seed to any place of sacrifice, for what What does it profit That man shall be damned, and damned, and damned a man to gain the whole world, if he should lose his own son? Stinking plaster. The dry smell of vintage mouseturds turning to powder in the dark spaces behind the walls. Crazies. There were crazies in the streets. What does it profit a man? Dead. One son dead in that world, one son dead in this. What does it profit a man? Your son is dead, Morgan. Must be. Dead in the water, or dead under the pilings and floating around under there, or deadfor sure!topside. Couldnt take it. Couldnt What does it profit And suddenly the answer came to him. It profits a man the world! Morgan shouted in the decaying room. He began to laugh and pace again. It profits a man the world, and by Jason, the world is enough! Laughing, he began to pace faster and faster, and before long, blood had begun to drip out of his clenched fists. A car pulled up out front about ten minutes later. Morgan went to the window and saw Sunlight Gardener come bursting out of the Cadillac. Seconds later he was hammering on the door with both fists, like a tantrumy threeyearold hammering on the floor. Morgan saw that the man had gone utterly crazy, and wondered if this was good or bad. Morgan! Gardener bellowed. Open for me, my Lord! News! I have news! I saw all your news through my binoculars, I think. Hammer on that door awhile longer, Gardener, while I make up my mind on this. Is it good that you should be crazy, or is it bad? Good, Morgan decided. In Indiana, Gardener had turned Sunlight Yellow at the crucial moment and had fled without taking care of Jack once and for all. But now his wild grief had made him trustworthy again. If Morgan needed a kamikaze pilot, Sunlight Gardener would be the first one to the planes. Open for me, my Lord! News! News! N Morgan opened the door. Although he himself was wildly excited, the face he presented to Gardener was almost eerily serene. Easy, he said. Easy, Gard. Youll pop a blood vessel. Theyve gone to the hotel . . . the beach . . . shot at them while they were on the beach . . . stupid assholes missed . . . in the water, I thought . . . well get them in the water . . . then the deepcreatures rose up . . . I had him in my sights . . . I had that bad bad boy RIGHT IN MY SIGHTS . . . and then . . . the creatures . . . they . . . they . . . Slow down, Morgan said soothingly. He closed the door and took a flask out of his inside pocket. He handed it to Gardener, who spun the cap off and took two huge gulps. Morgan waited. His face was benign, serene, but a vein pulsed in the center of his forehead and his hands opened and closed, opened and closed. Gone to the hotel, yes. Morgan had seen the ridiculous raft with its painted horses head and its rubber tail bobbing its way out there. My son, he said to Gardener. Do your men say he was alive or dead when Jack put him in the raft? Gardener shook his headbut his eyes said what he believed. No one knows for sure, my Lord. Some say they saw him move. Some say not. Doesnt matter. If he wasnt dead then, hes dead now. One breath of the air in that place and his lungs will explode. Gardeners cheeks were full of whiskeycolor and his eyes were watering. He didnt give the flask back but stood holding it. That was fine with Sloat. He wanted neither whiskey nor cocaine. He was on what those sixties slobs had called a natural high. Start over, Morgan said, and this time be coherent. The only thing Gardener had to tell that Morgan hadnt gleaned from the mans first broken outburst was the fact of the old niggers presence down on the beach, and he almost could have guessed that. Still, he let Gardener go on. Gardeners voice was soothing, his rage invigorating. As Gardener talked, Morgan ran over his options one final time, dismissing his son from the equation with a brief throb of regret. What does it profit a man? It profits a man the world, and the world is enough . . . or, in this case, worlds. Two to start with, and more when and if they play out. I can rule them all if I likeI can be something like the God of the Universe. The Talisman. The Talisman is The key? No; oh no. Not a key but a door; a locked door standing between him and his destiny. He did not want to open that door but to destroy it, destroy it utterly and completely and eternally, so it could never be shut again, let alone locked. When the Talisman was smashed, all those worlds would be his worlds. Gard! he said, and began to pace jerkily again. Gardener looked at Morgan questioningly. What does it profit a man? Morgan chirruped brightly. My Lord? I dont underst Morgan stopped in front of Gardener, his eyes feverish and sparkling. His face rippled. Became the face of Morgan of Orris. Became the face of Morgan Sloat again. It profits a man the world, Morgan said, putting his hands on Osmonds shoulders. When he took them away a second later, Osmond was Gardener again. It profits a man the world, and the world is enough. My Lord, you dont understand, Gardener said, looking at Morgan as if he might be crazy. I think theyve gone inside. Inside where IT is. We tried to shoot them, but the creatures . . . the deepcreatures . . . rose up and protected them, just as The Book of Good Farming said they would . . . and if theyre inside . . . Gardeners voice was rising. Osmonds eyes rolled with mingled hate and dismay. I understand, Morgan said comfortingly. His face and voice were calm again, but his fists worked and worked, and blood dribbled down onto the mildewy carpet. Yessirreebob, yesindeedydoo, rootypatootie. Theyve gone in, and my son is never going to come out. Youve lost yours, Gard, and now Ive lost mine. Sawyer! Gardener barked. Jack Sawyer! Jason! That Gardener lapsed into a horrible bout of cursing that went on for nearly five minutes. He cursed Jack in two languages; his voice racketed and perspired with grief and insane rage. Morgan stood there and let him get it all out of his system. When Gardener paused, panting, and took another swallow from the flask, Morgan said Right! Doubled in brass! Now listen, Gardare you listening? Yes, my Lord. GardenerOsmonds eyes were bright with bitter attention. My son is never going to come out of the black hotel, and I dont think Sawyer ever will, either. Theres a very good chance that he isnt Jason enough yet to deal with whats in there. IT will probably kill him, or drive him mad, or send him a hundred worlds away. But he may come out, Gard. Yes, he may. Hes the baddest baddest bitchs bastard to ever draw breath, Gardener whispered. His hand tightened on the flask . . . tightened . . . tightened . . . and now his fingers actually began to make dents in the steel shell. You say the old nigger man is down on the beach? Yes. Parker, Morgan said, and at the same moment Osmond said, Parkus. Dead? Morgan asked this without much interest. I dont know. I think so. Shall I send men down to pick him up? No! Morgan said sharply. Nobut were going down near where he is, arent we, Gard? We are? Morgan began to grin. Yes. You . . . me . . . all of us. Because if Jack comes out of the hotel, hell go there first. He wont leave his old nightfighting buddy on the beach, will he? Now Gardener also began to grin. No, he said. No. For the first time Morgan became aware of dull and throbbing pain in his hands. He opened them and looked thoughtfully at the blood which flowed out of the deep semicircular wounds in his palms. His grin did not falter. Indeed, it widened. Gardener was staring at him solemnly. A great sense of power filled Morgan.

He reached up to his neck and closed one bloody hand over the key that brought the lightning. It profits a man the world, he whispered. Can you gimme hallelujah. His lips pulled even farther back. He grinned the sick yellow grin of a rogue wolfa wolf that is old but still sly and tenacious and powerful. Come on, Gard, he said. Lets go to the beach. 41 The Black Hotel 1 Richard Sloat wasnt dead, but when Jack picked his old friend up in his arms, he was unconscious. Whos the herd now? Wolf asked in his head. Be careful, Jacky! Wolf! Be COME TO ME! COME NOW! the Talisman sang in its powerful, soundless voice. COME TO ME, BRING THE HERD, AND ALL WILL BE WELL AND ALL WILL BE WELL AND a manner a things wi be well, Jack croaked. He started forward and came within an inch of stepping right back through the trapdoor, like a kid participating in some bizarre double execution by hanging. Swing with a Friend, Jack thought crazily. His heart was hammering in his ears, and for a moment he thought he might vomit straight down into the gray water slapping at the pilings. Then he caught hold of himself and closed the trapdoor with his foot. Now there was only the sound of the weathervanescabalistic brass designs spinning restlessly in the sky. Jack turned toward the Agincourt. He was on a wide deck like an elevated verandah, he saw. Once, fashionable twenties and thirties folk had sat out here at the cocktail hour under the shade of umbrellas, drinking gin rickeys and sidecars, perhaps reading the latest Edgar Wallace or Ellery Queen novel, perhaps only looking out toward where Los Cavernes Island could be dimly glimpseda bluegray whales hump dreaming on the horizon. The men in whites, the women in pastels. Once, maybe. Now the boards were warped and twisted and splintered. Jack didnt know what color the deck had been painted before, but now it had gone black, like the rest of the hotelthe color of this place was the color he imagined the malignant tumors in his mothers lungs must be. Twenty feet away were Speedys windowdoors, through which guests would have passed back and forth in those dim old days. They had been soaped over in wide white strokes so that they looked like blind eyes. Written on one was YOUR LAST CHANCE TO GO HOME Sound of the waves. Sound of the twirling ironmongery on the angled roofs. Stink of seasalt and old spilled drinksdrinks spilled long ago by beautiful people who were now wrinkled and dead. Stink of the hotel itself. He looked at the soaped window again and saw with no real surprise that the message had already changed. SHES ALREADY DEAD JACK SO WHY BOTHER? (now whos the herd?) You are, Richie, Jack said, but you aint alone. Richard made a snoring, protesting sound in Jacks arms. Come on, Jack said, and began to walk. One more mile. Give or take. 2 The soapedover windows actually seemed to widen as Jack walked toward the Agincourt, as if the black hotel were now regarding him with blind but contemptuous surprise. Do you really think, little boy, that you can come in here and really hope to ever come out? Do you think theres really that much Jason in you? Red sparks, like those he had seen in the air, flashed and twisted across the soaped glass. For a moment they took form. Jack watched, wondering, as they became tiny fireimps. They skated down to the brass handles of the doors and converged there. The handles began to glow dully, like a smiths iron in the forge. Go on, little boy. Touch one. Try. Once, as a kid of six, Jack had put his finger on the cold coil of an electric range and had then turned the control knob onto the HIGH setting. He had simply been curious about how fast the burner would heat up. A second later he had pulled his finger, already blistering, away with a yell of pain. Phil Sawyer had come running, taken a look, and had asked Jack when he had started to feel this weird compulsion to burn himself alive. Jack stood with Richard in his arms, looking at the dully glowing handles. Go on, little boy. Remember how the stove burned? You thought youd have plenty of time to pull your finger offHell, you thought, the thing doesnt even start to get red for almost a minutebut it burned right away, didnt it? Now, how do you think this is going to feel, Jack? More red sparks skated liquidly down the glass to the handles of the French doors. The handles began to take on the delicate rededgedwithwhite look of metal which is no more than six degrees from turning molten and starting to drip. If he touched one of those handles it would sink into his flesh, charring tissue and boiling blood. The agony would be like nothing he had ever felt before. He waited for a moment with Richard in his arms, hoping the Talisman would call him again, or that the Jasonside of him would surface. But it was his mothers voice that rasped in his head. Has something or someone always got to push you, JackO? Come on, big guyyou set this going by yourself; you can keep going if you really want to. Has that other guy got to do everything for you? Okay, Mom, Jack said. He was smiling a little, but his voice was trembling with fright. Heres one for you. I just hope someone remembered to pack the Solarcaine. He reached out and grasped one of the redhot handles. Except it wasnt; the whole thing had been an illusion. The handle was warm, but that was all. As Jack turned it, the red glow died from all the handles. And as he pushed the glass door inward, the Talisman sang out again, bringing gooseflesh out all over his body WELL DONE! JASON! TO ME! COME TO ME! With Richard in his arms, Jack stepped into the dining room of the black hotel. 3 As he crossed the threshold, he felt an inanimate forcesomething like a dead handtry to shove him back out. Jack pushed against it, and a second or two later, that feeling of being repelled ceased. The room was not particularly darkbut the soaped windows gave it a monochrome whiteness Jack did not like. He felt fogged in, blind. Here were yellow smells of decay inside walls where the plaster was slowly turning to a vile soup the smells of empty age and sour darkness. But there was more here, and Jack knew it and feared it. Because this place was not empty. Exactly what manner of things might be here he did not knowbut he knew that Sloat had never dared to come in, and he guessed that no one else would, either. The air was heavy and unpleasant in his lungs, as if filled with a slow poison. He felt the strange levels and canted passageways and secret rooms and dead ends above him pressing down like the walls of a great and complex crypt. There was madness here, and walking death, and gibbering irrationality. Jack might not have had the words to express these things, but he felt them, all the same . . . he knew them for what they were. Just as he knew that all the Talismans in the cosmos could not protect him from those things. He had entered a strange, dancing ritual whose conclusion, he felt, was not at all preordained. He was on his own. Something tickled against the back of his neck. Jack swept his hand at it and skittered to one side. Richard moaned thickly in his arms. It was a large black spider hanging on a thread. Jack looked up and saw its web in one of the stilled overhead fans, tangled in a dirty snarl between the hardwood blades. The spiders body was bloated. Jack could see its eyes. He couldnt remember ever having seen a spiders eyes before. Jack began to edge around the hanging spider toward the tables. The spider turned at the end of its thread, following him. Fushing feef! it suddenly squealed at him. Jack screamed and clutched Richard against him with panicky, galvanic force. His scream echoed across the highceilinged dining room. Somewhere in the shadows beyond, there was a hollow metallic clank, and something laughed. Fushing feef, fushing FEEF! the spider squealed, and then suddenly it scuttled back up into its web below the scrolled tin ceiling. Heart thumping, Jack crossed the dining room and put Richard on one of the tables. The boy moaned again, very faintly. Jack could feel the twisted bumps under Richards clothes. Got to leave you for a little while, buddy, Jack said. From the shadows high above . . . Ill take . . . take good . . . good care of him you fushing . . . fushing feef . . . There was a dark, buzzing little giggle. There was a pile of linen underneath the table where Jack had laid Richard down. The top two or three tablecloths were slimy with mildew, but halfway through the pile he found one that wasnt too bad. He spread it out and covered Richard with it to the neck. He started away. The voice of the spider whispered thinly down from the angle of the fanblades, down from a darkness that stank of decaying flies and silkwrapped wasps. . . . Ill take care of him, you fushing feef . . . Jack looked up, cold, but he couldnt see the spider. He could imagine those cold little eyes, but imagination was all it was. A tormenting, sickening picture came to him that spider scuttling onto Richards face, burrowing its way between Richards slack lips and into Richards mouth, crooning all the while fushing feef, fushing feef, fushing feef . . . He thought of pulling the tablecloth up over Richards mouth as well, and discovered he could not bring himself to turn Richard into something that would look so much like a corpseit was almost like an invitation. He went back to Richard and stood there, indecisive, knowing that his very indecision must make whatever forces there were here very happy indeedanything to keep him away from the Talisman. He reached into his pocket and came out with the large dark green marble. The magic mirror in the other world. Jack had no reason to believe it contained any special power against evil forces, but it came from the Territories . . . and, Blasted Lands aside, the Territories were innately good. And innate goodness, Jack reasoned, must have its own power over evil. He folded the marble into Richards hand. Richards hand closed, then fell slowly open again as soon as Jack removed his own hand. From somewhere overhead, the spider chuffed dirty laughter. Jack bent low over Richard, trying to ignore the smell of diseaseso like the smell of this placeand murmured, Hold it in your hand, Richie. Hold it tight, chum. Dont . . . chum, Richard muttered, but his hand closed weakly on the marble. Thanks, Richieboy, Jack said. He kissed Richards cheek gently and then started across the dining room toward the closed double doors at the far end. Its like the Alhambra, he thought. Dining room giving on the gardens there, dining room giving on a deck over the water here. Double doors in both places, opening on the rest of the hotel. As he crossed the room, he felt that dead hand pushing against him againit was the hotel repelling him, trying to push him back out. Forget it, Jack thought, and kept going. The force seemed to fade almost at once. We have other ways, the double doors whispered as he approached them. Again, Jack heard the dim, hollow clank of metal. Youre worried about Sloat, the double doors whispered; only now it wasnt just themnow the voice Jack was hearing was the voice of the entire hotel. Youre worried about Sloat, and bad Wolfs, and things that look like goats, and basketball coaches who arent really basketball coaches; youre worried about guns and plastic explosive and magic keys. We in here dont worry about any of those things, little one. They are nothing to us. Morgan Sloat is no more than a scurrying ant. He has only twenty years to live, and that is less than the space between breaths to us. We in the Black Hotel care only for the Talismanthe nexus of all possible worlds. Youve come as a burglar to rob us of what is ours, and we tell you once more we have other ways of dealing with fushing feeves like you. And if you persist, youll find out what they areyoull find out for yourself. 4 Jack pushed open first one of the double doors, then the other. The casters squealed unpleasantly as they rolled along their recessed tracks for the first time in years. Beyond the doors was a dark hallway. Thatll go to the lobby, Jack thought. And then, if this place really is the same as the Alhambra, Ill have to go up the main staircase one flight. On the second floor he would find the grand ballroom. And in the grand ballroom, he would find the thing he had come for. Jack took one look back, saw that Richard hadnt moved, and stepped into the hallway. He closed the doors behind him. He began to move slowly along the corridor, his frayed and dirty sneakers whispering over the rotting carpet. A little farther down, Jack could see another set of double doors, with birds painted on them. Closer by were a number of meetingrooms. Here was the Golden State Room, directly opposite the FortyNiner Room. Five paces farther up toward the double doors with the painted birds was the Mendocino Room (hacked into a lower panel of the mahogany door YOUR MOTHER DIED SCREAMING!). Far down the corridorimpossibly far!was watery light. The lobby. Clank. Jack wheeled around fast, and caught a glimmer of movement just beyond one of the peaked doorways in the stone throat of this corridor (?stones?) (?peaked doorways?) Jack blinked uneasily. The corridor was lined with dark mahogany panelling which had now begun to rot in the oceanside damp. No stone. And the doors giving on the Golden State Room and the FortyNiner Room and the Mendocino Room were just doors, sensibly rectangular and with no peaks. Yet for one moment he had seemed to see openings like modified cathedral arches. Filling these openings had been iron dropgatesthe sort that could be raised or lowered by turning a windlass. Dropgates with hungrylooking iron spikes at the bottom. When the gate was lowered to block the entrance, the spikes fitted neatly into holes in the floor. No stone archways, JackO. See for yourself. Just doorways. You saw dropgates like that in the Tower of London, on that tour you went on with Mom and Uncle Tommy, three years ago. Youre just freaking a little, thats all . . . But the feeling in the pit of his stomach was unmistakable. They were there, all right. I flippedfor just a second I was in the Territories. Clank. Jack whirled back the other way, sweat breaking out on his cheeks and forehead, hair beginning to stiffen on the nape of his neck. He saw it againa flash of something metallic in the shadows of one of those rooms. He saw huge stones as black as sin, their rough surfaces splotched with green moss. Nasty, softlooking albino bugs squirmed in and out of the large pores of the decaying mortar between the stones. Empty sconces stood at fifteen or twentyfoot intervals. The torches that the sconces had once held were long since gone. Clank. This time he didnt even blink. The world sideslipped before his eyes, wavering like an object seen through clear running water. The walls were blackish mahogany again instead of stone blocks. The doors were doors and not latticediron dropgates. The two worlds, which had been separated by a membrane as thin as a ladys silk stocking, had now actually begun to overlap. And, Jack realized dimly, his Jasonside had begun to overlap with his Jacksidesome third being which was an amalgamation of both was emerging. I dont know what that combination is, exactly, but I hope its strongbecause there are things behind those doors . . . behind all of them. Jack began to sidle up the hallway again toward the lobby. Clank. This time the worlds didnt change; solid doors remained solid doors and he saw no movement. Right behind there, though. Right behind Now he heard something behind the painted double doorswritten in the sky above the marsh scene were the words HERON BAR. It was the sound of some large rusty machine that had been set in motion. Jack swung toward (Jason swung toward) toward that opening door (that rising dropgate) his hand plunging into (the poke) the pocket (he wore on the belt of his jerkin) of his jeans and closing around the guitarpick Speedy had given him so long ago. (and closing arouind the sharks tooth) He waited to see what would come out of the Heron Bar, and the walls of the hotel whispered dimly We have ways of dealing with fushing feeves like you. You should have left while there was still time . . . . . .because now, little boy, your time is up. 5 Clank . . . THUD! Clank . . . THUD! Clank . . . THUD! The noise was large and clumsy and metallic. There was something relentless and inhuman about it which frightened Jack more badly than a more human sound would have done. It moved and shuffled its way forward with its own slow idiot rhythm Clank . . . THUD! Clank . . . THUD! There was a long pause. Jack waited, pressed against the far wall a few feet to the right of the painted doors, his nerves so tightly wound they seemed to hum. Nothing at all happened for a long time. Jack began to hope the clanker had fallen back through some interdimensional trapdoor and into the world it had come from. He became aware that his back ached from his artificially still and tautly erect posture. He slumped. Then there was a splintering crash, and a huge mailed fist with blunt twoinch spikes sprouting from the knuckles slammed through the peeling blue sky on the door. Jack shrank back against the wall again, gaping. And, helplessly, flipped into the Territories. 6 Standing on the other side of the dropgate was a figure in blackish, rusty armor. Its cylindrical helmet was broken only by a black horizontal eyeslit no more than an inch wide. The helmet was topped by a frowzy red plumewhite bugs squirmed in and out of it. They were the same sort, Jason saw, as those which had come out of the walls first in Albert the Blobs room and then all over Thayer School. The helmet ended in a coif of mail which draped the rusty knights shoulders like a ladys stole. The upper arms and forearms were plated with heavy steel brassards. They were joined at the elbows with cubitieres. These were crusted with layers of ancient filth, and when the knight moved, the cubitieres squealed like the high, demanding voices of unpleasant children. Its armored fists were crazy with spikes. Jason stood against the stone wall, looking at it, unable in fact to look away; his mouth was dry as fever and his eyeballs seemed to be swelling rhythmically in their sockets in time to his heartbeat. In the knights right hand was le martel de fera battlehammer with a rusty thirtypound forgedsteel head, as mute as murder. The dropgate; remember that the dropgate is between you and it But then, although no human hand was near it, the windlass began to turn; the iron chain, each link as long as Jacks forearm, began to wind around the drum, and the gate began to rise. 7 The mailed fist was withdrawn from the door, leaving a splintered hole that changed the mural at once from faded pastoral romantic to surrealist barsinister it now looked as if some apocalyptic hunter, disappointed by his day in the marshes, had put a load of birdshot through the sky itself in a fit of pique. Then the head of the battlehammer exploded through the door in a huge blunt swipe, obliterating one of the two herons struggling to achieve liftoff. Jack raised his hand in front of his face to protect it from splinters. The martel de fer was withdrawn. There was another brief pause, almost long enough for Jack to think about running again. Then the spiked fist tore through again. It twisted first one way and then the other, widening the hole, then withdrew. A second later the hammer slammed through the middle of a reedbed and a large chunk of the righthand door fell to the carpet. Jack could now see the hulking armored figure in the shadows of the Heron Bar. The armor was not the same as that worn by the figure confronting Jason in the black castle; that one wore a helmet which was nearly cylindrical, with a red plume. This one wore a helmet that looked like the polished head of a steel bird. Horns rose from either side, sprouting from the helmet at roughly ear level. Jack saw a breastplate, a kilt of platemail, a hemming of chainmail below that. The hammer was the same in both worlds, and in both worlds the knightTwinners dropped them at the same instant, as if in contemptwho would need a battlehammer to deal with such a puny opponent as this? Run! Jack, run! Thats right, the hotel whispered. Run! Thats what fushing feeves are supposed to do! Run! RUN! But he would not run. He might die, but he would not runbecause that sly, whispering voice was right. Running was exactly what fushing feeves did. But Im no thief, Jack thought grimly. That thing may kill me, but I wont run. Because Im no thief. I wont run! Jack shouted at the blank, polishedsteel birdface. Im no thief! Do you hear me? Ive come for whats mine and IM NO THIEF! A groaning scream came from the breathingholes at the bottom of the birdhelmet. The knight raised its spiked fists and brought them down, one on the sagging left door, one on the sagging right. The pastoral marshworld painted there was destroyed. The hinges snapped . . . and as the doors fell toward him, Jack actually saw the one painted heron who remained go flying away like a bird in a Walt Disney cartoon, its eyes bright and terrified. The suit of armor came toward him like a killer robot, its feet rising and then crashing down. It was more than seven feet tall, and when it came through the door the horns rising from its helmet tore a set of ragged slashes into the upper jamb. They looked like quotation marks. Run! a yammering voice in his mind screamed. Run, you feef, the hotel whispered. No, Jack answered. He stared up at the advancing knight, and his hand wrapped itself tightly around the guitarpick in his pocket. The spikestudded gauntlets came up toward the visor of its birdhelmet. They raised it. Jack gaped. The inside of the helmet was empty. Then those studded hands were reaching for Jack. 8 The spikestudded hands came up and grasped either side of the cylindrical helmet. They lifted it slowly off, disclosing the livid, haggard face of a man who looked at least three hundred years old. One side of this ancients head had been bashed in. Splinters of bone like broken eggshell poked out through the skin, and the wound was caked with some black goop which Jason supposed was decayed brains. It was not breathing, but the redrimmed eyes which regarded Jason were sparkling and hellishly avid. It grinned, and Jason saw the needlesharp teeth with which this horror would rip him to pieces. It clanked unsteadily forward . . . but that wasnt the only sound. He looked to his left, toward the main hall. (lobby) of the castle (hotel) and saw a second knight, this one wearing the shallow, bowlshaped headguard known as the Great Helm. Behind it were a third . . . and a fourth. They came slowly down the corridor, moving suits of ancient armor which now housed vampires of some sort. Then the hands seized him by the shoulders. The blunt spikes on the gloves slid into his shoulders and arms. Warm blood flowed and the livid, wrinkled face drew into a horrid hungry grin. The cubitieres at the elbows screeched and wailed as the dead knight drew the boy toward itself. 9 Jack howled with the painthe short blunttipped spikes on its hands were in him, in him, and he understood once and for all that this was real, and in another moment this thing was going to kill him. He was yanked toward the yawning, empty blackness inside that helmet But was it really empty? Jack caught a blurred, faded impression of a double red glow in the darkness . . . something like eyes. And as the armored hands drew him up and up, he felt freezing cold, as if all the winters that ever were had somehow combined, had somehow become one winter . . . and that river of frigid air was now pouring out of that empty helmet. Its really going to kill me and my mother will die, Richard will die, Sloat will win, going to kill me, going to (tear me apart rip me open with its teeth) freeze me solid JACK! Speedys voice cried. (JASON! Parkuss voice cried.) The pick, boy! Use the pick! Before its too late! FOR JASONS SAKE USE THE PICK BEFORE ITS TOO LATE! Jacks hand closed around it. It was as hot as the coin had been, and the numbing cold was replaced with a sudden sense of brainbusting triumph. He brought it out of his pocket, crying out in pain as his punctured muscles flexed against the spikes driven into him, but not losing that sense of triumphthat lovely sensation of Territories heat, that clear feeling of rainbow. The pick, for it was a pick again, was in his fingers, a strong and heavy triangle of ivory, filigreed and inlaid with strange designsand in that moment Jack (and Jason) saw those designs come together in a facethe face of Laura DeLoessian. (the face of Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer.) 10 In her name, you filthy, aborted thing! they shouted togetherbut it was one shout only the shout of that single nature, JackJason. Get you off the skin of this world! In the name of the Queen and in the name of her son, get you off the skin of this world! Jason brought the guitarpick down into the white, scrawny face of the old vampirething in the suit of armor; at the same instant he sideslipped without blinking into Jack and saw the pick whistle down into a freezing black emptiness. There was another moment as Jason when he saw the vampirethings red eyes bulge outward in disbelief as the tip of the pick plunged into the center of its deeply wrinkled forehead. A moment later the eyes themselves, already filming over, exploded, and a black, steaming inchor ran over his hand and wrist. It was full of tiny biting worms. 11 Jack was flung against the wall. He hit his head. In spite of that and of the deep, throbbing pain in his shoulders and upper arms, he held on to the pick. The suit of armor was rattling like a scarecrow made out of tin cans. Jack had time to see it was swelling somehow, and he threw a hand up to shield his eyes. The suit of armor selfdestructed. It did not spray shrapnel everywhere, but simply fell apartJack thought if he had seen it in a movie instead of as he saw it now, huddled in a lower hallway of this stinking hotel with blood trickling into his armpits, he would have laughed. The polishedsteel helmet, so like the face of a bird, fell onto the floor with a muffled thump. The curved gorget, meant to keep the knights enemy from running a blade or a spearpoint through the knights throat, fell directly inside it with a jingle of tightly meshed rings of mail. The cuirasses fell like curved steel bookends. The greaves split apart. Metal rained down on the mouldy carpet for two seconds, and then there was only a pile of something that looked like scrapheap leftovers. Jack pushed himself up the wall, staring with wide eyes as if he expected the suit of armor to suddenly fly back together. In fact, he really did expect something like that. But when nothing happened he turned left, toward the lobby . . . and saw three more suits of armor moving slowly toward him. One held a cheesy, mouldcaked banner, and on it was a symbol Jack recognized he had seen it fluttering from guidons held by Morgan of Orriss soldiers as they escorted Morgans black diligence down the Outpost Road and toward Queen Lauras pavillion. Morgans signbut these were not Morgans creatures, he understood dimly; they carried his banner as a kind of morbid joke on this frightened interloper who presumed to steal away their only reason for being. No more, Jack whispered hoarsely. The pick trembled between his fingers. Something had happened to it; it had been damaged somehow when he used it to destroy the suit of armor which had come from the Heron Bar. The ivory, formerly the color of fresh cream, had yellowed noticeably. Fine cracks now crisscrossed it. The suits of armor clanked steadily toward him. One slowly drew a long sword which ended in a cruellooking double point. No more, Jack moaned. Oh God please, no more, Im tired, I cant, please, no more, no more Travellin Jack, ole Travellin Jack Speedy, I cant! he screamed. Tears cut through the dirt on his face. The suits of armor approached with all the inevitability of steel auto parts on an assembly line. He heard an Arctic wind whistling inside their cold black spaces. you be here in California to bring her back. Please, Speedy, no more! Reaching for himblackmetal robotfaces, rusty greaves, mail splotched and smeared with moss and mould. Got to do your best, Travellin Jack, Speedy whispered, exhausted, and then he was gone and Jack was left to stand or fall on his own. 42 Jack and the Talisman 1 You made a mistakea ghostly voice in Jack Sawyers head spoke up as he stood outside the Heron Bar and watched these other suits of armor bear down on him. In his mind an eye opened wide and he saw an angry mana man who was really not much more than an overgrown boystriding up a Western street toward the camera, buckling on first one gunbelt and then another, so that they crisscrossed his belly. You made a mistakeyou shoulda killed both of the Ellis brothers! 2 Of all his mothers movies, the one Jack had always liked the best was Last Train to Hangtown, made in 1960 and released in 1961. It had been a Warner Brothers picture, and the major partsas in many of the lowerbudget pictures Warners made during that periodwere filled by actors from the halfdozen Warner Brothers TV series which were in constant production. Jack Kelly from the Maverick show had been in Last Train (the Suave Gambler), and Andrew Duggan from Bourbon Street Beat (the Evil CattleBaron). Clint Walker, who played a character called Cheyenne Bodie on TV, starred as Rafe Ellis (the Retired Sheriff Who Must Strap on His Guns One Last Time). Inger Stevens had been originally slated to play the part of the Dance Hall Girl with Willing Arms and a Heart of Gold, but Miss Stevens had come down with a bad case of bronchitis and Lily Cavanaugh had stepped into the part. It was of a sort she could have done competently in a coma. Once, when his parents thought he was asleep and were talking in the living room downstairs, Jack overheard his mother say something striking as he padded barefoot to the bathroom to get a glass of water . . . it was striking enough, at any rate, so that Jack never forgot it. All the women I played knew how to fuck, but not one of them knew how to fart, she told Phil. Will Hutchins, who starred in another Warner Brothers program (this one was called Sugarfoot), had also been in the film. Last Train to Hangtown was Jacks favorite chiefly because of the character Hutchins played. It was this characterAndy Ellis, by namewho came to his tired, tottering, overtaxed mind now as he watched the suits of armor marching down the dark hallway toward him. Andy Ellis had been the Cowardly Kid Brother Who Gets Mad in the Last Reel. After skulking and cowering through the entire movie, he had gone out to face Duggans evil minions after the Chief Minion (played by sinister, stubbly, walleyed Jack Elam, who played Chief Minions in all sorts of Warner epics, both theatrical and televisional) had shot his brother Rafe in the back. Hutchins had gone striding down the dusty widescreen street, strapping on his brothers gunbelts with clumsy fingers, shouting, Come on! Come on, Im ready for ya! You made a mistake! You shoulda killed both of the Ellis brothers! Will Hutchins had not been one of the greatest actors of all time, but in that moment he had achievedat least in Jacks eyesa moment of clear truth and real brilliance. There was a sense that the kid was going to his death, and knew it, but meant to go on, anyway. And although he was frightened, he was not striding up that street toward the showdown with the slightest reluctance; he went eagerly, sure of what he meant to do, even though he had to fumble again and again with the buckles of the gunbelts. The suits of armor came on, closing the distance, rocking from side to side like toy robots.

They should have keys sticking out of their backs, Jack thought. He turned to face them, the yellowed pick held between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, as if to strum a tune. They seemed to hesitate, as if sensing his fearlessness. The hotel itself seemed to suddenly hesitate, or to open its eyes to a danger that was deeper than it had at first thought; floors groaned their boards, somewhere a series of doors clapped shut one after the other, and on the roofs, the brass ornaments ceased turning for a moment. Then the suits of armor clanked forward again. They now made a single moving wall of plate and chainmail, of greaves and helmets and sparkling gorgets. One held a spiked iron ball on a wooden haft; one a martel de fer; the one in the center held the doublepointed sword. Jack suddenly began to walk toward them. His eyes lit up; he held the guitarpick out before him. His face filled with that radiant Jasonglow. He sideslipped momentarily into the Territories and became Jason; here the sharks tooth which had been a pick seemed to be aflame. As he approached the three knights, one pulled off its helmet, revealing another of those old, pale facesthis one was thick with jowls, and the neck hung with waxy wattles that looked like melting candlewax. It heaved its helmet at him. Jason dodged it easily and slipped back into his Jackself as a helmet crashed off a panelled wall behind him. Standing in front of him was a headless suit of armor. You think that scares me? he thought contemptuously. Ive seen that trick before. It doesnt scare me, you dont scare me, and Im going to get it, thats all. This time he did not just feel the hotel listening; this time it seemed to recoil all around him, as the tissue of a digestive organ might recoil from a poisoned bit of flesh. Upstairs, in the five rooms where the five Guardian Knights had died, five windows blew out like gunshots. Jack bore down on the suits of armor. The Talisman sang out from somewhere above in its clear and sweetly triumphant voice JASON! TO ME! Come on! Jack shouted at the suits of armor, and began to laugh. He couldnt help himself. Never had laughter seemed so strong to him, so potent, so good as thisit was like water from a spring, or from some deep river. Come on, Im ready for ya! I dont know what fuckedup Round Table you guys came from, but you shoulda stayed there! You made a mistake! Laughing harder than ever but as grimly determined inside as Wotan on the Valkyries rock, Jack leaped at the headless, swaying figure in the center. You shoulda killed both of the Ellis brothers! he shouted, and as Speedys guitarpick passed into the zone of freezing air where the knights head should have been, the suit of armor fell apart. 3 In her bedroom at the Alhambra, Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer suddenly looked up from the book she had been reading. She thought she had heard someoneno, not just someone, Jack!call out from far down the deserted corridor, perhaps even from the lobby. She listened, eyes wide, lips pursed, heart hoping . . . but there was nothing. JackO was still gone, the cancer was still eating her up a bite at a time, and it was still an hour and a half before she could take another of the big brown horsepills that damped down the pain a little bit. She had begun to think more and more often of taking all the big brown horsepills at once. That would do more than damp the pain for a bit; that would finish it off forever. They say we cant cure cancer, but dont you believe that bullshit, Mr. Ctry eating about two dozen of these. What do you say? Want to go for it? What kept her from doing it was Jackshe wanted so badly to see him again that now she was imagining his voice . . . not just doing a simple albeit corny sort of thing like calling her name, either, but quoting from one of her old pictures. You are one crazy old bitch, Lily, she croaked, and lit a Herbert Tarrytoon with thin, shaking fingers. She took two puffs and then put it out. Any more than two puffs started the coughing these days, and the coughing tore her apart. One crazy old bitch. She picked up her book again but couldnt read because the tears were coursing down her face and her guts hurt, they hurt, oh they hurt, and she wanted to take all the brown pills but she wanted to see him again first, her dear son with his clear handsome forehead and his shining eyes. Come home, JackO, she thought, please come home soon or the next time I talk to you itll be by Ouija board. Please, Jack, please come home. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. 4 The knight which had held the spikeball swayed a moment longer, displaying its vacant middle, and then it also exploded. The one remaining raised its battlehammer . . . and then simply fell apart in a heap. Jack stood amid the wreckage for a moment, still laughing, and then stopped as he looked at Speedys pick. It was a deep and ancient yellow now; the crackglaze had become a snarl of fissures. Never mind, Travellin Jack. You get on. I think there may be one more o those walkin Maxwell House cans around someplace. If so, youll take it on, wont you? If I have to, I will, Jack muttered aloud. Jack kicked aside a greave, a helmet, a breastplate. He strode down the middle of the hall, the carpet squelching under his sneakers. He reached the lobby and looked around briefly. JACK! COME TO ME! JASON! COME TO ME! the Talisman sang. Jack started up the staircase. Halfway up he looked at the landing and saw the last of the knights, standing and looking down at him. It was a gigantic figure, better than eleven feet tall; its armor and its plume were black, and a baleful red glare fell through the eyeslit in its helmet. One mailed fist gripped a huge mace. For a moment, Jack stood frozen on the staircase, and then he began to climb again. 5 They saved the worst for last, Jack thought, and as he advanced steadily upward toward the black knight he slipped through again into Jason. The knight still wore black armor, but of a different sort; its visor was tilted up to reveal a face that had been almost obliterated by old dried sores. Jason recognized them. This fellow had gotten a little too close to one of those rolling balls of fire in the Blasted Lands for his own good. Other figures were passing him on the stairs, figures he could not quite see as his fingers trailed over a wide bannister that was not mahogany from the West Indies but ironwood from the Territories. Figures in doublets, figures in blouses of silksack, women in great belling gowns with gleaming white cowls thrown back from their gorgeously dressed hair; these people were beautiful but doomedand so, perhaps, ghosts always seem to the living. Why else would even the idea of ghosts inspire such terror? JASON! TO ME! the Talisman sang, and for a moment all partitioned reality seemed to break down; he did not flip but seemed to fall through worlds like a man crashing through the rotted floors of an ancient wooden tower, one after the other. He felt no fear. The idea that he might never be able to get backthat he might just go on falling through a chain of realities forever, or become lost, as in a great woodoccurred to him, but he dismissed it out of hand. All of this was happening to Jason (and Jack) in an eyeblink; less time than it would take for his foot to go from one riser on the broad stairs to the next. He would come back; he was singlenatured, and he did not believe it was possible for such a person to become lost, because he had a place in all of these worlds. But I do not exist simultaneously in all of them, Jason. (Jack) thought. Thats the important thing, thats the difference; Im flickering through each of them, probably too fast to see, and leaving a sound like a handclap or a sonic boom behind me as the air closes on the vacancy where, for a millisecond, I took up space. In many of these worlds, the black hotel was a black ruinthese were worlds, he thought dimly, where the great evil that now impended on the tightwire drawn between California and the Territories had already happened. In one of them the sea which roared and snarled at the shore was a dead, sickly green; the sky had a similar gangrenous look. In another he saw a flying creature as big as a Conestoga wagon fold its wings and plummet earthward like a hawk. It grabbed a creature like a sheep and swooped up again, holding the bloody hindquarters in its beak. Flip . . . flip . . . flip. Worlds passed by his eyes like cards shuffled by a riverboat gambler. Here was the hotel again, and there were half a dozen different versions of the black knight above him, but the intent in each was the same, and the differences were as unimportant as the stylings of rival automobiles. Here was a black tent filled with the thick dry smell of rotting canvasit was torn in many places so that the sun shone through in dusty, conflicting rays. In this world JackJason was on some sort of rope rigging, and the black knight stood inside a wooden basket like a crows nest, and as he climbed he flipped again . . . and again . . . and again. Here the entire ocean was on fire; here the hotel was much as it was in Point Venuti, except it had been halfsunk into the ocean. For a moment he seemed to be in an elevator car, the knight standing on top of it and peering down at him through the trapdoor. Then he was on a rampway, the top of which was guarded by a huge snake, its long, muscular body armored with gleaming black scales. And when do I get to the end of everything? When do I stop crashing through floors and just smash my way into the blackness? JACK! JASON! the Talisman called, and it called in all the worlds. TO ME! And Jack came to it, and it was like coming home. 6 He was right, he saw; he had come up only a single stair. But reality had solidified again. The black knighthis black knight, Jack Sawyers black knightstood blocking the stairlanding. It raised its mace. Jack was afraid, but he kept climbing, Speedys pick held out in front of him. Im not going to mess with you, Jack said. You better get out of my The black figure swung the mace. It came down with incredible force. Jack dodged aside. The mace crashed into the stair where he had been standing and splintered the entire riser down into hollow blackness. The figure wrenched the mace free. Jack lunged up two more stairs, Speedys pick still held between his thumb and forefinger . . . and suddenly it simply disintegrated, falling in a little eggshell rain of yellowed ivory fragments. Most of these sprinkled the tops of Jacks sneakers. He stared stupidly at them. The sound of dead laughter. The mace, tiny splinters of wood and chews of old dank stairrunner still clinging to it, was upraised in the knights two armored gloves. The specters hot glare fell through the slit in its helmet. It seemed to slice blood from Jacks upturned face in a horizontal line across the bridge of his nose. That chuffing sound of laughter againnot heard with his ears, because he knew this suit of armor was as empty as the rest, nothing but a steel jacket for an undead spirit, but heard inside his head. Youve lost, boydid you really think that puny little thing could get you past me? The mace whistled down again, this time slicing on a diagonal, and Jack tore his eyes away from that red gaze just in time to duck lowhe felt the head of the mace pass through the upper layer of his long hair a second before it ripped away a fourfoot section of bannister and sent it sailing out into space. A scraping clack of metal as the knight leaned toward him, its cocked helmet somehow a hideous and sarcastic parody of solicitudethen the mace drew back and up again for another of those portentous swings. Jack, you didnt need no magic juice to git ovah, and you dont need no magic pick to pull the chain on this here coffee can, neither! The mace came blasting through the air againwheeeeossshhhh! Jack lurched backward, sucking in his stomach; the web of muscles in his shoulders screamed as they pulled around the punctures the spiked gloves had left. The mace missed the skin of his chest by less than an inch before passing beyond him and swiping through a line of thick mahogany balusters as if they had been toothpicks. Jack tottered on emptiness, feeling Buster Keatonish and absurd. He snatched at the ragged ruins of the bannister on his left and got splinters under two of his fingernails instead. The pain was so wirethin excruciating that he thought for a moment that his eyeballs would explode with it. Then he got a good hold with his right hand and was able to stabilize himself and move away from the drop. All the magics in YOU, Jack! Dont you know that by now? For a moment he only stood there, panting, and then he started up the stairs again, staring at the blank iron face above him. Better get thee gone, Sir Gawain. The knight cocked its great helmet again in that strangely delicate gesturePardon, my boy . . . can you actually be speaking to me? Then it swung the mace again. Perhaps blinded by his fear, Jack hadnt noticed until now how slow its setup for those swings was, how clearly it telegraphed the trajectory of each portentous blow. Maybe its joints were rusted, he thought. At any rate, it was easy enough for him to dive inside the circle of its swing now that his head was clear again. He stood on his toes, reached up, and seized the black helmet in both hands. The metal was sickeningly warmlike hard skin that carried a fever. Get you off the skin of this world, he said in a voice that was low and calm, almost conversational. In her name I command you. The red light in the helmet puffed out like the candle inside a carved pumpkin, and suddenly the weight of the helmetfifteen pounds at leastwas all in Jacks hands, because there was nothing else supporting it; beneath the helmet, the suit of armor had collapsed. You shoulda killed both of the Ellis brothers, Jack said, and threw the empty helmet over the landing. It hit the floor far below with a hard bang and rolled away like a toy. The hotel seemed to cringe. Jack turned toward the broad secondfloor corridor, and here, at last, was light clean, clear light, like that on the day he had seen the flying men in the sky. The hallway ended in another set of double doors and the doors were closed, but enough light came from above and below them, as well as through the vertical crack where they were latched together, to tell him that the light inside must be very bright indeed. He wanted very badly to see that light, and the source of that light; he had come far to see it, and through much bitter darkness. The doors were heavy and inlaid with delicate scrollwork. Written above them in gold leaf which had flaked a bit but which was still perfectly readable for a that an a that, were the words TERRITORIES BALLROOM. Hey, Mom, Jack Sawyer said in a soft, wondering voice as he walked into that glow. Happiness lit his heartthat feeling was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow. Hey, Mom, I think Im here, I really think Im here. Gently then, and with awe, Jack grasped a handle with each hand, and pressed them down. He opened the doors, and as he did, a widening bar of clean white light fell on his upturned, wondering face. 7 Sunlight Gardener happened to be looking back up the beach at the exact moment Jack dispatched the last of the five Guardian Knights. He heard a dull boom, as if a low charge of dynamite had gone off somewhere inside the hotel. At the same moment, bright light flashed from all of the Agincourts secondfloor windows, and all of the carved brass symbolsmoons and stars and planetoids and weird crooked arrowscame to a simultaneous stop. Gardener was decked out like some sort of goony Los Angeles SWAT squad cop. He had donned a puffy black flakvest over his white shirt and carried a radio packset on a canvas strap over one shoulder. Its thick, stubby antenna wavered back and forth as he moved. Over his other shoulder was slung a Weatherbee .360. This was a hunting rifle almost as big as an antiaircraft gun; it would have made Robert Ruark himself drool with envy. Gardener had bought it six years ago, after circumstances had dictated that he must get rid of his old hunting rifle. The Weatherbees genuine zebraskin case was in the trunk of a black Cadillac, along with his sons body. Morgan! Morgan did not turn around. He was standing behind and slightly to the left of a leaning grove of rocks that jutted out of the sand like black fangs. Twenty feet beyond this rock and only five feet above the hightide line lay Speedy Parker, aka Parkus. As Parkus, he had once ordered Morgan of Orris markedthere were livid scars down the insides of that Morgans large white thighs, the marks by which a traitor is known in the Territories. It had only been through the intercession of Queen Laura herself that those scars had not been made to run down his cheeks instead of his inner thighs, where they were almost always hidden by his clothes. Morganthis one as well as that onehad not loved the Queen any better for her intercession . . . but his hatred for Parkus, who had sniffed out that earlier plot, had grown exponentially. Now ParkusParker lay facedown on the beach, his skull covered with festering sores. Blood dribbled listlessly from his ears. Morgan wanted to believe that Parker was still alive, still suffering, but the last discernible rise and fall of his back had been just after he and Gardener arrived down here at these rocks, some five minutes ago. When Gardener called, Morgan didnt turn because he was rapt in his study of his old enemy, now fallen. Whoever had claimed revenge wasnt sweet had been so wrong. Morgan! Gardener hissed again. Morgan turned this time, frowning. Well? What? Look! The roof of the hotel! Morgan saw that all of the weathercocks and roof ornamentsbeaten brass shapes which spun at exactly the same speed whether the wind was perfectly calm or howling up a hurricanehad stopped moving. At the same instant the earth rippled briefly under their feet and then was still again. It was as if a subterranean beast of enormous size had shrugged in its hibernal sleep. Morgan would almost have believed he had imagined it if it had not been for the widening of Gardeners bloodshot eyes. Ill bet you wish you never left Indiana, Gard, Morgan thought. No earthquakes in Indiana, right? Silent light flashed in all of the Agincourts windows again. What does it mean, Morgan? Gardener asked hoarsely. His insane fury over the loss of his son had for the first time moderated into fear for himself, Morgan saw. That was a bore, but he could be whipped back into his previous frenzy again, if necessary. It was just that Morgan hated to have to waste energy on anything at this point that didnt bear directly on the problem of ridding the worldall the worldsof Jack Sawyer, who had begun as a pest and who had developed into the most monstrous problem of Sloats life. Gardeners packset squawked. Red Squad Leader Four to the Sunlight Man! Come in, Sunlight Man! Sunlight Man here, Red Squad Leader Four, Gardener snapped. Whats up? In quick succession Gardener took four gabbling, excited reports that were all exactly the same. There was no intelligence the two of them hadnt seen and felt for themselvesflashes of light, weathercocks at a standstill, something that might have been a groundtremblor or possibly an earthquake preshockbut Gardener labored with sharpeyed enthusiasm over each report just the same, asking sharp questions, snapping Over! at the end of each transmission, sometimes breaking in with Say again or Roger. Sloat thought he was acting like a bit player in a disaster movie. But if it eased him, that was fine with Sloat. It saved him from having to answer Gardeners question . . . and now that he thought about it, he supposed it was just possible that Gardener didnt want his question answered, and that was why he was going through this rigmarole with the radio. The Guardians were dead, or out of commission. That was why the weathercocks had stopped, and thats what the flashes of light meant. Jack didnt have the Talisman . . . at least, not yet. If he got that, things in Point Venuti would really shake, rattle, and roll. And Sloat now thought that Jack would get it . . . that he had always been meant to get it. This did not frighten him, however. His hand reached up and touched the key around his neck. Gardener had run out of overs and rogers and tenfours. He reshouldered the packset and looked at Morgan with wide, frightened eyes. Before he could say a word, Morgan put gentle hands on Gardeners shoulders. If he could feel love for anyone other than his poor dead son, he felt loveof a twisted variety, most certainlyfor this man. They went back a long way, both as Morgan of Orris and Osmond and as Morgan Sloat and Robert Sunlight Gardener. It had been with a rifle much like the one now slung over Gardeners shoulder that Gardener had shot Phil Sawyer in Utah. Listen, Gard, he said calmly. We are going to win. Are you sure of that? Gardener whispered. I think hes killed the Guardians, Morgan. I know that sounds crazy, but I realy think He stopped, mouth trembling infirmly, lips sheened with a thin membrane of spittle. We are going to win, Morgan repeated in that same calm voice, and he meant it. There was a sense of clear predestination in him. He had waited many years for this; his resolve had been true; it remained true now. Jack would come out with the Talisman in his arms. It was a thing of immense power . . . but it was fragile. He looked at the scoped Weatherbee, which could drop a charging rhino, and then he touched the key that brought the lightning. Were well equipped to deal with him when he comes out, Morgan said, and added, In either world. Just as long as you keep your courage, Gard. As long as you stick right by me. The trembling lips firmed a bit. Morgan, of course Ill Remember who killed your son, Morgan said softly. At the same instant that Jack Sawyer had jammed the burning coin into the forehead of a monstrosity in the Territories, Reuel Gardener, who had been afflicted with relatively harmless petit mal epileptic seizures ever since the age of six (the same age at which Osmonds son had begun to show signs of what was called Blasted Lands Sickness), apparently suffered a grand mal seizure in the back of a Wolfdriven Cadillac on I70, westbound to California from Illinois. He had died, purple and strangling, in Sunlight Gardeners arms. Gardeners eyes now began to bulge. Remember, Morgan repeated softly. Bad, Gardener whispered. All boys. Axiomatic. That boy in particular. Right! Morgan agreed. Hold that thought! We can stop him, but I want to make damn sure that he can only come out of the hotel on dry land. He led Gardener down to the rock where he had been watching Parker. Fliesbloated albino flieshad begun to light on the dead nigger, Morgan observed. That was just as fine as paint with him. If there had been a Variety magazine for flies, Morgan would gladly have bought space, advertising Parkers location. Come one, come all. They would lay their eggs in the folds of his decaying flesh, and the man who had scarred his Twinners thighs would give birth to maggots. That was fine indeed. He pointed out toward the dock. The rafts under there, he said. It looks like a horse, Christ knows why. Its in the shadows, I know. But you were always a hell of a shot. If you can pick it up, Gard, put a couple of bullets in it. Sink the fucking thing. Gardener unshouldered the rifle and peered into the scope. For a long time the muzzle of the big gun wandered minutely back and forth. I see it, Gardener whispered in a gloating voice, and triggered the gun. The echo pealed off across the water in a long curl that at last Dopplered away into nothing. The barrel of the gun rose, then came back down. Gardener fired again. And again. I got it, Gardener said, lowering the gun. Hed got his courage back; his pecker was up again. He was smiling the way he had been smiling when he had come back from that errand in Utah. Its just a dead skin on the water now. You want a look in the scope? He offered the rifle to Sloat. No, Sloat said. If you say you got it, you got it. Now he has to come out by land, and we know what direction hell be coming in. I think hell have whats been in our way for so many years. Gardener looked at him, shinyeyed. I suggest that we move up there. He pointed to the old boardwalk. It was just inside the fence where he had spent so many hours watching the hotel and thinking about what was in the ballroom. All r That was when the earth began to groan and heave under their feetthat subterranean creature had awakened; it was shaking itself and roaring. At the same instant, dazzling white light filled every window of the Agincourtthe light of a thousand suns. The windows blew out all at once. Glass flew in diamond showers. REMEMBER YOUR SON AND FOLLOW ME! Sloat roared. That sense of predestination was clear in him now, clear and undeniable. He was meant to win, after all. The two of them began to run up the heaving beach toward the boardwalk. 8 Jack moved slowly, filled with wonder, across the hardwood ballroom floor. He was looking up, his eyes sparkling. His face was bathed in a clear white radiance that was all colorssunrise colors, sunset colors, rainbow colors. The Talisman hung in the air high above him, slowly revolving. It was a crystal globe perhaps three feet in circumferencethe corona of its glow was so brilliant it was impossible to tell exactly how big it was. Gracefully curving lines seemed to groove its surface, like lines of longitude and latitude . . . and why not? Jack thought, still in a deep daze of awe and amazement. It is the worldALL worldsin microcosm. More; it is the axis of all possible worlds. Singing; turning; blazing. He stood beneath it, bathed in its warmth and clear sense of wellmeant force; he stood in a dream, feeling that force flow into him like the clear spring rain which awakens the hidden power in a billion tiny seeds. He felt a terrible joy lift through his conscious mind like a rocket, and Jack Sawyer lifted both hands over his upturned face, laughing, both in response to that joy and in imitation of its rise. Come to me, then! he shouted, and slipped (through? across?) into Jason. Come to me, then! he shouted again in the sweetly liquid and slightly slippery tongue of the Territorieshe cried it laughing, but tears coursed down his cheeks. And he understood that the quest had begun with the other boy and thus must end with him; so he let go and slipped back into Jack Sawyer. Above him, the Talisman trembled in the air, slowly turning, throwing off light and heat and a sensation of true goodness, of whiteness. Come to me! It began to descend through the air. 9 So, after many weeks, and hard adventuring, and darkness and despair; after friends found and friends lost again; after days of toil, and nights spent sleeping in damp haystacks; after facing the demons of dark places (not the least of which lived in the cleft of his own soul)after all these things, it was in this wise that the Talisman came to Jack Sawyer He watched it come down, and while there was no desire to flee, he had an overwhelming sense of worlds at risk, worlds in the balance. Was the Jasonpart of him real? Queen Lauras son had been killed; he was a ghost whose name the people of the Territories swore by. Yet Jack decided he was. Jacks quest for the Talisman, a quest that had been meant for Jason to fulfill, had made Jason live again for a little whileJack really had a Twinner, at least of a sort. If Jason was a ghost, just as the knights had been ghosts, he might well disappear when that radiant, twirling globe touched his upstretched fingers. Jack would be killing him again. Dont worry, Jack, a voice whispered. That voice was warm and clear. Down it came, a globe, a world, all worldsit was glory and warmth, it was goodness, it was the comingagain of the white. And, as has always been with the white and must always be, it was dreadfully fragile. As it came down, worlds reeled about his head. He did not seem to be crashing through layers of reality now but seeing an entire cosmos of realities, all overlapping one another, linked like a shirt of (reality) chainmail. Youre reaching up to hold a universe of worlds, a cosmos of good, Jackthis voice was his fathers. Dont drop it, son. For Jasons sake, dont drop it. Worlds upon worlds upon worlds, some gorgeous, some hellish, all of them for a moment illumined in the warm white light of this star that was a crystal globe chased with fine engraved lines. It came slowly down through the air toward Jack Sawyers trembling, outstretched fingers. Come to me! he shouted to it as it had sung to him. Come to me now! It was three feet above his hands, branding them with its soft, healing heat; now two; now one. It hesitated for a moment, rotating slowly, its axis slightly canted, and Jack could see the brilliant, shifting outlines of continents and oceans and icecaps on its surface. It hesitated . . . and then slowly slipped down into the boys reaching hands. 43 News From Everywhere 1 Lily Cavanaugh, who had fallen into a fitful doze after imagining Jacks voice somewhere below her, now sat boltupright in bed. For the first time in weeks bright color suffused her waxy yellow cheeks. Her eyes shone with a wild hope. Jason? she gasped, and then frowned; that was not her sons name. But in the dream from which she had just been startled awake she had had a son by such a name, and in that dream she had been someone else. It was the dope, of course. The dope had queered her dreams to a faretheewell. Jack? she tried again. Jack, where are you? No answer . . . but she sensed him, knew for sure that he was alive. For the first time in a long timesix months, maybeshe felt really good. JackO, she said, and grabbed her cigarettes. She looked at them for a moment and then heaved them all the way across the room, where they landed in the fireplace on top of the rest of the shit she meant to burn later in the day. I think I just quit smoking for the second and last time in my life, JackO, she said. Hang in there, kid. Your momma loves you. And she found herself for no reason grinning a large idiotic grin. 2 Donny Keegan, who had been pulling Sunlight Home kitchen duty when Wolf escaped from the box, had survived that terrible nightGeorge Irwinson, the fellow who had been pulling the duty with him, had not been so lucky. Now Donny was in a more conventional orphans home in Muncie, Indiana. Unlike some of the other boys at the Sunlight Home, Donny had been a real orphan; Gardener had needed to take a token few to satisfy the state. Now, mopping a dark upstairs hall in a dim daze, Donny looked up suddenly, his muddy eyes widening. Outside, clouds which had been spitting light snow into the usedup fields of December suddenly pulled open in the west, letting out a single broad ray of sunshine that was terrible and exalting in its isolated beauty. Youre right, I DO love him! Donny shouted triumphantly. It was Ferd Janklow that Donny was shouting to, although Donny, who had too many toys in his attic to accommodate many brains, had already forgotten his name. Hes beautiful and I DO love him! Donny honked his idiot laugh, only now even his laugh was nearly beautiful. Some of the other boys came to their doors and stared at Donny in wonder. His face was bathed in the sunlight from that one clear, ephemeral ray, and one of the other boys would whisper to a close friend that night that for a moment Donny Keegan had looked like Jesus. The moment passed; the clouds moved over that weird clear place in the sky, and by evening the snow had intensified into the first big winter storm of the season. Donny had knownfor one brief moment he had knownwhat that feeling of love and triumph actually meant. That passed quickly, the way dreams do upon waking . . .

but he never forgot the feeling itself, that almost swooning sensation of grace for once fulfilled and delivered instead of promised and then denied; that feeling of clarity and sweet, marvellous love; that feeling of ecstasy at the coming once more of the white. 3 Judge Fairchild, who had sent Jack and Wolf to the Sunlight Home, was no longer a judge of any kind, and as soon as his final appeals ran out, he would be going to jail. There no longer seemed any question that jail was where he would fetch up, and that he would do hard time there. Might never come out at all. He was an old man, and not very healthy. If they hadnt found the damned bodies . . . He had remained as cheerful as possible under the circumstances, but now, as he sat cleaning his fingernails with the long blade of his pocketknife in his study at home, a great gray wave of depression crashed over him. Suddenly he pulled the knife away from his thick nails, looked at it thoughtfully for a moment, and then inserted the tip of the blade into his right nostril. He held it there for a moment and then whispered, Oh shit. Why not? He jerked his fist upward, sending the sixinch blade on a short, lethal trip, skewering first his sinuses and then his brain. 4 Smokey Updike sat in a booth at the Oatley Tap, going over invoices and totting up numbers on his Texas Instruments calculator, just as he had been doing on the day Jack had met him. Only now it was early evening and Lori was serving the evenings first customers. The jukebox was playing Id Rather Have a Bottle in Front of Me (Than a Frontal Lobotomy). At one moment everything was normal. At the next Smokey sat boltupright, his little paper cap tumbling backward off his head. He clutched his white Tshirt over the left side of his chest, where a hammering bolt of pain had just struck like a silver spike. God pounds his nails, Wolf would have said. At the same instant the grill suddenly exploded into the air with a loud bang. It hit a Busch display sign and tore it from the ceiling. It landed with a crash. A rich smell of LP gas filled the area in back of the bar almost at once. Lori screamed. The jukebox speeded up 45 rpms, 78, 150, 400! The womans seriocomic lament became the speedy gabble of deranged chipmunks on a rocketsled. A moment later the top blew off the juke. Colored glass flew everywhere. Smokey looked down at his calculator and saw a single word blinking on and off in the red window TALISMANTALISMANTALISMANTALISMAN Then his eyes exploded. Lori, turn off the gas! one of the customers screamed. He got down off his stool, and turned toward Smokey. Smokey, tell her The man wailed with fright as he saw blood gushing from the holes where Smokey Updikes eyes had been. A moment later the entire Oatley Tap blew skyhigh, and before the firetrucks could arrive from Dogtown and Elmira, most of downtown was in flames. No great loss, children, can you say amen. 5 At Thayer School, where normality now reigned as it always had (with one brief interlude which those on campus remembered only as a series of vague, related dreams), the last classes of the day had just begun. What was light snow in Indiana was a cold drizzle here in Illinois. Students sat dreaming and thoughtful in their classes. Suddenly the bells in the chapel began to peal. Heads came up. Eyes widened. All over the Thayer campus, fading dreams suddenly seemed to renew themselves. 6 Etheridge had been sitting in advancedmath class and pressing his hand rhythmically up and down against a raging hardon while he stared unseeingly at the logarithms old Mr. Hunkins was piling up on the blackboard. He was thinking about the cute little townie waitress he would be boffing later on. She wore garterbelts instead of pantyhose, and was more than willing to leave her stockings on while they fucked. Now Etheridge stared around at the windows, forgetting his erection, forgetting the waitress with her long legs and smooth nylonssuddenly, for no reason at all, Sloat was on his mind. Prissy little Richard Sloat, who should have been safely classifiable as a wimp but who somehow wasnt. He thought about Sloat and wondered if he was all right. Somehow he thought that maybe Sloat, who had left school unexcused four days ago and who hadnt been heard from since, wasnt doing so good. In the headmasters office, Mr. Dufrey had been discussing the expulsion of a boy named George Hatfield for cheating with his furiousand richfather when the bells began to jingle out their unscheduled little tune. When it ended, Mr. Dufrey found himself on his hands and knees with his gray hair hanging in his eyes and his tongue lolling over his lips. Hatfield the Elder was standing by the doorcringing against it, actuallyhis eyes wide and his jaw agape, his anger forgotten in wonder and fear. Mr. Dufrey had been crawling around on his rug barking like a dog. Albert the Blob had just been getting himself a snack when the bells began to ring. He looked toward the window for a moment, frowning the way a person frowns when he is trying to remember something that is right on the tip of his tongue. He shrugged and went back to opening a bag of nacho chipshis mother had just sent him a whole case. His eyes widened. He thoughtjust for a moment, but a moment was long enoughthat the bag was full of plump, squirming white bugs. He fainted dead away. When he awoke and worked up enough courage to peer into the bag again, he saw it had been nothing but a hallucination. Of course! What else? All the same, it was a hallucination which exercised a strange power over him in the future; whenever he opened a bag of chips, or a candy bar, or a Slim Jim, or a package of Big Jerk beef jerky, he saw those bugs in his minds eye. By spring, Albert had lost thirtyfive pounds, was playing on the Thayer tennis team, and had gotten laid. Albert was delirious with ecstasy. For the first time in his life he felt that he might survive his mothers love. 7 They all looked around when the bells began to ring. Some laughed, some frowned, a few burst into tears. A pair of dogs howled from somewhere, and that was passing strange because no dogs were allowed on campus. The tune the bells rang was not in the computerized schedule of tunesthe disgruntled head custodian later verified it. A campus wag suggested in that weeks issue of the school paper that some eager beaver had programmed the tune with Christmas vacation in mind. It had been Happy Days Are Here Again. 8 Although she had believed herself far too old to catch pregnant, no blood had come to the mother of Jack Sawyers Wolf at the time of the Change some twelve months ago. Three months ago she had given birth to tripletstwo littersisters and one litterbrother. Her labor had been hard, and the foreknowledge that one of her older children was about to die had been upon her. That child, she knew, had gone into the Other Place to protect the herd, and he would die in that Other Place, and she would never see him anymore. This was very hard, and she had wept in more than the pain of her delivery. Yet now, as she slept with her new young beneath a full moon, all of them safely away from the herd for the time being, she rolled over with a smile on her face and pulled the newest litterbrother to her and began to lick him. Still sleeping himself, the Wolfling put his arms around his mothers shaggy neck and pressed his cheek against her downy breast, and now they both smiled; in her alien sleep a human thought arose God pounds his nails well and true. And the moonlight of that lovely world where all smells were good shone down on the two of them as they slept in each others arms with the littersisters nearby. 9 In the town of Goslin, Ohio (not far from Amanda, and some thirty miles south of Columbus), a man named Buddy Parkins was shovelling chickenshit in a henhouse at dusk. A cheesecloth mask was tied over his mouth and nose to keep the choking white cloud of powdered guano he was raising from getting up his nose and into his mouth. The air reeked of ammonia. The stink had given him a headache. He also had a backache, because he was tall and the henhouse wasnt. All things considered, he would have to say that this was one bitchkitty of a job. He had three sons, and every damned one of them seemed to be unavailable when the henhouse needed to be swamped out. Only thing to be said about it was that he was almost done, and The kid! Jesus Christ! That kid! He suddenly remembered the boy who had called himself Lewis Farren with total clarity and a stunned kind of love. The boy who had claimed to be going to his aunt, Helen Vaughan, in the town of Buckeye Lake; the boy who had turned to Buddy when Buddy had asked him if he was running away and had in that turning, revealed a face filled with honest goodness and an unexpected, amazing beautya beauty that had made Buddy think of rainbows glimpsed at the end of storms, and sunsets at the end of days that have groaned and sweated with work that has been well done and not scamped. He straightened up with a gasp and bonked his head on the henhouse beams hard enough to make his eyes water . . . but he was grinning crazily all the same. Oh my God, that boy is THERE, hes THERE, Buddy Parkins thought, and although he had no idea of where there was, he was suddenly overtaken by a sweet, violent feeling of absolute adventure; never, since reading Treasure Island at the age of twelve and cupping a girls breast in his hand for the first time at fourteen, had he felt so staggered, so excited, so full of warm joy. He began to laugh. He dropped his shovel, and while the hens stared at him with stupid amazement, Buddy Parkins danced a shuffling jig in the chickenshit, laughing behind his mask and snapping his fingers. Hes there! Buddy Parkins yelled to the chickens, laughing. By diddlydamn, hes there, he made it after all, hes there and hes got it! Later, he almost thoughtalmost, but never quitethat he must have somehow gotten high on the stench of the chickendust. That wasnt all, dammit, that wasnt. He had had some kind of revelation, but he could no longer remember what it had been . . . he supposed it was like that British poet some highschool English teacher had told them about the guy had taken a big dose of opium and had started to write some poems about a makebelieve Chink whorehouse while he was stoned . . . except when he came down to earth again he couldnt finish it. Like that, he thought, but somehow he knew it wasnt; and although he couldnt remember exactly what had caused the joy, he, like Donny Keegan, never forgot the way the joy had come, all deliciously unbiddenhe never forgot that sweet, violent feeling of having touched some great adventure, of having looked for a moment at some beautiful white light that was, in fact, every color of the rainbow. 10 Theres an old Bobby Darin song which goes And the ground coughs up some rootswearing denim shirts and boots,haul em away . . . haul em away. This was a song the children in the area of Cayuga, Indiana, could have related to enthusiastically, if it hadnt been popular quite a bit before their time. The Sunlight Home had been empty for only a little more than a week, and already it had gotten a reputation with the local kids as a haunted house. Considering the grisly remains the payloaders had found near the rock wall at the back of Far Field, this was not surprising. The local Realtors FOR SALE sign looked as if it had been standing on the lawn for a year instead of just nine days, and the Realtor had already dropped the price once and was thinking about doing it again. As it happened, he would not have to. As the first snow began to spit down from the leaden skies over Cayuga (and as Jack Sawyer was touching the Talisman some two thousand miles away), the LP tanks behind the kitchen exploded. A workman from Eastern Indiana Gas and Electric had come the week before and had sucked all the gas back into his truck, and he would have sworn you could have crawled right inside one of those tanks and lit up a cigarette, but they exploded anywaythey exploded at the exact moment the windows of the Oatley Tap were exploding out into the street (along with a number of patrons wearing denim shirts and boots . . . and Elmira rescue units hauled em away). The Sunlight Home burned to the ground in almost no time at all. Can you gimme hallelujah? 11 In all worlds, something shifted and settled into a slightly new position like a great beast . . . but in Point Venuti the beast was in the earth; it had been awakened and was roaring. It did not go to sleep for the next seventynine seconds, according to the Institute of Seismology at CalTech. The earthquake had begun. 44 The Earthquake 1 It was some time before Jack became aware that the Agincourt was shaking itself to pieces around him, and this was not surprising. He was transported with wonder. In one sense he was not in the Agincourt at all, not in Point Venuti, not in Mendocino County, not in California, not in the American Territories, not in those other Territories; but he was in them, and in an infinite number of other worlds as well, and all at the same time. Nor was he simply in one place in all those worlds; he was in them everywhere because he was those worlds. The Talisman, it seemed, was much more than even his father had believed. It was not just the axle of all possible worlds, but the worlds themselvesthe worlds, and the spaces between those worlds. Here was enough transcendentalism to drive even a cavedwelling Tibetan holy man insane. Jack Sawyer was everywhere; Jack Sawyer was everything. A blade of grass on a world fifty thousand worlds down the chain from earth died of thirst on an inconsequential plain somewhere in the center of a continent which roughly corresponded in position to Africa; Jack died with that blade of grass. In another world, dragons were copulating in the center of a cloud high above the planet, and the fiery breath of their ecstasy mixed with the cold air and precipitated rain and floods on the ground below. Jack was the hedragon; Jack was the shedragon; Jack was the sperm; Jack was the egg. Far out in the ether a million universes away, three specks of dust floated near one another in interstellar space. Jack was the dust, and Jack was the space between. Galaxies unreeled around his head like long spools of paper, and fate punched each in random patterns, turning them into macrocosmic playerpiano tapes which would play everything from ragtime to funeral dirges. Jacks happy teeth bit an orange Jacks unhappy flesh screamed as the teeth tore him open. He was a trillion dustkitties under a billion beds. He was a joey dreaming of its previous life in its mothers pouch as the mother bounced over a purple plain where rabbits the size of deer ran and gambolled. He was ham on a hock in Peru and eggs in a nest under one of the hens in the Ohio henhouse Buddy Parkins was cleaning. He was the powdered henshit in Buddy Parkinss nose; he was the trembling hairs that would soon cause Buddy Parkins to sneeze; he was the sneeze; he was the germs in the sneeze; he was the atoms in the germs; he was the tachyons in the atoms travelling backward through time toward the big bang at the start of creation. His heart skipped and a thousand suns flashed up in novas. He saw a googolplex of sparrows in a googolplex of worlds and marked the fall or the wellbeing of each. He died in the Gehenna of Territories orepit mines. He lived as a fluvirus in Etheridges tie. He ran in a wind over far places. He was . . . Oh he was . . . He was God. God, or something so close as to make no difference. No! Jack screamed in terror. No, I dont want to be God! Please! Please, I dont want to be God, I ONLY WANT TO SAVE MY MOTHERS LIFE! And suddenly infinitude closed up like a losing hand folding in a cardsharps grasp. It narrowed down to a beam of blinding white light, and this he followed back to the Territories Ballroom, where only seconds had passed. He still held the Talisman in his hands. 2 Outside, the ground had begun to do a carny kooch dancers bump and grind. The tide, which had been coming in, rethought itself and began to run backward, exposing sand as deeply tanned as a starlets thighs. Flopping on this uncovered sand were strange fish, some which seemed to be no more than gelatinous clots of eyes. The cliffs behind the town were nominally of sedimentary rock, but any geologist would have taken one look and told you at once that these rocks were to the sedimentary classification as the nouveau riche were to the Four Hundred. The Point Venuti Highlands were really nothing but mud with a hardon and now they cracked and split in a thousand crazy directions. For a moment they held, the new cracks opening and closing like gasping mouths, and then they began to collapse in landslides on the town. Showers of dirt came sifting down. Amid the dirt were boulders as big as Toledo tirefactories. Morgans Wolf Brigade had been decimated by Jack and Richards surprise attack on Camp Readiness. Now the number was even further reduced as many of them ran screaming and wailing in superstitious fear. Some catapulated back into their own world. Some of these got away, but most were swallowed by the upheavals that were happening there. A core of similar cataclysms ran from this place through all the worlds, as if punched through by a surveyors hollow sampling rod. One group of three Wolfs dressed in Fresno Demons motorcycle jackets gained their cara horny old Lincoln Mark IVand managed to drive a block and a half with Harry James bellowing brass out of the tapedeck before a chunk of stone fell from the sky and crushed the Connie flat. Others simply ran shrieking in the streets, their Change beginning. The woman with the chains in her nipples strolled serenely in front of one of these. She was serenely ripping her hair out in great chunks. She held one of these chunks out to the Wolf. The bloody roots wavered like the tips of seagrass as she waltzed in place on the unsteady earth. Here! she cried, smiling serenely. A bouquet! For you! The Wolf, not a bit serene, tore her head off with a single snap of his jaws and ran on, on, on. 3 Jack studied what he had captured, as breathless as a child who has a shy woodland creature come out of the grass and eat from his hand. It glowed between his palms, waxing and waning, waxing and waning. With my heartbeat, he thought. It seemed to be glass, but it had a faintly yielding feeling in his hands. He pressed and it gave a little. Color shot inward from the points of his pressure in enchanting billows inky blue from his left hand, deepest carmine from the right. He smiled . . . and then the smile faded. You may be killing a billion people doing thatfires, floods, God knows what. Remember the building that collapsed in Angola, New York, after No, Jack, the Talisman whispered, and he understood why it had yielded to the gentle pressure of his hands. It was alive; of course it was. No, Jack All will be well . . . all will be well . . . and all manner of things will be well. Only believe; be true; stand; do not falter now. Peace in himoh such deep peace. Rainbow, rainbow, rainbow, Jack thought, and wondered if he could ever bring himself to let this wondrous bauble go. 4 On the beach below the wooden walk, Gardener had fallen flat on his belly in terror. His fingers hooked into the loose sand. He was mewling. Morgan reeled toward him like a drunk and ripped the packset from Gardeners shoulder. Stay outside! he roared into it, and then realized he had forgotten to press the SEND button. He did it now. STAY OUTSIDE! IF YOU TRY TO GET OUT OF TOWN THE MOTHERFUCKING CLIFFS WILL FALL ON YOU! GET DOWN HERE! COME TO ME! THIS IS NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF GODDAM SPECIAL EFFECTS! GET DOWN HERE! FORM A RING AROUND THE BEACH! THOSE OF YOU WHO COME WILL BE REWARDED! THOSE OF YOU WHO DONT WILL DIE IN THE PITS AND IN THE BLASTED LANDS! GET DOWN HERE! ITS OPEN! GET DOWN HERE WHERE NOTHING CAN FALL ON YOU! GET DOWN HERE, DAMMIT! He threw the packset aside. It split open. Beetles with long feelers began to squirm out by the dozens. He bent down and yanked the howling, wheyfaced Gardener up. On your feet, beautiful, he said. 5 Richard cried out in his unconsciousness as the table he was lying on bucked him off onto the floor. Jack heard the cry, and it dragged him out of his fascinated contemplation of the Talisman. He became aware that the Agincourt was groaning like a ship in a high gale. As he looked around, boards snapped up, revealing dusty beamwork beneath. The beams were sawing back and forth like shuttles in a loom. Albino bugs scuttered and squirmed away from the Talismans clear light. Im coming, Richard! he shouted, and began to work his way back across the floor. He was thrown over once and he went down holding the glowing sphere high, knowing it was vulnerableif it was hit hard enough, it would break. What then, God knew. He got to one knee, was thrown back down on his butt, and lurched to his feet again. From below, Richard screamed again. Richard! Coming! From overhead, a sound like sleighbells. He looked up and saw the chandelier penduluming back and forth, faster and faster. Its crystal pendants were making that sound. As Jack watched, the chain parted and it hit the unravelling floor like a bomb with diamonds instead of high explosive in its nose. Glass flew. He turned and exited the room in big, larruping strideshe looked like a burlesque comic doing a turn as a drunken sailor. Down the hall. He was thrown against first one wall and then the other as the floor seesawed and split open. Each time he crashed into a wall he held the Talisman out from him, his arms like tongs in which it glowed like a whitehot coal. Youll never make it down the stairs. Gotta. Gotta. He reached the landing where he had faced the black knight. The world heaved a new way; Jack staggered and saw the helmet on the floor below roll crazily away. Jack continued to look down. The stairs were moving in great tortured waves that made him feel like puking. A stairlevel snapped upward, leaving a writhing black hole. Jack! Coming, Richard! No way you can make it down those stairs. No way, baby. Gotta. Gotta. Holding the precious, fragile Talisman in his hands, Jack started down a flight of stairs that now looked like an Arabian flying carpet caught in a tornado. The stairs heaved and he was flung toward the same gap through which the black knights helmet had fallen. Jack screamed and staggered backward toward the drop, holding the Talisman against his chest with his right hand and flailing behind him with his left. Flailing at nothing. His heels hit the drop and tilted backward over oblivion. 6 Fifty seconds had passed since the earthquake began. Only fifty secondsbut earthquake survivors will tell you that objective time, clocktime, loses all meaning in an earthquake. Three days after the 64 earthquake in Los Angeles, a television news reporter asked a survivor who had been near the epicenter how long the quake had lasted. Its still going on, the survivor said calmly. Sixtytwo seconds after the quake began, almost all of the Point Venuti Highlands decided to give in to destiny and become the Point Venuti Lowlands. They fell on the town with a muddy kurrummmmp, leaving only a single jut of slightly harder rock, which pointed at the Agincourt like an accusing finger. From one of the new slumped hills a dirty smokestack pointed like a randy penis. 7 On the beach, Morgan Sloat and Sunlight Gardener stood supporting each other, appearing to hula. Gardener had unslung the Weatherbee. A few Wolfs, their eyes alternately bulging with terror and glaring with hellacious rage, had joined them. More were coming. They were all Changed or Changing. Their clothes hung from them in tatters. Morgan saw one of them dive at the ground and begin to bite at it, as if the uneasy earth were an enemy that could be killed. Morgan glanced at this madness and dismissed it. A van with the words WILD CHILD written on the sides in psychedelic lettering plowed hellforleather across Point Venuti Square, where children had once begged their parents for ice creams and pennants emblazoned with the Agincourts likeness. The van made it to the far side, jumped across the sidewalk, and then roared toward the beach, plowing through boardedup concessions as it came. One final fissure opened in the earth and the WILD CHILD that had killed Tommy Woodbine disappeared forever, nose first. A jet of flame burst up as its gastank exploded. Watching, Sloat thought dimly of his father preaching about the Pentecostal Fire. Then the earth snapped shut. Hold steady, he shouted at Gardener. I think the place is going to fall on top of him and crush him flat, but if he gets out, youre going to shoot him, earthquake or no earthquake. Will we know if IT breaks? Gardener squealed. Morgan Sloat grinned like a boar in a canebrake. Well know, he said. The sun will turn black. Seventyfour seconds. 8 Jacks left hand scrabbled a grip on the ragged remains of the bannister. The Talisman glowed fiercely against his chest, the lines of latitude and longitude which girdled it shining as brightly as the wire filaments in a lightbulb. His heels tilted and his soles began to slide. Falling! Speedy! Im going to Seventynine seconds. It stopped. Suddenly, it just stopped. Only, for Jack, as for that survivor of the 64 quake, it was still going on, at least in part of his brain. In part of his brain the earth would continue to shake like a churchpicnic JellO forever. He pulled himself back from the drop and staggered to the middle of the twisted stair. He stood, gasping, his face shiny with sweat, hugging the bright round star of the Talisman against his chest. He stood and listened to the silence. Somewhere something heavya bureau or a wardrobe, perhapswhich had been tottering on the edge of balance now fell over with an echoing crash. Jack! Please! I think Im dying! Richards groaning, helpless voice did indeed sound like that of a boy in his last extremity. Richard! Coming! He began to work his way down the stairs, which were now twisted and bent and tottery. Many of the stairlevels were gone, and he had to step over these spaces. In one place four in a row were gone and he leaped, holding the Talisman to his chest with one hand and sliding his hand along the warped bannister with the other. Things were still falling. Glass crashed and tinkled. Somewhere a toilet was flushing manically, again and again. The redwood registration desk in the lobby had split down the middle. The double doors were ajar, however, and a bright wedge of sunlight came through themthe old dank carpet seemed to sizzle and steam in protest at that light. The clouds have broken, Jack thought. Suns shining outside. And then Going out those doors, Richieboy. You and me. Big as life and twice as proud. The corridor which led past the Heron Bar and down to the dining room reminded him of sets in some of the old Twilight Zone shows, where everything was askew and out of kilter. Here the floor tilted left; here to the right; here it was like the twin humps of a camel. He negotiated the dimness with the Talisman lighting his way like the worlds biggest flashlight. He shoved into the dining room and saw Richard lying on the floor in a tangle of tablecloth. Blood was running from his nose. When he got closer he saw that some of those hard red bumps had split open and white bugs were working their way out of Richards flesh and crawling sluggishly over Richards cheeks. As he watched, one birthed itself from Richards nose. Richard screamed, a weak, bubbling, wretched scream, and clawed at it. It was the scream of someone who is dying in agony. His shirt humped and writhed with the things. Jack stumbled across the distorted floor toward him . . . and the spider swung down from the dimness, squirting its poison blindly into the air. Flushing feef! it gibbered in its whining, droning insects voice. Oh you fushing feef, put it back put it back! Without thinking, Jack raised the Talisman. It flashed clean white firerainbow fireand the spider shrivelled and turned black. In only a second it was a tiny lump of smoking coal penduluming slowly to a dead stop in the air. No time to gawp at this wonder. Richard was dying. Jack reached him, fell on his knees beside him, and stripped back the tablecloth as if it were a sheet. Finally made it, chum, he whispered, trying not to see the bugs crawling out of Richards flesh. He raised the Talisman, considered, and then placed it on Richards forehead. Richard shrieked miserably and tried to writhe away. Jack placed an arm on Richards scrawny chest and held himit wasnt hard to do. There was a stench as the bugs beneath the Talisman fried away. Now what? Theres more, but what? He looked across the room and his eye happened to fix upon the green croaker marble that he had left with Richardthe marble that was a magic mirror in that other world. As he looked, it rolled six feet of its own volition, and then stopped. It rolled, yes. It rolled because it was a marble, and it was a marbles job to roll. Marbles were round. Marbles were round and so was the Talisman. Light broke in his reeling mind. Holding Richard, Jack slowly rolled the Talisman down the length of his body. After he reached Richards chest, Richard stopped struggling. Jack thought he had probably fainted, but a quick glance showed him this wasnt so. Richard was staring at him with dawning wonder . . . . . . and the pimples on his face were gone! The hard red bumps were fading! Richard! he yelled, laughing like a crazy loon. Hey, Richard, look at this! Bwana make juju! He rolled the Talisman slowly down over Richards belly, using his palm. The Talisman glowed brightly, singing a clear, wordless harmonic of health and healing. Down over Richards crotch. Jack moved Richards thin legs together and rolled it down the groove between them to Richards ankles. The Talisman glowed bright blue . . . deep red . . . yellow . . . the green of June meadowgrass. Then it was white again. Jack, Richard whispered. Is that what we came for? Yes. Its beautiful, Richard said. He hesitated. May I hold it? Jack felt a sudden twist of Scroogemiserliness. He snatched the Talisman close to himself for a moment. No! You might break it! Besides, its mine! I crossed the country for it! I fought the knights for it! You cant have it! Mine! Mine! Mi In his hands the Talisman suddenly radiated a terrible chill, and for a momenta moment more frightening to Jack than all the earthquakes in all the worlds that ever had been or ever would beit turned a Gothic black. Its white light was extinguished. In its rich, thundery, thanatropic interior he saw the black hotel. On turrets and gambrels and gables, on the roofs of cupolas which bulged like warts stuffed with thick malignancies, the cabalistic symbols turnedwolf and crow and twisted genital star. Would you be the new Agincourt, then? the Talisman whispered. Even a boy can be a hotel . . . if he would be. His mothers voice, clear in his head If you dont want to share it, JackO, if you cant bring yourself to risk it for your friend, then you might as well stay where you are. If you cant bring yourself to share the prizerisk the prizedont even bother to come home. Kids hear that shit all their lives, but when it comes time to put up or shut up, its never quite the same, is it? If you cant share it, let me die, chum, because I dont want to live at that price. The weight of the Talisman suddenly seemed immense, the weight of dead bodies. Yet somehow Jack lifted it, and put it in Richards hands. His hands were white and skeletal . . . but Richard held it easily, and Jack realized that sensation of weight had been only his own imagination, his own twisted and sickly wanting.

As the Talisman flashed into glorious white light again, Jack felt his own interior darkness pass from him. It occurred to him dimly that you could only express your ownership of a thing in terms of how freely you could give it up . . . and then that thought passed. Richard smiled, and the smile made his face beautiful. Jack had seen Richard smile many times, but there was a peace in this smile he had never seen before; it was a peace which passed his understanding. In the Talismans white, healing light, he saw that Richards face, although still ravaged and haggard and sickly, was healing. He hugged the Talisman against his chest as if it were a baby, and smiled at Jack with shining eyes. If this is the Seabrook Island Express, he said, I may just buy a season ticket. If we ever get out of this. You feel better? Richards smile shone like the Talismans light. Worlds better, he said. Now help me up, Jack. Jack moved to take his shoulder. Richard held out the Talisman. Better take this first, he said. Im still weak, and it wants to go back with you. I feel that. Jack took it and helped Richard up. Richard put an arm around Jacks neck. You ready . . . chum? Yeah, Richard said. Ready. But I somehow think the seagoing routes out, Jack. I think I heard the deck out there collapse during the Big Rumble. Were going out the front door, Jack said. Even if God put down a gangway over the ocean from the windows back there to the beach, Id still go out the front door. We aint ditching this place, Richie. Were going out like paying guests. I feel like Ive paid plenty. What do you think? Richard held out one thin hand, palmup. Healing red blemishes still glared on it. I think we ought to go for it, he said. Gimme some skin, Jacky. Jack slapped his palm down on Richards, and then the two of them started back toward the hallway, Richard with one arm around Jacks neck. Halfway down the hall, Richard stared at the litter of dead metal. What in heck? Coffee cans, Jack said, and smiled. Maxwell House. Jack, what in the world are you t Never mind, Richard, Jack said. He was grinning, and he still felt good, but wires of tension were working into his body again just the same. The earthquake was over . . . but it wasnt over. Morgan would be waiting for them now. And Gardener. Never mind. Let it come down the way it will. They reached the lobby and Richard looked around wonderingly at the stairs, the broken registration desk, the tumbled trophies and flagstands. The stuffed head of a black bear had its nose in one of the pigeonholes of the mail depository, as if smelling something goodhoney, perhaps. Wow, Richard said. Whole place just about fell down. Jack got Richard over to the double doors, and observed Richards almost greedy appreciation of that little spray of sunlight. Are you really ready for this, Richard? Yes. Your fathers out there. No, hes not. Hes dead. All thats out there is his . . . what do you call it? His Twinner. Oh. Richard nodded. In spite of the Talismans proximity, he was beginning to look exhausted again. Yes. Theres apt to be a hell of a fight. Well, Ill do what I can. I love you, Richard. Richard smiled wanly. I love you, too, Jack. Now lets go for it before I lose my nerve. 9 Sloat really believed he had everything under controlthe situation, of course, but more important, himself. He went right on believing this until he saw his son, obviously weak, obviously sick, but still very much alive, come out of the black hotel with his arm around Jack Sawyers neck and his head leaning against Jacks shoulder. Sloat had also believed he finally had his feelings about Phil Sawyers brat under controlit was his previous rage that had caused him to miss Jack, first at the Queens pavillion, then in the midwest. Christ, he had crossed Ohio unscathedand Ohio was only an eyeblink from Orris, that other Morgans stronghold. But his fury had led to uncontrolled behavior, and so the boy had slipped through. He had suppressed his ragebut now it flared up with wicked and unbridled freedom. It was as if someone had hosed kerosene on a wellbanked fire. His son, still alive. And his beloved son, to whom he had meant to turn over the kingship of worlds and universes, was leaning on Sawyer for support. Nor was that all. Glimmering and flashing in Sawyers hands like a star which had fallen to earth was the Talisman. Even from here Sloat could feel itit was as if the planets gravitational field had suddenly gotten stronger, pulling him down, making his heart labor; as if time were speeding up, drying out his flesh, dimming his eyes. It hurts! Gardener wailed beside him. Most of the Wolfs who had stood up to the quake and rallied to Morgan were now reeling away, hands before their faces. A couple of them were vomiting helplessly. Morgan felt a moment of swooning fear . . . and then his rage, his excitement, and the lunacy that had been feeding on his increasingly grandiose dreams of overlordshipthese things burst apart the webbing of his selfcontrol. He raised his thumbs to his ears and slammed them deep inside, so deep it hurt. Then he stuck out his tongue and waggled his fingers at Mr. Jack Dirty Motherfuck and SoontobeDead Sawyer. A moment later his upper teeth descended like a dropgate and seered the tip of his wagging tongue. Sloat didnt even notice it. He seized Gardener by the flakvest. Gardeners face was moony with fear. Theyre out, hes got IT, Morgan . . . my Lord . . . we ought to run, we must run SHOOT HIM! Morgan screamed into Gardeners face. Blood from his severed tongue flew in a fine spray. SHOOT HIM, YOU ETHIOPIAN JUGFUCKER, HE KILLED YOUR BOY! SHOOT HIM AND SHOOT THE FUCKING TALISMAN! SHOOT RIGHT THROUGH HIS ARMS AND BREAK IT! Sloat now began to dance slowly up and down before Gardener, his face working horribly, his thumbs back in his ears, his fingers waggling beside his head, his amputated tongue popping in and out of his mouth like one of those New Years Eve party favors that unroll with a tooting sound. He looked like a murderous childhilarious, and at the same time awful. HE KILLED YOUR SON! AVENGE YOUR SON! SHOOT HIM! SHOOT IT! YOU SHOT HIS FATHER, NOW SHOOT HIM! Reuel, Gardener said thoughtfully. Yes. He killed Reuel. Hes the baddest bitchs bastard to ever draw a breath. All boys. Axiomatic. But he . . . he . . . He turned toward the black hotel and raised the Weatherbee to his shoulder. Jack and Richard had reached the bottom of the twisted front steps and were beginning to move down the broad walkway, which had been flat a few minutes ago and which was now crazypaved. In the Judkins scope, the two boys were as big as housetrailers. SHOOT HIM! Morgan bellowed. He ran out his bleeding tongue again and made a hideously triumphant nurseryschool sound Yaddayaddayaddayah! His feet, clad in dirty Gucci loafers, bumped up and down. One of them landed squarely on the severed tip of his tongue and tromped it deeper into the sand. SHOOT HIM! SHOOT IT! Morgan howled. The muzzle of the Weatherbee circled minutely as it had when Gardener was preparing to shoot the rubber horse. Then it settled. Jack was carrying the Talisman against his chest. The crosshairs were over its flashing, circular light. The .360 slug would pass right through it, shattering it, and the sun would turn black . . . but before it does, Gardener thought, I will see that baddest bad boys chest explode. Hes dead meat, Gardener whispered, and began to settle pressure against the Weatherbees trigger. 10 Richard raised his head with great effort and his eyes were sizzled by reflected sunlight. Two men. One with his head slightly cocked, the other seeming to dance. That flash of sunlight again, and Richard understood. He understood . . . and Jack was looking in the wrong place. Jack was looking down toward the rocks where Speedy lay. Jack look out! he screamed. Jack looked around, surprised. What It happened fast. Jack missed it almost entirely. Richard saw it and understood it, but could never quite explain what had happened to Jack. The sunlight flashed off the shooters riflescope again. The ray of reflected light this time struck the Talisman. And the Talisman reflected it back directly at the shooter. This was what Richard later told Jack, but that was like saying the Empire State Building is a few stories high. The Talisman did not just reflect the sunflash; it boosted it somehow. It sent back a thick ribbon of light like a deathray in a space movie. It was there only for a second, but it imprinted Richards retinas for almost an hour afterward, first white, then green, then blue, and finally, as it faded, the lemony yellow of sunshine. 11 Hes dead meat, Gardener whispered, and then the scope was full of living fire. Its thick glass lenses shattered. Smoking fused glass was driven backward into Gardeners right eye. The shells in the Weatherbees magazine exploded, tearing its midsection apart. One of the whickers of flying metal amputated most of Gardeners right cheek. Other hooks and twists of steel flew around Sloat in a storm, leaving him incredibly untouched. Three Wolfs had remained through everything. Now two of them took to their heels. The third lay dead on his back, glaring into the sky. The Weatherbees trigger was planted squarely between his eyes. What? Morgan bellowed. His bloody mouth hung open. What? What? Gardener looked weirdly like Wile E. Coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons after one of his devices from the Acme Company has misfired. He cast the gun aside, and Sloat saw that all the fingers had been torn from Gards left hand. Gardeners right hand pulled out his shirt with effeminate tweezing delicacy. There was a knifecase clipped to the inner waistband of his pantsa narrow sleeve of finegrained kid leather. From it Gardener took a piece of chromebanded ivory. He pushed a button, and a slim blade seven inches long shot out. Bad, he whispered. Bad! His voice began to rise. All boys! Bad! Its axiomatic! ITS AXIOMATIC! He began to run up the beach toward the Agincourts walk, where Jack and Richard stood. His voice continued to rise until it was a thin febrile shriek. BAD! EVIL! BAD! EEVIL! BAAAD! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Morgan stood a moment longer, then grasped the key around his neck. By grasping it, he seemed also to grasp his own panicked, flying thoughts. Hell go to the old nigger. And thats where Ill take him. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Gardener shrieked, his killer knife held out before him as he ran. Morgan turned and ran down the beach. He was vaguely aware that the Wolfs, all of them, had fled. That was all right. He would take care of Jack Sawyerand the Talismanall by himself. 45 In Which Many Things are Resolved on the Beach 1 Sunlight Gardener ran dementedly toward Jack, blood streaming down his mutilated face. He was the center of a devastated madness. Under bright blistering sunshine for the first time in what must have been decades, Point Venuti was a ruin of collapsed buildings and broken pipes and sidewalks heaved up like books tilting and leaning on a shelf. Actual books lay here and there, their ripped jackets fluttering in raw seams of earth. Behind Jack the Agincourt Hotel uttered a sound uncannily like a groan; then Jack heard the sound of a thousand boards collapsing in on themselves, of walls tipping over in a shower of snapped lath and plasterdust. The boy was faintly conscious of the beelike figure of Morgan Sloat slipping down the beach and realized with a stab of unease that his adversary was going toward Speedy Parkeror Speedys corpse. Hes got a knife, Jack, Richard whispered. Gardeners ruined hand carelessly smeared blood on his oncespotless white silk shirt. EEEEEEVIL! he screeched, his voice still faint over the constant pounding of the water on the beach and the continuing, though intermittent, noises of destruction. EEEEEEEEEEE . . . What are you going to do? Richard asked. How should I know? Jack answeredit was the best, truest answer he could give. He had no idea of how he could defeat this madman. Yet he would defeat him. He was certain of that. You shoulda killed both of the Ellis brothers, Jack said to himself. Gardener, still shrieking, came racing across the sand. He was even now a good distance away, about halfway between the end of the fence and the front of the hotel. A red mask covered half his face. His useless left hand leaked a steady spattering stream of blood onto the sandy ground. The distance between the madman and the boys seemed to halve in a second. Was Morgan Sloat on the beach by now? Jack felt an urgency like the Talismans, pushing him forward; pushing him on. Evil! Axiomatic! Evil! Gardener screamed. Flip! Richard loudly said and Jack sidestepped as he had inside the black hotel. And then found himself standing in front of Osmond in blistering Territories sunlight. Most of his certainty abruptly left him. Everything was the same but everything was different. Without looking, he knew that behind him was something much worse than the Agincourthe had never seen the exterior of the castle the hotel became in the Territories, but he suddenly knew that through the great front doors a tongue was coiling out for him . . . and that Osmond was going to drive him and Richard back toward it. Osmond wore a patch over his right eye and a stained glove on his left hand. The complicated tendrils of his whip came slithering off his shoulder. Oh, yes, he halfhissed, halfwhispered. This boy. Captain Farrens boy. Jack pulled the Talisman protectively into his belly. The intricacies of the whip slid over the ground, as responsive to Osmonds minute movements of hand and wrist as is a racehorse to the hand of the jockey. What does it profit a boy to gain a glass bauble if he loses the world? The whip seemed almost to lift itself off the ground. NOTHING! NAUGHT! Osmonds true smell, that of rot and filth and hidden corruption, boomed out, and his lean crazy face somehow rippled, as if a lightningbolt had cracked beneath it. He smiled brightly, emptily, and raised the coiling whip above his shoulder. Goatspenis, Osmond said, almost lovingly. The thongs of the whip came singing down toward Jack, who stepped backward, though not far enough, in a sudden sparkling panic. Richards hand gripped his shoulder as he flipped again, and the horrible, somehow laughing noise of the whip instantly erased itself from the air. Knife! he heard Speedy say. Fighting his instincts, Jack stepped inside the space where the whip had been, not backward as almost all of him wished to do. Richards hand fell away from the ridge of his shoulder, and Speedys voice went wailing and lost. Jack clutched the glowing Talisman into his belly with his left hand and reached up with his right. His fingers closed magically around a bony wrist. Sunlight Gardener giggled. JACK! Richard bellowed behind him. He was standing in this world again, under streaming cleansing light, and Sunlight Gardeners knife hand was straining down toward him. Gardeners ruined face hung only inches from his own. A smell as of garbage and longdead animals left on the road blanketed them. Naught, Gardener said. Can you give me hallelujah? He pushed down with the elegant lethal knife, and Jack managed to hold it back. JACK! Richard yelled again. Sunlight Gardener stared at him with a bright birdlike air. He continued to push down with his knife. Dont you know what Sunlight done? said Speedys voice. Dont you yet? Jack looked straight into Gardeners crazily dancing eye. Yes. Richard rushed in and kicked Gardener in the ankle, then clouted a weak fist into his temple. You killed my father, Jack said. Gardeners single eye sparkled back. You killed my boy, baddest bastard! Morgan Sloat told you to kill my father and you did. Gardener pushed the knife down a full two inches. A knot of yellow gristly stuff and a bubble of blood squeezed out of the hole that had been his right eye. Jack screamedwith horror, rage, and all the longhidden feelings of abandonment and helplessness which had followed his fathers death. He found that he had pushed Gardeners knife hand all the way back up. He screamed again. Gardeners fingerless left hand battered against Jacks own left arm. Jack was just managing to twist Gardeners wrist back when he felt that dripping pad of flesh insinuate itself between his chest and his arm. Richard continued to skirmish about Gardener, but Gardener was managing to get his fingerless hand very near the Talisman. Gardener tilted his face right up to Jacks. Hallelujah, he whispered. Jack twisted his entire body around, using more strength than hed known he had. He hauled down on Gardeners knife hand. The other, fingerless hand flew to the side. Jack squeezed the wrist of the knife hand. Corded tendons wriggled in his grasp. Then the knife dropped, as harmless now as the fingerless cushion of skin which struck repeatedly at Jacks ribs. Jack rolled his whole body into the offcenter Gardener and sent him lurching away. He shoved the Talisman toward Gardener. Richard squawked, What are you doing? This was right, right, right. Jack moved in toward Gardener, who was still gleaming at him, though with less assurance, and thrust the Talisman out toward him. Gardener grinned, another bubble of blood bulging fatly in the empty eyesocket, and swung wildly at the Talisman. Then he ducked for the knife. Jack rushed in and touched the Talismans grooved warm skin against Gardeners own skin. Like Reuel, like Sunlight. He jumped back. Gardener howled like a lost, wounded animal. Where the Talisman had brushed against him, the skin had blackened, then turned to a slowly sliding fluid, skimming away from the skull. Jack retreated another step. Gardener fell to his knees. All the skin on his head turned waxy. Within half a second, only a gleaming skull protruded through the collar of the ruined shirt. Thats you taken care of, Jack thought, and good riddance! 2 All right, Jack said. He felt full of crazy confidence. Lets go get him, Richie. Lets He looked at Richard and saw that his friend was on the verge of collapsing again. He stood swaying on the sand, his eyes halflidded and dopey. Maybe you better just sit this one out, on second thought, Jack said. Richard shook his head. Coming, Jack. Seabrook Island. All the way . . . to the end of the line. Im going to have to kill him, Jack said. That is, if I can. Richard shook his head with dogged, stubborn persistence. Not my father. Told you. Fathers dead. If you leave me Ill crawl. Crawl right through the muck that guy left behind, if I have to. Jack looked toward the rocks. He couldnt see Morgan, but he didnt think there was much question that Morgan was there. And if Speedy was still alive, Morgan might at this moment be taking steps to remedy that situation. Jack tried to smile but couldnt make it. Think of the germs you might pick up. He hesitated a moment longer, then held the Talisman reluctantly out to Richard. Ill carry you, but youll have to carry this. Dont drop the ball, Richard. If you drop it What was it Speedy had said? If you drop it, all be lost. I wont drop it. Jack put the Talisman into Richards hands, and again Richard seemed to improve at its touch . . . but not so much. His face was terribly wan. Washed in the Talismans bright glow, it looked like the face of a dead child caught in the glare of a police photographers flash. Its the hotel. Its poisoning him. But it wasnt the hotel; not entirely. It was Morgan. Morgan was poisoning him. Jack turned around, discovering he was loath to look away from the Talisman even for a moment. He bent his back and curved his hands into stirrups. Richard climbed on. He held to the Talisman with one hand and curled the other around Jacks neck. Jack grabbed Richards thighs. He is as light as a thistle. He has his own cancer. Hes had it all his life. Morgan Sloat is radioactive with evil and Richard is dying of the fallout. He started to jog down toward the rocks behind which Speedy lay, conscious of the light and heat of the Talisman just above him. 3 He ran around the left side of the clump of rocks with Richard on his back, still full of that crazy assurance . . . and that it was crazy was brought home to him with rude suddenness. A plumpish leg clad in light brown wool (and just below the pulledback cuff Jack caught a blurred glimpse of a perfectly proper brown nylon sock) suddenly stuck straight out from behind the last rock like a tollgate. Shit! Jacks mind screamed. He was waiting for you! You total nerd! Richard cried out. Jack tried to pull up and couldnt. Morgan tripped him up as easily as a schoolyard bully trips up a younger boy in the playyard. After Smokey Updike, and Osmond, and Gardener, and Elroy, and something that looked like a cross between an alligator and a Sherman tank, all it really took to bring him down was overweight, hypertensive Morgan Sloat crouched behind a rock, watching and waiting for an overconfident boy named Jack Sawyer to come boogying right down on top of him. Yiyyy! Richard cried as Jack stumbled forward. He was dimly aware of their combined shadow tracking out to his leftit seemed to have as many arms as a Hindu idol. He felt the psychic weight of the Talisman shift . . . and then overshift. WATCH OUT FOR IT, RICHARD! Jack screamed. Richard fell over the top of Jacks head, his eyes huge and dismayed. The cords on his neck stood out like piano wire. He held the Talisman up as he went down. His mouth was pulled down at the corners in a desperate snarl. He hit the ground facefirst like the nosecone of a defective rocket. The sand here around the place where Speedy had gone to earth was not precisely sand at all but a roughtextured scree stubbly with smaller rocks and shells. Richard came down on a rock that had been burped up by the earthquake. There was a compact thudding sound. For a moment Richard looked like an ostrich with its head buried in the sand. His butt, clad in dirty polishedcotton slacks, wagged drunkenly back and forth in the air. In other circumstancescircumstances unattended by that dreadful compact thudding sound, for instanceit would have been a comic pose, worthy of a Kodachrome Rational Richard Acts Wild and Crazy at the Beach. But it wasnt funny at all. Richards hands opened slowly . . . and the Talisman rolled three feet down the gentle slope of the beach and stopped there, reflecting sky and clouds, not on its surface but in its gently lighted interior. Richard! Jack bellowed again. Morgan was somewhere behind him, but Jack had momentarily forgotten him. All his reassurance was gone; it had left him at the moment when that leg, clad in light brown wool, had stuck out in front of him like a tollgate. Fooled like a kid in a nurseryschool playyard, and Richard . . . Richard was . . . Rich Richard rolled over and Jack saw that Richards poor, tired face was covered with running blood. A flap of his scalp hung down almost to one eye in a triangular shape like a ragged sail. Jack could see hair sticking out of the underside and brushing Richards cheek like sandcolored grass . . . and where that haircovered skin had come from he could see the naked gleam of Richard Sloats skull. Did it break? Richard asked. His voice cracked toward a scream. Jack, did it break when I fell? Its okay, Richieits Richards bloodrimmed eyes bulged widely at something behind him. Jack! Jack, look o! Something that felt like a leather brickone of Morgan Sloats Gucci loaferscrashed up between Jacks legs and into his testicles. It was a deadcenter hit, and Jack crumpled forward, suddenly living with the greatest pain of his lifea physical agony greater than any he had ever imagined. He couldnt even scream. Its okay, Morgan Sloat said, but you dont look so good. Jackyboy. Not at all. And now the man slowly advancing on Jackadvancing slowly because he was savoring thiswas a man to whom Jack had never been properly introduced. He had been a white face in the window of a great black coach for a space of moments, a face with dark eyes that somehow sensed his presence; he had been a rippling, changing shape bludgeoning itself into the reality of the field where he and Wolf had been talking of such wonders as litterbrothers and the big rutmoon; he had been a shadow in Anderss eyes. But Ive never really seen Morgan of Orris until now, Jack thought. And he still was JackJack in a pair of faded, dirty cotton pants of a sort you might expect to see an Asian coolie wearing, and sandals with rawhide thongs, but not JasonJack. His crotch was a great frozen scream of pain. Ten yards away was the Talisman, throwing its effulgent glow along a beach of black sand. Richard was not there, but this fact did not impress itself on Jacks conscious mind until a bit later. Morgan was wearing a dark blue cape held at the neck with a catch of beaten silver. His pants were the same light wool as Sloats pants, only here they were bloused into black boots. This Morgan walked with a slight limp, his deformed left foot leaving a line of short hyphens in the sand. The silver catch on his cloak swung loose and low as he moved, and Jack saw that the silver thing had nothing at all to do with the cape, which was held by a simple unadorned dark cord. This was some sort of pendant. He thought for a moment that it was a tiny golfclub, the sort of thing a woman might take off her charmbracelet and wear around her neck, just for the fun of it. But as Sloat got closer, he saw it was too slimit did not end in a clubhead but came to a point. It looked like a lightningrod. No, you dont look well at all, boy, Morgan of Orris said. He stepped over to where Jack lay, moaning, holding his crotch, legs drawn up. He bent forward, hands planted just above his knees, and studied Jack as a man might study an animal his car has run over. A rather uninteresting animal like a woodchuck or a squirrel. Not a bit well. Morgan leaned even closer. Youve been quite a problem for me, Morgan of Orris said, bending lower. Youve caused a great deal of damage. But in the end I think Im dying, Jack whispered. Not yet. Oh, I know it feels like that, but believe me, youre not dying yet. In five minutes or so, youll know what dying really feels like. No . . . really . . . Im broken . . . inside, Jack moaned. Lean down . . . I want to tell . . . to ask . . . beg . . . Morgans dark eyes gleamed in his pallid face. It was the thought of Jack begging, perhaps. He leaned down until his face was almost touching Jacks. Jacks legs had drawn up in response to the pain. Now he pistoned them out and up. For a moment it felt as if a rusty blade were ripping up from his genitals and into his stomach, but the sound of his sandals striking Morgans face, splitting his lips and crunching his nose to one side, more than made up for the pain. Morgan of Orris flailed backward, roaring in pain and surprise, his cape flapping like the wings of a great bat. Jack got to his feet. For a moment he saw the black castleit was much larger than the Agincourt had been; seemed, in fact, to cover acresand then he was lunging spastically past the unconscious (or dead!) Parkus. He lunged for the Talisman, which lay peacefully glowing on the sand, and as he ran he flipped back to the American Territories. Oh you bastard! Morgan Sloat bellowed. You rotten little bastard, my face, my face, you hurt my face! There was a crackling sizzle and a smell like ozone. A brilliant bluewhite branch of lightning passed just to Jacks right, fusing sand like glass. Then he had the Talismanhad it again! The torn, throbbing ache in his crotch began to diminish at once. He turned to Morgan with the glass ball raised in his hands. Morgan Sloat was bleeding from the lip and holding one hand up to his cheekJack hoped that he had cracked a few of Sloats teeth while he was at it. In Sloats other hand, outstretched in a curious echo of Jacks own posture, was the keylike thing which had just sent a lightningbolt snapping into the sand beside Jack. Jack moved sideways, his arms straight out before him and the Talisman shifting internal colors like a rainbow machine. It seemed to understand that Sloat was near, for the great grooved glass ball had begun a kind of subtonal humming that Jack feltmore than heardas a tingle in his hands. A band of clear bright white opened in the Talisman, like a shaft of light right through its center, and Sloat jerked himself sideways and pointed the key at Jacks head. He wiped a smear of blood away from his lower lip. You hurt me, you stinking little bastard, he said. Dont think that glass ball can help you now. Its future is a little shorter than your own. Then why are you afraid of it? the boy asked, thrusting it forward again. Sloat dodged sideways, as if the Talisman, too, could shoot out bolts of lightning. He doesnt know what it can do, Jack realized he doesnt really know anything about it, he just knows he wants it. Drop it right now, Sloat said. Let go of it, you little fraud. Or Ill take the top of your head off right now. Drop it. Youre afraid, Jack said. Now that the Talisman is right in front of you, youre afraid to come and get it. I dont have to come and get it, Sloat said. You goddam Pretender. Drop it. Lets see you break it by yourself, Jacky. Come for it, Bloat, Jack said, feeling a blast of wholly bracing anger shoot through him. Jacky. He hated hearing his mothers nickname for him in Sloats wet mouth. Im not the black hotel, Bloat. Im just a kid. Cant you take a glass ball away from a kid? Because it was clear to him that they were in stalemate as long as Jack held the Talisman in his hands. A deep blue spark, as vibrant as one of the sparks from Anderss demons, flared up and died in the Talismans center. Another immediately followed. Jack could still feel that powerful humming emanating from the heart of the grooved glass ball. He had been destined to get the Talismanhe was supposed to get it. The Talisman had known of his existence since his birth, Jack now thought, and ever since had awaited him to set it free. It needed Jack Sawyer and no one else. Come on and try for it, Jack taunted. Sloat pushed the key toward him, snarling. Blood drooled down his chin. For a moment Sloat appeared baffled, as frustrated and enraged as a bull in a pen, and Jack actually smiled at him. Then Jack glanced sideways to where Richard lay on the sand, and the smile disappeared from his face. Richards face was literally covered with blood, his dark hair was matted with it. You bast he began, but it had been a mistake to look away. A searing blast of blue and yellow light smacked into the beach directly beside him. He turned to Sloat, who was just firing off another lightningbolt at his feet. Jack danced back, and the shaft of destructive light melted the sand at his feet into molten yellow liquid, which almost instantly cooled into a long straight slick of glass. Your son is going to die, Jack said. Your mother is going to die, Sloat snarled back at him. Drop that damned thing before I cut your head off. Now. Let go of it. Jack said, Why dont you go hump a weasel? Morgan Sloat opened his mouth and screeched, revealing a row of square bloodstained teeth. Ill hump your corpse! The pointing key wavered toward Jacks head, wavered away. Sloats eyes glittered, and he jerked his hand up so that the key pointed at the sky. A long skein of lightning seemed to erupt upward from Sloats fist, widening out as it ascended. The sky blackened. Both the Talisman and Morgan Sloats face shone in the sudden dark, Sloats face because the Talisman shed its light upon it. Jack realized that his face, too, must be picked out by the Talismans fierce illumination. And as soon as he brandished the glowing Talisman toward Sloat, trying God knew whatto get him to drop the key, to anger him, to rub his nose in the fact that he was powerlessJack was made to understand that he had not yet reached the end of Morgan Sloats capabilities. Fat snowflakes spun down out of the dark sky.

Sloat disappeared behind the thickening curtain of snow; Jack heard his wet laughter. 4 She struggled out of her invalids bed and crossed to the window. She looked out at the dead December beach, which was lit by a single streetlight on the boardwalk. Suddenly a gull alighted on the sill outside the window. A string of gristle hung from one side of its beak, and in that moment she thought of Sloat. The gull looked like Sloat. Lily first recoiled, and then came back. She felt a wholly ridiculous anger. A gull couldnt look like Sloat, and a gull couldnt invade her territory . . . it wasnt right. She tapped the cold glass. The bird fluffed its wings briefly but did not fly. And she heard a thought come from its cold mind, heard it as clearly as a radio wave Jacks dying, Lily . . . Jacks dyyyyyinn . . . It bent its head forward. Tapped on the glass as deliberately as Poes raven. Dyyyyyyinnnn . . . NO! she shrieked at it. FUCK OFF, SLOAT! She did not simply tap this time but slammed her fist forward, driving it through the glass. The gull fluttered backward, squawking, almost falling. Frigid air funnelled in through the hole in the window. Blood was dripping from Lilys handno; no, not just dripping. It was running. She had cut herself quite badly in two places. She picked shards of glass out of the pad on the side of her palm and then wiped her hand against the bodice of her nightdress. DIDNT EXPECT THAT, DID YOU, FUCKHEAD? she screamed at the bird, which was circling restlessly over the gardens. She burst into tears. Now leave him alone! Leave him alone! LEAVE MY SON ALONE! She was covered all over in blood. Cold air blew in the pane she had shattered. And outside she saw the first flakes of snow come swirling down from the sky and into the white glow of that streetlight. 5 Look out, Jacky. Soft. On the left. Jack pivoted that way, holding the Talisman up like a searchlight. It sent out a beam of light filled with falling snow. Nothing else. Darkness . . . snow . . . the sound of the ocean. Wrong side, Jacky. He spun to the right, feet slipping in the icing of snow. Closer. He had been closer. Jack held up the Talisman. Come and get it, Bloat! You havent got a chance, Jack. I can take you anytime I want to. Behind him . . . and closer still. But when he raised the blazing Talisman, there was no Sloat to be seen. Snow roared into his face. He inhaled it and began to cough on the cold. Sloat tittered from directly in front of him. Jack recoiled and almost tripped over Speedy. Hoohoo, Jacky! A hand came out of the darkness on his left and tore at Jacks ear. He turned in that direction, heart pumping wildly, eyes bulging. He slipped and went to one knee. Richard uttered a thick, snoring moan somewhere close by. Overhead, a cannonade of thunder went off in the darkness Sloat had somehow brought down. Throw it at me! Sloat taunted. He danced forward out of that stormy, exposuresalljammeduptogether dark. He was snapping the fingers of his right hand and wagging the tin key at Jack with the left. The gestures had a jerky, eccentric syncopation. To Jack, Sloat looked crazily like some oldtime Latin bandleaderXavier Cugat, perhaps. Throw it at me, why dont you? Shooting gallery, Jack! Clay pigeon! Big old Uncle Morgan! What do you say, Jack? Have a go? Throw the ball and win a Kewpie doll! And Jack discovered he had pulled the Talisman back to his right shoulder, apparently intending to do just that. Hes spooking you, trying to panic you, trying to get you to cough it up, to Sloat faded back into the murk. Snow flew in dustdevils. Jack wheeled nervously around but could see Sloat nowhere. Maybe hes taken off. Maybe Wassa matta, Jacky? No, he was still here. Somewhere. On the left. I laughed when your dear old daddy died, Jacky. I laughed in his face. When his motor finally quit I felt The voice warbled. Faded for a moment. Came back. On the right. Jack whirled that way, not understanding what was going on, his nerves increasingly frayed. my heart flew like a bird on the wing. It flew like this, Jackyboy. A rock came out of the darkaimed not at Jack but at the glass ball. He dodged. Got a murky glimpse of Sloat. Gone again. A pause . . . then Sloat was back, and playing a new record. Fucked your mother, Jacky, the voice teased from behind him. A fat hot hand snatched at the seat of his pants. Jack whirled around, this time almost stumbling over Richard. Tearshot, painful, outragedbegan to squeeze out of his eyes. He hated them, but here they were, and nothing in the world would deny them. The wind screamed like a dragon in a windtunnel. The magics in you, Speedy had said, but where was the magic now? Where oh where oh where? You shut up about my mom! Fucked her a lot, Sloat added with smug cheeriness. On the right again. A fat, dancing shape in the dark. Fucked her by invitation, Jacky! Behind him! Close! Jack spun. Held up the Talisman. It flashed a white slice of light. Sloat danced back out of it, but not before Jack had seen a grimace of pain and anger. That light had touched Sloat, had hurt him. Never mind what hes sayingits all lies and you know it is. But how can he do that? Hes like Edgar Bergen. No . . . hes like Indians in the dark, closing in on the wagon train. How can he do it? Singed my whiskers a little that time, Jacky, Sloat said, and chuckled fruitily. He sounded a bit out of breath, but not enough. Not nearly enough. Jack was panting like a dog on a hot summer day, his eyes frantic as he searched the stormy blackness for Sloat. But Ill not hold it against you, Jacky Now, lets see. What were we talking about? Oh yes. Your mother . . . A little warble . . . a little fade . . . and then a stone came whistling out of the darkness on the right and struck Jacks temple. He whirled, but Sloat was gone again, skipping nimbly back into the snow. Shed wrap those long legs around me until I howled for mercy! Sloat declared from behind Jack and to the right OWWWWOOOOOO! Dont let him get you dont let him psych you out dont But he couldnt help it. It was his mother this dirty man was talking about; his mother. You stop it! You shut up! Sloat was in front of him nowso close Jack should have been able to see him clearly in spite of the swirling snow, but there was only a glimmer, like a face seen underwater at night Another stone zoomed out of the dark and struck Jack in the back of the head. He staggered forward and nearly tripped over Richard againa Richard who was rapidly disappearing under a mantle of snow. He saw stars . . . and understood what was happening. Sloats flipping! Flipping . . . moving . . . flipping back! Jack turned in an unsteady circle, like a man beset with a hundred enemies instead of just one. Lightningfire licked out of the dark in a narrow greenishblue ray. He reached toward it with the Talisman, hoping to deflect it back at Sloat. Too late. It winked out. Then how come I dont see him over there? Over there in the Territories? The answer came to him in a dazzling flash . . . and as if in response, the Talisman flashed a gorgeous fan of white lightit cut the snowy light like the headlamp of a locomotive. I dont see him over there, dont respond to him over there, because Im NOT over there! Jasons gone . . . and Im singlenatured! Sloats flipping onto a beach where theres no one but Morgan of Orris and a dead or dying man named ParkusRichard isnt there either, because Morgan of Orriss son, Rushton, died a long time ago and Richards singlenatured, too! When I flipped before, the Talisman was there . . . but Richard wasnt! Morgans flipping . . . moving . . . flipping back . . . trying to freak me out. . . . Hoohoo! Jackyboy! The left. Over here! The right. But Jack wasnt listening for the place anymore. He was looking into the Talisman, waiting for the downbeat. The most important downbeat of his life. From behind. This time he would come from behind. The Talisman flashed out, a strong lamp in the snow. Jack pivoted . . . and as he pivoted he flipped into the Territories, into bright sunlight. And there was Morgan of Orris, big as life and twice as ugly. For a moment he didnt realize Jack had tumbled to the trick; he was limping rapidly around to a place which would be behind Jack when he flipped back into the American Territories. There was a nasty littleboy grin on his face. His cloak popped and billowed behind him. His left boot dragged, and Jack saw the sand was covered with those dragging hashmarks all around him. Morgan had been running around him in a harrying circle, all the while goading Jack with obscene lies about his mother, throwing stones, and flipping back and forth. Jack shouted I SEE YOU! at the top of his lungs. Morgan stared around at him in utter stunned shock, one hand curled around that silver rod. SEE YOU! Jack shouted again. Should we go around one more time, Bloat? Morgan of Orris flicked the end of the rod at him, his face altering in a second from that rubbery simpleminded expression of shock to a much more characteristic look of craftof a clever man quickly seeing all the possibilities in a situation. His eyes narrowed. Jack almost, in that second when Morgan of Orris looked down his lethal silver rod at him and narrowed his eyes into gunsights, flipped back into the American Territories, and that would have killed him. But an instant before prudence or panic caused him in effect to jump in front of a moving truck, the same insight that had told him that Morgan was flipping between worlds saved him againJack had learned the ways of his adversary. He held his ground, again waiting for that almost mystical downbeat. For a fraction of a second Jack Sawyer held his breath. If Morgan had been a shade less proud of his deviousness, he might well have murdered Jack Sawyer, which he so dearly wished to do, at that moment. But instead, just as Jack had thought it would, Morgans image abruptly departed the Territories. Jack inhaled. Speedys body (Parkuss body, Jack realized) lay motionless a short distance away. The downbeat came. Jack exhaled and flipped back. A new streak of glass divided the sand on the Point Venuti beach, glimmeringly reflecting the sudden beam of white light which emanated from the Talisman. Missed one, did you? Morgan Sloat whispered out of the darkness. Snow pelted Jack, cold wind froze his limbs, his throat, his forehead. A cars length away, Sloats face hung before him, the forehead drawn up into its familiar corrugations, the bloody mouth open. He was extending the key toward Jack in the storm, and a ridge of powdery snow adhered to the brown sleeve of his suit. Jack saw a black trail of blood oozing from the left nostril of the incongruously small nose. Sloats eyes, bloodshot with pain, shone through the dark air. 6 Richard Sloat confusedly opened his eyes. Every part of him was cold. At first he thought, quite without emotion of any kind, that he was dead. He had fallen down somewhere, probably down those steep, tricky steps at the back of the Thayer School grandstand. Now he was cold and dead and nothing more could happen to him. He experienced a second of dizzying relief. His head offered him a fresh surge of pain, and he felt warm blood ooze out over his cold handboth of these sensations evidence that, whatever he might welcome at the moment, Richard Llewellyn Sloat was not yet dead. He was only a wounded suffering creature. The whole top of his head seemed to have been sliced off. He had no proper idea of where he was. It was cold. His eyes focused long enough to report to him that he was lying down in the snow. Winter had happened. More snow dumped on him from out of the sky. Then he heard his fathers voice, and everything returned to him. Richard kept his hand on top of his head, but very slowly tilted his chin so that he could look in the direction of his fathers voice. Jack Sawyer was holding the Talismanthat was the next thing Richard took in. The Talisman was unbroken. He felt the return of a portion of that relief he had experienced when hed thought he was dead. Even without his glasses, Richard could see that Jack had an undefeated, unbowed look that moved him very deeply. Jack looked like . . . like a hero. That was all. He looked like a dirty, dishevelled, outrageously youthful hero, wrong for the role on almost every count, but undeniably still a hero. Jack was just Jack now, Richard now saw. That extraordinary extra quality, as of a movie star deigning to walk around as a shabbily dressed twelveyearold, had gone. This made his heroism all the more impressive to Richard. His father smiled rapaciously. But that was not his father. His father had been hollowed out a long time agohollowed out by his envy of Phil Sawyer, by the greed of his ambitions. We can keep on going around like this forever, Jack said. Im never going to give you the Talisman, and youre never going to be able to destroy it with that gadget of yours. Give up. The point of the key in his fathers hand slowly moved across and down, and it, like his fathers greedy needful face, pointed straight at him. First Ill blow Richard apart, his father said. Do you really want to see your pal Richard turned into bacon? Hmmmm? Do you? And of course I wont hesitate to do the same favor for that pest beside him. Jack and Sloat exchanged short glances. His father was not kidding, Richard knew. He would kill him if Jack did not surrender the Talisman. And then he would kill the old black man, Speedy. Dont do it, he managed to whisper. Stuff him, Jack. Tell him to screw himself. Jack almost deranged Richard by winking at him. Just drop the Talisman, he heard his father say. Richard watched in horror as Jack tilted the palms of his hands and let the Talisman tumble out. 7 Jack, no! Jack didnt look around at Richard. You dont own a thing unless you can give it up, his mind hammered at him. You dont own a thing unless you can give it up, what does it profit a man, it profits him nothing, it profits him zilch, and you dont learn that in school, you learn it on the road, you learn it from Ferd Janklow, and Wolf, and Richard going headfirst into the rocks like a Titan II that didnt fire off right. You learned these things, or you died somewhere out in the world where there was no clear light. No more killing, he said in the snowfilled darkness of this California beach afternoon. He should have felt utterly exhaustedit had been, all told, a fourday run of horrors, and now, at the end, he had coughed up the ball like a freshman quarterback with a lot to learn. Had thrown it all away. Yet it was the sure voice of Anders he heard, Anders who had knelt before JackJason with his kilt spread out around him and his head bowed Anders saying A wi be well, a wi be well, and a manner a things wi be well. The Talisman glowed on the beach, snow melting down one sweetly gravid side in droplets, and in each droplet was a rainbow, and in that moment Jack knew the staggering cleanliness of giving up the thing which was required. No more slaughter. Go on and break it if you can, he said. Im sorry for you. It was that last which surely destroyed Morgan Sloat. If he had retained a shred of rational thought, he would have unearthed a stone from the unearthly snow and smashed the Talisman . . . as it could have been smashed, in its simple unjacketed vulnerability. Instead, he turned the key on it. As he did so, his mind was filled with loving, hateful memories of Jerry Bledsoe, and Jerry Bledsoes wife. Jerry Bledsoe, whom he had killed, and Nita Bledsoe, who should have been Lily Cavanaugh . . . Lily, who had slapped him so hard his nose bled the one time when, drunk, he had tried to touch her. Fire sang outgreenblue fire spanning out from the cheapjack barrel of the tin key. It arrowed out at the Talisman, struck it, spread over it, turning it into a burning sun. Every color was there for a moment . . . for a moment every world was there. Then it was gone. The Talisman swallowed the fire from Morgans key. Ate it whole. Darkness came back. Jacks feet slid out from under him and he sat down with a thud on Speedy Parkers limply splayed calves. Speedy made a grunting noise and twitched. There was a twosecond lag when everything held static . . . and then fire suddenly blew back out of the Talisman in a flood. Jacks eyes opened wide in spite of his frantic, tortured thought (itll blind you! Jack! itll) and the altered geography of Point Venuti was lit up as if the God of All Universes had bent forward to snap a picture. Jack saw the Agincourt, slumped and halfdestroyed; he saw the collapsed Highlands that were now the Lowlands; he saw Richard on his back; he saw Speedy lying on his belly with his face turned to one side. Speedy was smiling. Then Morgan Sloat was driven backward and enveloped in a field of fire from his own keyfire that had been absorbed inside the Talisman as the flashes of light from Sunlight Gardeners telescopic sight had been absorbedand which was returned to him a thousandfold. A hole opened between the worldsa hole the size of the tunnel leading into Oatleyand Jack saw Sloat, his handsome brown suit burning, one skeletal, tallowy hand still clutching the key, driven through that hole. Sloats eyes were boiling in their sockets, but they were wide . . . they were aware. And as he passed, Jack saw him changesaw the cloak appear like the wings of a bat that has swooped through the flame of a torch, saw his burning boots, his burning hair. Saw the key become a thing like a miniature lightningrod. Saw . . . daylight! 8 It came back in a flood. Jack rolled away from it on the snowy beach, dazzled. In his earsears deep inside his headhe heard Morgan Sloats dying scream as he was driven back through all the worlds that were, into oblivion. Jack? Richard was sitting up woozily, holding his head. Jack, what happened? I think I fell down the stadium steps. Speedy was twitching in the snow, and now he did a sort of girls pushup and looked toward Jack. His eyes were exhausted . . . but his face was clear of blemishes. Good job, Jack, he said, and grinned. Good He fell partway forward again, panting. Rainbow, Jack thought woozily. He stood up and then fell down again. Freezing snow coated his face and then began to melt like tears. He pushed himself to his knees, then stood up again. The field of his vision was filled with spots . . . but he saw the enormous burned swatch in the snow where Morgan had stood. It tailed away like a teardrop. Rainbow! Jack Sawyer shouted, and raised his hands to the sky, weeping and laughing. Rainbow! Rainbow! He went to the Talisman, and picked it up, still weeping. He took it to Richard Sloat, who had been Rushton; to Speedy Parker, who was what he was. He healed them. Rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! 46 Another Journey 1 He healed them, but he was never able to recall exactly how that had gone, or any of the specific detailsfor a while the Talisman had blazed and sung in his hands, and he had the vaguest possible memory of its fires actually seeming to flow out over them until they glowed in a bath of light. That was all he could bring back. At the end of it, the glorious light in the Talisman faded . . . faded . . . went out. Jack, thinking of his mother, uttered a hoarse, wailing cry. Speedy staggered over to him through the melting snow and put an arm around Jacks shoulders. It be back, Travellin Jack, Speedy said. He smiled, but he looked twice as tired as Jack. Speedy had been healed . . . but he was still not well. This world is killing him, Jack thought dimly. At least, its killing the part of him thats Speedy Parker. The Talisman healed him . . . but he is still dying. You did for it, Speedy said, and you wanna believe that its gonna do for you. Dont worry. Come on over here, Jack. Come on over to where your frien be layin. Jack did. Richard was sleeping in the melting snow. That horrid loose flap of skin was gone, but there was a long white streak of scalp showing in his hair nowa streak of scalp from which no hair would ever grow. Take his han. Why? What for? Were gonna flip. Jack looked at Speedy questioningly, but Speedy offered no explanation. He only nodded, as if to say Yes; you heard me right. Well, Jack thought, I trusted him this far He reached down and took Richards hand. Speedy held Jacks other hand. With hardly a tug at all, the three of them went over. 2 It was as Jack had intuitedthe figure standing beside him over here, on this black sand that was stitched everywhere by Morgan of Orriss dragging foot, looked hale and hearty and healthy. Jack stared with aweand some uneaseat this stranger who looked a bit like Speedy Parkers younger brother. SpeedyMr. Parkus, I meanwhat are you You boys need rest, Parkus said. You for sure, this other young squire even more. He came closer to dying than anyone will ever know but himself . . . and I dont think hes the type to do much admitting, even to himself. Yeah, Jack said. You got that right. Hell rest better over here, Parkus told Jack, and struck off up the beach, away from the castle, carrying Richard. Jack stumbled along as best he could, but gradually found himself falling behind. He was quickly out of breath, his legs rubbery. His head ached with reaction from the final battleshock hangover, he supposed. Why . . . where . . . That was all he could pant. He held the Talisman against his chest. It was dull now, its exterior sooty and opaque and uninteresting. Just up a little way, Parkus said. You and your friend dont want to rest where he was, do you? And, exhausted as he was, Jack shook his head. Parkus glanced back over his shoulder, then looked sadly at Jack. It stinks of his evil back there, he said, and it stinks of your world, Jack. To me, they smell too much alike for comfort. He set off again, Richard in his arms. 3 Forty yards up the beach he stopped. Here the black sand had moderated to a lighter colornot white, but a medium gray. Parkus set Richard down gently. Jack sprawled beside him. The sand was warmblessedly warm. No snow here. Parkus sat beside him, crosslegged. Youre going to have a sleep now, he said. Might be tomorrow before you wake up. Wont anybody bother you, if so. Take a look. Parkus waved his arm toward the place where Point Venuti had been in the American Territories. Jack first saw the black castle, one entire side of it crumbled and burst, as if there had been a tremendous explosion inside. Now the castle looked almost pedestrian. Its menace was burnt out, its illicit treasure borne away. It was only stones piled up in patterns. Looking farther, Jack saw that the earthquake had not been so violent over hereand there had been less to destroy. He saw a few overturned huts that looked as if they had been built mostly of driftwood; he saw a number of burst coaches that might or might not have been Cadillacs back in the American Territories; here and there he could see a fallen, shaggy body. Those who were here and survived have now gone, Parkus said. They know what has happened, they know Orris is dead, and theyll not trouble you more. The evil that was here has gone. Do you know that? Can you feel it? Yes, Jack whispered. But . . . Mr. Parkus . . . youre not . . . not . . . Going? Yes. Very soon. You and your friend are going to have a good sleep, but you and I must have a bit of a talk first. It wont take long, so I want you to try and get your head up off your chest, at least for the moment. With some effort, Jack got his head up and his eyes allwell, mostof the way open again. Parkus nodded. When you wake up, strike east . . . but dont flip! You stay right here for a while. Stay in the Territories. Theres going to be too much going on over there on your siderescue units, news crews, Jason knows what else. At least the snow will melt before anybody knows its there, except for a few people wholl be dismissed as crackpots Why do you have to go? I just got to ramble some now, Jack. Theres a lot of work to be done over here. News of Morgans death will already be travelling east. Travelling fast. Im behind that news right now, and Ive got to get ahead of it if I can. I want to get back to the Outposts . . . and the east . . . before a lot of pretty bad folks start to head out for other places. He looked out at the ocean, his eyes as cold and gray as flint. When the bill comes due, people have to pay. Morgans gone, but theres still a debt owing. Youre something like a policeman over here, arent you? Parkus nodded. I am what youd call the Judge General and Lord High Executioner all rolled into one. Over here, that is. He put a strong, warm hand on Jacks head. Over there, Im just this fella who goes around from place to place, does a few odd jobs, strums a few tunes. And sometimes, believe me, I like that a lot better. He smiled again, and this time he was Speedy. And you be seein that guy from time to time, Jacky. Yeah, from time to time and place to place. In a shoppin center, maybe, or a park. He winked at Jack. But Speedys . . . not well, Jack said. Whatever was wrong with him, it was something the Talisman couldnt touch. Speedys old, Parkus said. Hes my age, but your world made him older than me. Just the same, hes still got a few years left in him. Maybe quite a few. Feel no fret, Jack. You promise? Jack asked. Parkus grinned. Yeahbob. Jack grinned tiredly back. You and your friend head out to the east. Go until you reckon youve done five miles. You get over those low hills and then youll be fineeasy walking. Look for a big treebiggest damn tree youve ever seen. You get to that big old tree, Jack, and you take Richards hand, and you flip back. Youll come out next to a giant redwood with a tunnel cut through the bottom of it to let the road through. The roads Route Seventeen, and youll be on the outskirts of a little town in northern California called Storyville. Walk into town. Theres a Mobil station at the blinkerlight. And then? Parkus shrugged. Dont know, not for sure. Could be, Jack, youll meet someone youll recognize. But how will we get h Shhh, Parkus said, and put a hand on Jacks forehead exactly as his mother had done when he was (babybunting, daddys gone ahunting, and all that good shit, lala, go to sleep, Jacky, alls well and alls well and) very small. Enough questions. All will be well with you and Richard now, I think. Jack lay down. He cradled the dark ball in the crook of one arm. Each of his eyelids now seemed to have a cinderblock attached to it. You have been brave and true, Jack, Parkus said with calm gravity. I wish you were my own son . . . and I salute you for your courage. And your faith. There are people in many worlds who owe you a great debt of gratitude. And in some way or other, I think most of them sense that. Jack managed a smile. Stay a little while, he managed to say. All right, Parkus said. Until you sleep. Feel no fret, Jack. Nothing will harm you here. My mom always said But before he finished the thought, sleep had claimed him. 4 And sleep continued to claim him, in some mysterious wise, the next day when he was technically awakeor if not sleep, then a protective numbing faculty of the mind which turned most of that day slow and dreamlike. He and Richard, who was similarly slowmoving and tentative, stood beneath the tallest tree in the world. All about them spangles of light lay across the floor of the forest. Ten grown men holding hands could not have reached around it. The tree soared up, massive and apart in a forest of tall trees it was a leviathan, a pure example of Territories exuberance. Feel no fret, Parkus had said, even while he threatened to fade hazily away like the Cheshire Cat. Jack tilted his head to stare up toward the top of the tree. He did not quite know this, but he was emotionally exhausted. The immensity of the tree aroused only a flicker of wonder in him. Jack rested a hand against the surprisingly smooth bark. I killed the man who killed my father, he said to himself. He clutched the dark, seemingly dead ball of the Talisman in his other hand. Richard was staring upward at the giant head of the tree, a skyscrapers height above them. Morgan was dead, Gardener too, and the snow must have melted from the beach by now. Yet not all of it was gone. Jack felt as though a whole beachful of snow filled his head. He had thought oncea thousand years ago, it seemed nowthat if he could ever actually get his hands around the Talisman, he would be so inundated with triumph and excitement and awe that hed have to fizz over. Instead he now felt only the tiniest hint of all that. It was snowing in his head, and he could see no farther than Parkuss instructions. He realized that the enormous tree was holding him up. Take my hand, he said to Richard. But how are we going to get home? Richard asked. Feel no fret, he said, and closed his hand around Richards. Jack Sawyer didnt need a tree to hold him up. Jack Sawyer had been to the Blasted Lands, he had vanquished the black hotel, Jack Sawyer was brave and true. Jack Sawyer was a playedout twelveyearold boy with snow falling in his brain. He flipped effortlessly back into his own world, and Richard slid through whatever barriers there were right beside him. 5 The forest had contracted; now it was an American forest. The roof of gently moving boughs was noticeably lower, the trees about them conspicuously smaller than in the part of the Territories forest to which Parkus had directed them. Jack was dimly conscious of this alteration in the scale of everything about him before he saw the twolane blacktop road in front of him but twentiethcentury reality kicked him almost immediately in the shins, for as soon as he saw the road he heard the eggbeater sound of a small motor and instinctively drew himself and Richard back just before a white little Renault Le Car zipped by him. The car sped past and went through the tunnel cut into the trunk of the redwood (which was slightly more than half the size of its Territories counterpart). But at least one adult and two children in the Renault were not looking at the redwoods they had come to see all the way from New Hampshire (Live Free or Die!). The woman and the two small children in the back seat had swivelled around to gawp at Jack and Richard. Their mouths were small black caves, open wide. They had just seen two boys appear beside the road like ghosts, miraculously and instantaneously forming out of nothing, like Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock after beaming down from the Enterprise. You okay to walk for a little while? Sure, Richard said. Jack stepped onto the surface of Route 17 and walked through the huge hole in the tree. He might be dreaming all this, he thought. He might be still on the Territories beach, Richard knocked out beside him, both of them under Parkuss kindly gaze. My mom always said . . . My mom always said . . . 6 Moving as if through thick fog (though that day in that part of northern California was in fact sunny and dry), Jack Sawyer led Richard Sloat out of the redwood forest and down a sloping road past dry December meadows. . . . that the most important person in any movie is usually the cameraman . . . His body needed more sleep. His mind needed a vacation. . . . that vermouth is the ruination of a good martini . . . Richard followed silently along, brooding. He was so much slower that Jack had to stop still on the side of the road and wait for Richard to catch up with him. A little town that must have been Storyville was visible a halfmile or so ahead. A few low white buildings sat on either side of the road. ANTIQUES, read the sign atop one of them. Past the buildings a blinking stoplight hung over an empty intersection. Jack could see the corner of the MOBIL sign outside the gas station. Richard trudged along, his head so far down his chin nearly rested on his chest. When Richard drew nearer, Jack finally saw that his friend was weeping. Jack put his arm around Richards shoulders. I want you to know something, he said.

What? Richards small face was tearstreaked but defiant. I love you, Jack said. Richards eyes snapped back to the surface of the road. Jack kept his arm over his friends shoulders. In a moment Richard looked uplooked straight at Jackand nodded. And that was like something Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer once or twice really had said to her son JackO, there are times you dont have to spill your guts out of your mouth. Were on our way, Richie, Jack said. He waited for Richard to wipe his eyes. I guess somebodys supposed to meet us up there at the Mobil station. Hitler, maybe? Richard pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. In a moment he was ready again, and the two boys walked into Storyville together. 7 It was a Cadillac, parked on the shady side of the Mobil stationan El Dorado with a boomerang TV antenna on the back. It looked as big as a housetrailer and as dark as death. Oh, Jack, baaaad shit, Richard moaned, and grabbed at Jacks shoulder. His eyes were wide, his mouth trembling. Jack felt adrenaline whippet into his system again. It didnt pump him up any longer. It only made him feel tired. There had been too much, too much, too much. Clasping the dark junkshop crystal ball that the Talisman had become, Jack started down the hill toward the Mobil station. Jack! Richard screamed weakly from behind him. What the hell are you doing? Its one of THEM! Same cars as at Thayer! Same cars as in Point Venuti! Parkus told us to come here, Jack said. Youre crazy, chum, Richard whispered. I know it. But thisll be all right. Youll see. And dont call me chum. The Caddys door swung open and a heavily muscled leg clad in faded blue denim swung out. Unease became active terror when he saw that the toe of the drivers black engineer boot had been cut off so long, hairy toes could stick out. Richard squeaked beside him like a fieldmouse. It was a Wolf, all rightJack knew that even before the guy turned around. He stood almost seven feet tall. His hair was long, shaggy, and not very clean. It hung in tangles to his collar. There were a couple of burdocks in it. Then the big figure turned, Jack saw a flash of orange eyesand suddenly terror became joy. Jack sprinted toward the big figure down there, heedless of the gas station attendant who had come out to stare at him, and the idlers in front of the general store. His hair flew back from his forehead; his battered sneakers thumped and flapped; his face was split by a dizzy grin; his eyes shone like the Talisman itself. Bib overalls Oshkosh, by gosh. Round rimless spectacles John Lennon glasses. And a wide, welcoming grin. Wolf! Jack Sawyer screamed. Wolf, youre alive! Wolf, youre alive! He was still five feet from Wolf when he leaped. And Wolf caught him with neat, casual ease, grinning delightedly. Jack Sawyer! Wolf! Look at this! Just like Parkus said! Im here at this Godpounding place that smells like shit in a swamp, and youre here, too! Jack and his friend! Wolf! Good! Great! Wolf! It was the Wolfs smell that told Jack this wasnt his Wolf, just as it was the smell that told him this Wolf was some sort of relation . . . surely a very close one. I knew your litterbrother, Jack said, still in the Wolfs shaggy, strong arms. Now, looking at this face, he could see it was older and wiser. But still kind. My brother Wolf, Wolf said, and put Jack down. He reached out one hand and touched the Talisman with the tip of one finger. His face was full of awed reverence. When he touched it, one bright spark appeared and shot deep into the globes dull depths like a tumbling comet. He drew in a breath, looked at Jack, and grinned. Jack grinned back. Richard now arrived, staring at both of them with wonder and caution. There are good Wolfs as well as bad in the Territories Jack began. Lots of good Wolfs, Wolf interjected. He stuck out his hand to Richard. Richard pulled back for a second and then shook it. The set of his mouth as his hand was swallowed made Jack believe Richard expected the sort of treatment Wolf had accorded Heck Bast a long time ago. This is my Wolfs litterbrother, Jack said proudly. He cleared his throat, not knowing exactly how to express his feelings for this beings brother. Did Wolfs understand condolence? Was it part of their ritual? I loved your brother, he said. He saved my life. Except for Richard here, he was just about the best friend I ever had, I guess. Im sorry he died. Hes in the moon now, Wolfs brother said. Hell be back. Everything goes away, Jack Sawyer, like the moon. Everything comes back, like the moon. Come on. Want to get away from this stinking place. Richard looked puzzled, but Jack understood and more than sympathizedthe Mobil station seemed surrounded with a hot, oily aroma of fried hydrocarbons. It was like a brown shroud you could see through. The Wolf went to the Cadillac and opened the rear door like a chauffeurwhich was, Jack supposed, exactly what he was. Jack? Richard looked frightened. Its okay, Jack said. But where To my mother, I think, Jack said. All the way across the country to Arcadia Beach, New Hampshire. Going first class. Come on, Richie. They walked to the car. Shoved over to one side of the wide back seat was a scruffy old guitar case. Jack felt his heart leap up again. Speedy! He turned to Wolfs litterbrother. Is Speedy coming with us? Dont know anyone speedy, the Wolf said. Had an uncle who was sort of speedy, then he pulled up lameWolf!and couldnt even keep up with the herd anymore. Jack pointed at the guitar case. Where did that come from? Wolf grinned, showing many big teeth. Parkus, he said. Left this for you, too. Almost forgot. From his back pocket he took a very old postcard. On the front was a carousel filled with a great many familiar horsesElla Speed and Silver Lady among thembut the ladies in the foreground were wearing bustles, the boys knickers, many of the men derby hats and Rollie Fingers moustaches. The card felt silky with age. He turned it over, first reading the print up the middle ARCADIA BEACH CAROUSEL, JULY 4TH, 1894. It was Speedynot Parkuswho had scratched two sentences in the message space. His hand was sprawling, not very literate; he had written with a soft, blunt pencil. You done great wonders, Jack. Use what you need of whats in the casekeep the rest or throw it away. Jack put the postcard in his hip pocket and got into the back of the Cadillac, sliding across the plush seat. One of the catches on the old guitar case was broken. He unsnapped the other three. Richard had gotten in after Jack. Holy crow! he whispered. The guitar case was stuffed with twentydollar bills. 8 Wolf took them home, and although Jack grew hazy about many of that autumns events in a very short time, each moment of that trip was emblazoned on his mind for the rest of his life. He and Richard sat in the back of the El Dorado and Wolf drove them east and east and east. Wolf knew the roads and Wolf drove them. He sometimes played Creedence Clearwater Revival tapesRun Through the Jungle seemed to be his favoriteat a volume just short of earshattering. Then he would spend long periods of time listening to the tonal variations in the wind as he worked the button that controlled his wing window. This seemed to fascinate him completely. East, east, eastinto the sunrise each morning, into the mysterious deepening blue dusk of each coming night, listening first to John Fogerty and then to the wind, John Fogerty again and then the wind again. They ate at Stuckeys. They ate at Burger Kings. They stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken. At the latter, Jack and Richard got dinners; Wolf got a FamilyStyle Bucket and ate all twentyone pieces. From the sounds, he ate most of the bones as well. This made Jack think of Wolf and the popcorn. Where had that been? Muncie. The outskirts of Munciethe Town Line Sixplex. Just before they had gotten their asses slammed into the Sunlight Home. He grinned . . . and then felt something like an arrow slip into his heart. He looked out the window so Richard wouldnt see the gleam of his tears. They stopped on the second night in Julesburg, Colorado, and Wolf cooked them a huge picnic supper on a portable barbecue he produced from the trunk. They ate in a snowy field by starlight, bundled up in heavy parkas bought out of the guitarcase stash. A meteorshower flashed overhead, and Wolf danced in the snow like a child. I love that guy, Richard said thoughtfully. Yeah, me too. You should have met his brother. I wish I had. Richard began to gather up the trash. What he said next flummoxed Jack almost completely. Im forgetting a lot of stuff, Jack. What do you mean? Just that. Every mile I remember a little less about what happened. Its all getting misty. And I think . . . I think thats the way I want it. Look, are you really sure your mothers okay? Three times Jack had tried to call his mother. There was no answer. He was not too worried about this. Things were okay. He hoped. When he got there, she would be there. Sick . . . but still alive. He hoped. Yes. Then how come she doesnt answer the phone? Sloat played some tricks with the phones, Jack said. He played some tricks with the help at the Alhambra, too, I bet. Shes still okay. Sick . . . but okay. Still there. I can feel her. And if this healing thing works Richard grimaced a little, then plunged. You still . . . I mean, you still think shed let me . . . you know, stay with you guys? No, Jack said, helping Richard pick up the remains of supper. Shell want to see you in an orphanage, probably. Or maybe in jail. Dont be a dork, Richard, of course you can stay with us. Well . . . after all my father did . . . That was your dad, Richie, Jack said simply. Not you. And you wont always be reminding me? You know . . . jogging my memory? Not if you want to forget. I do, Jack. I really do. Wolf was coming back. You guys ready? Wolf! All ready, Jack said. Listen, Wolf, how about that Scott Hamilton tape I got in Cheyenne? Sure, Jack. Then how about some Creedence? Run Through the Jungle, right? Good tune, Jack! Heavy! Wolf! Godpounding heavy tune! You bet, Wolf. He rolled his eyes at Richard. Richard rolled his back, and grinned. The next day they rolled across Nebraska and Iowa; a day later they tooled past the gutted ruin of the Sunlight Home. Jack thought Wolf had taken them past it on purpose, that he perhaps wanted to see the place where his brother had died. He turned up the Creedence tape in the cassette player as loud as it would go, but Jack still thought he heard the sound of Wolf sobbing. Timesuspended swatches of time. Jack seemed almost to be floating, and there was a feeling of suspension, triumph, valediction. Work honorably discharged. Around sunset of the fifth day, they crossed into New England. 47 Journeys End 1 The whole long drive from California to New England seemed, once they had got so far, to have taken place in a single long afternoon and evening. An afternoon that lasted days, an evening perhaps lifelong, bulging with sunsets and music and emotions. Great humping balls of fire, Jack thought, Im really out of it, when he happened for the second time in what he assumed to be about an hour to look at the discreet little clock set in the dashboardand discovered that three hours had winked past him. Was it even the same day? Run Through the Jungle pumped through the air; Wolf bobbed his head in time, grinning unstoppably, infallibly finding the best roads; the rear window showing the whole sky opening in great bands of twilight color, purple and blue and that particular deep plangent red of the downgoing sun. Jack could remember every detail of this long long journey, every word, every meal, every nuance of the music, Zoot Sims or John Fogerty or simply Wolf delighting himself with the noises of the air, but the true span of time had warped itself in his mind to a concentration like a diamonds. He slept in the cushiony backseat and opened his eyes on light or darkness, on sunlight or stars. Among the things he remembered with particular sharpness, once they had crossed into New England and the Talisman began to glow again, signalling the return of normal timeor perhaps the return of time itself to Jack Sawyerwere the faces of people peering into the back seat of the El Dorado (people in parking lots, a sailor and an oxfaced girl in a convertible at a stoplight in a sunny little town in Iowa, a skinny Ohio kid wearing Breaking Awaystyle bicycle gear) in order to see if maybe Mick Jagger or Frank Sinatra had decided to pay them a call. Nope, just us, folks. Sleep kept stealing him away. Once he awoke (Colorado? Illinois?) to the thumping of rock music, Wolf snapping his fingers while keeping the big car rolling smoothly, a bursting sky of orange and purple and blue, and saw that Richard had somewhere acquired a book and was reading it with the aid of the El Dorados recessed passenger light. The book was Brocas Brain. Richard always knew what time it was. Jack rolled his eyes upward and let the music, the evening colors, take him. They had done it, they had done everything . . . everything except what they would have to do in an empty little resort town in New Hampshire. Five days, or one long, dreaming twilight? Run Through the Jungle. Zoot Simss tenor saxophone saying Heres a story for you, do you like this story? Richard was his brother, his brother. Time returned to him about when the Talisman came back to life, during the magical sunset of the fifth day. Oatley, Jack thought on the sixth day. I could have shown Richard the Oatley tunnel, and whatevers left of the Tap, I could have shown Wolf which way to go . . . but he did not want to see Oatley again, there was no satisfaction or pleasure in that. And he was conscious now of how close they had come, of how far they had travelled while he drifted through time like a whistle. Wolf had brought them to the great broad artery of I95, now that they were in Connecticut, and Arcadia Beach lay only a few states away, up the indented New England coast. From now on Jack counted the miles, and the minutes, too. 2 At quarter past five on the evening of December 21st, some three months after Jack Sawyer had set his faceand his hopeson the west, a black El Dorado Cadillac swung into the crushedgravel driveway of the Alhambra Inn and Gardens in the town of Arcadia Beach, New Hampshire. In the west, the sunset was a mellow valediction of reds and oranges fading to yellow . . . and blue . . . and royal purple. In the gardens themselves, naked branches clattered together in a bitter winter wind. Amid them, until a day not quite a week ago, had been a tree which caught and ate small animalschipmunks, birds, the desk clerks starveling, slatsided cat. This small tree had died very suddenly. The other growing things in the garden, though skeletal now, still bided with dormant life. The El Dorados steelbelted radials popped and cracked over the gravel. From inside, muffled behind the polarized glass, came the sound of Creedence Clearwater Revival. The people who know my magic, John Fogerty sang, have filled the land with smoke. The Cadillac stopped in front of the wide double doors. There was only darkness beyond them. The double headlights went out and the long car stood in shadow, tailpipe idling white exhaust, orange parking lights gleaming. Here at the end of day; here at sunset with color fanning up from the western sky in glory. Here Right here and now. 3 The back of the Caddy was lit with faint, uncertain light. The Talisman flickered . . . but its glow was weak, little more than the glow of a dying firefly. Richard turned slowly toward Jack. His face was wan and frightened. He was clutching Carl Sagan with both hands, wringing the paperback the way a washerwoman might wring a sheet. Richards Talisman, Jack thought, and smiled. Jack, do you want No, Jack said. Wait until I call. He opened the rear right door, started to get out of the car, then looked back at Richard. Richard sat small and shrunken in his seat, wringing his paperback in his hand. He looked miserable. Not thinking, Jack came back in for a moment and kissed Richards cheek. Richard put his arms around Jacks neck for a moment, and hugged fiercely. Then he let Jack go. Neither of them said anything. 4 Jack started for the stairs leading up to the lobbylevel . . . and then turned right and walked for a moment to the edge of the driveway instead. There was an iron railing here. Below it, cracked and tiered rock fell to the beach. Farther to his right, standing against the darkling sky, was the Arcadia Funworld roller coaster. Jack lifted his face to the east. The wind that was harrying through the formal gardens lifted his hair away from his forehead and blew it back. He lifted the globe in his hands, as if as an offering to the ocean. 5 On December 21st, 1981, a boy named Jack Sawyer stood near the place where the water and the land came together, hands cradling an object of some worth, looking out at the nightsteady Atlantic. He had turned thirteen years old that day, although he did not know it, and he was extraordinarily beautiful. His brown hair was longprobably too longbut the seabreeze swept it back from a fine, clear brow. He stood there thinking about his mother, and about the rooms in this place which they had shared. Was she going to turn on a light up there? He rather suspected she was. Jack turned, eyes flashing wildly in the Talismans light. 6 Lily felt along the wall with one trembling, skeletal hand, groping for the lightswitch. She found it and turned it on. Anyone who had seen her in that moment might well have turned away. In the last week or so, the cancer had begun to sprint inside her, as if sensing that something might be on the way which would spoil all its fun. Lily Cavanaugh now weighed seventyeight pounds. Her skin was sallow, stretched over her skull like parchment. The brown circles under her eyes had turned a dead and final black; the eyes themselves stared from their sockets with fevered, exhausted intelligence. Her bosom was gone. The flesh on her arms was gone. On her buttocks and the backs of her thighs, bedsores had begun to flower. Nor was that all. In the course of the last week, she had contracted pneumonia. In her wasted condition she was, of course, a prime candidate for that or any other respiratory disease. It might have come under the best of circumstances . . . and these were definitely not those. The radiators in the Alhambra had ceased their nightly clankings some time ago. She wasnt sure just how longtime had become as fuzzy and indefinable to her as it had been for Jack in the El Dorado. She only knew the heat had gone out on the same night she had punched her fist through the window, making the gull that had looked like Sloat fly away. In the time since that night the Alhambra had become a deserted coldbox. A crypt in which she would soon die. If Sloat was responsible for what had happened at the Alhambra, he had done one hell of a good job. Everyone was gone. Everyone. No more maids in the halls trundling their squeaky carts. No more whistling maintenance man. No more mealymouthed desk clerk. Sloat had put them all in his pocket and taken them away. Four days agowhen she could not find enough in the room to satisfy even her birdlike appetiteshe had gotten out of bed and had worked her way slowly down the hall to the elevator. She brought a chair with her on this expedition, alternately sitting on it, her head hanging in exhaustion, and using it as a walker. It took her forty minutes to traverse forty feet of corridor to the elevator shaft. She had pushed the button for the car repeatedly, but the car did not come. The buttons did not even light. Fuck a duck, Lily muttered hoarsely, and then slowly worked herself another twenty feet down the hall to the stairwell. Hey! she shouted downstairs, and then broke into a fit of coughing, bent over the back of the chair. Maybe they couldnt hear the yell but they sure as shit must have been able to hear me coughing out whatevers left of my lungs, she thought. But no one came. She yelled again, twice, had another coughing fit, and then started back down the hallway, which looked as long as a stretch of Nebraska turnpike on a clear day. She didnt dare go down those stairs. She would never get back up them. And there was no one down there; not in the lobby, not in The Saddle of Lamb, not in the coffee shop, not anywhere. And the phones were out. At least, the phone in her room was out, and she hadnt heard a single ring anywhere else in this old mausoleum. Not worth it. A bad gamble. She didnt want to freeze to death in the lobby. JackO, she muttered, where the hell are y Then she began to cough again and this one was really bad and in the middle of it she collapsed to one side in a faint, pulling the ugly sittingroom chair over on top of her, and she lay there on the cold floor for nearly an hour, and that was probably when the pneumonia moved into the rapidly declining neighborhood that was Lily Cavanaughs body. Hey there, big C! Im the new kid on the block! You can call me big P! Race you to the finish line! Somehow she had made it back to her room, and since then she had existed in a deepening spiral of fever, listening to her respiration grow louder and louder until her fevered mind began to imagine her lungs as two organic aquariums in which a number of submerged chains were rattling. And yet she held onheld on because part of her mind insisted with crazy, failing certainty that Jack was on his way back from wherever he had been. 7 The beginning of her final coma had been like a dimple in the sanda dimple that begins to spin like a whirlpool. The sound of submerged chains in her chest became a long, dry exhalationHahhhhhhhh . . . Then something had brought her out of that deepening spiral and started her feeling along the wall in the cold darkness for the lightswitch. She got out of bed. She did not have strength enough left to do this; a doctor would have laughed at the idea. And yet she did. She fell back twice, then finally made it to her feet, mouth turned down in a snarl of effort. She groped for the chair, found it, and began to lurch her way across the room to the window. Lily Cavanaugh, Queen of the Bs, was gone. This was a walking horror, eaten by cancer, burned by rising fever. She reached the window and looked out. Saw a human shape down thereand a glowing globe. Jack! she tried to scream. Nothing came out but a gravelly whisper. She raised a hand, tried to wave. Faintness (Haahhhhhhhhh . . . ) washed over her. She clutched at the windowsill. Jack! Suddenly the lighted ball in the figures hands flashed up brightly, illuminating his face, and it was Jacks face, it was Jack, oh thank God, it was Jack. Jack had come home. The figure broke into a run. Jack! Those sunken, dying eyes grew yet more brilliant. Tears spilled down her yellow, stretched cheeks. 8 Mom! Jack ran across the lobby, seeing that the oldfashioned telephone switchboard was fused and blackened, as if from an electrical fire, and instantly dismissing it. He had seen her and she looked awfulit had been like looking at the silhouette of a scarecrow propped in the window. Mom! He pounded up the stairs, first by twos, then by threes, the Talisman stuttering one burst of pinkred light and then falling dark in his hands. Mom! Down the hallway to their rooms, feet flying, and now, at last, he heard her voiceno brassy bellow or slightly throaty chuckle now; this was the dusty croak of a creature on the outer edge of death. Jacky? Mom! He burst into the room. 9 Down in the car, a nervous Richard Sloat stared upward through his polarized window. What was he doing here, what was Jack doing here? Richards eyes hurt. He strained to see the upper windows in the murky evening. As he bent sideways and stared upward, a blinding white flash erupted from several of the upstairs windows, sending a momentary, almost palpable sheet of dazzling light over the entire front of the hotel. Richard put his head between his knees and moaned. 10 She was on the floor beneath the windowhe saw her there finally. The rumpled, somehow dustylooking bed was empty, the whole bedroom, as disordered as a childs room, seemed empty . . . Jacks stomach had frozen and words backed up in his throat. Then the Talisman had shot out another of its great illuminating flashes, in and for an instant turning everything in the room a pure colorless white. She croaked, Jacky? once more, and he bellowed, MOM! seeing her crumpled like a candy wrapper under the window. Thin and lank, her hair trailed on the rooms dirty carpet. Her hands seemed like tiny animal paws, pale and scrabbling. Oh Jesus, Mom, oh jeepers, oh holy moe, he babbled, and somehow moved across the room without taking a step, he floated, he swam across Lilys crowded frozen bedroom in an instant that seemed as sharp to him as an image on a photographic plate. Her hair puddled on the grimy carpet, her small knotty hands. He inhaled the thick odor of illness, of close death. Jack was no doctor, and he was ignorant of most of the things so wrong with Lilys body. But he knew one thinghis mother was dying, her life was falling away through invisible cracks, and she had very little time left. She had uttered his name twice, and that was about all the life left in her would permit. Already beginning to weep, he put his hand on her unconscious head, and set the Talisman on the floor beside her. Her hair felt full of sand and her head was burning. Oh Mom, Mom, he said, and got his hands under her. He still could not see her face. Through her flimsy nightgown her hip felt as hot as the door of a stove. Against his other palm, her left shoulder blade pulsed with an equal warmth. She had no comfortable pads of flesh over her bonesfor a mad second of stopped time it was as though she were a small dirty child somehow left ill and alone. Sudden unbidden tears squirted out of his eyes. He lifted her, and it was like picking up a bundle of clothes. Jack moaned. Lilys arms sprawled loosely, gracelessly. (Richard) Richard had felt . . . not as bad as this, not even when Richard had felt like a dried husk on his back, coming down the final hill into poisoned Point Venuti. There had been little but pimples and a rash left of Richard at that point, but he, too, had burned with fever. But Jack realized with a sort of unthinking horror that there had been more actual life, more substance, to Richard than his mother now possessed. Still, she had called his name. (and Richard had nearly died) She had called his name. He clung to that. She had made it to the window. She had called his name. It was impossible, unthinkable, immoral to imagine that she could die. One of her arms dangled before him like a reed meant to be cut in half by a scythe . . . her wedding ring had fallen off her finger. He was crying steadily, unstoppably, unconsciously. Okay, Mom, he said, okay, its okay now, okay, its okay. From the limp body in his arms came a vibration that might have been assent. He gently placed her on the bed, and she rolled weightlessly sideways. Jack put a knee on the bed and leaned over her. The tired hair fell away from her face. 11 Once, at the very beginning of his journey, he had for a shameful moment seen his mother as an old womana spent, exhausted old woman in a tea shop. As soon as he had recognized her, the illusion had dissipated, and Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer had been restored to her unaging self. For the real, the true Lily Cavanaugh could never have agedshe was eternally a blonde with a quick switchblade of a smile and a gotohell amusement in her face. This had been the Lily Cavanaugh whose picture on a billboard had strengthened her sons heart. The woman on the bed looked very little like the actress on the billboard. Jacks tears momentarily blinded him. Oh dont dont dont, he said, and laid one palm across her yellowed cheek. She did not look as though she had enough strength to lift her hand. He took her tight dry discolored claw of a hand into his own hand. Please please please dont He could not even allow himself to say it. And then he realized how much an effort this shrunken woman had made. She had been looking for him, he understood in a great giddy rush of comprehension. His mother had known he was coming. She had trusted him to return and in a way that must have been connected to the fact of the Talisman itself, she had known the moment of his return. Im here, Mom, he whispered. A wad of wet stuff bubbled from his nostrils. He unceremoniously wiped his nose with the sleeve of his coat. He realized for the first time that his entire body was trembling. I brought it back, he said. He experienced a moment of absolute radiant pride, of pure accomplishment. I brought back the Talisman, he said. Gently he set her nutlike hand down on the counterpane. Beside the chair, where he had placed it (every bit as gently) on the floor, the Talisman continued to glow. But its light was faint, hesitant, cloudy. He had healed Richard by simply rolling the globe down the length of his friends body; he had done the same for Speedy. But this was to be something else. He knew that, but not what it was to be . . . unless it was a question of knowing and not wanting to believe. He could not possibly break the Talisman, not even to save his mothers lifethat much he did know. Now the interior of the Talisman slowly filled with a cloudy whiteness. The pulses faded into one another and became a single steady light. Jack placed his hands on it, and the Talisman shot forth a blinding wall of light, rainbow! which seemed nearly to speak. AT LAST! Jack went back across the room toward the bed, the Talisman bouncing and spraying light from floor to wall to ceiling, illuminating the bed fitfully, garishly. As soon as he stood beside his mothers bed, the texture of the Talisman seemed to Jack to subtly alter beneath his fingers. Its glassy hardness shifted somehow, became less slippery, more porous. The tips of his fingers seemed almost to sink into the Talisman. The cloudiness filling it boiled and darkened. And at this moment Jack experienced a strongin fact, passionatefeeling he would have thought was impossible, that day long ago when he had set off for his first days walk in the Territories. He knew that in some unforeseen way the Talisman, the object of so much blood and trouble, was going to alter. It was going to change forever, and he was going to lose it. The Talisman would no longer be his. Its clear skin was clouding over, too, and the entire beautiful grooved gravid surface was softening. The feeling now was not glass but warming plastic. Jack hurriedly set the altering Talisman down in his mothers hands. It knew its job; it had been made for this moment; in some fabulous smithy it had been created to answer the requirements of this particular moment and of none other. He did not know what he expected to happen. An explosion of light? A smell of medicine? Creations big bang? Nothing happened. His mother continued visibly but motionlessly to die. Oh please, Jack blurted, pleaseMomplease His breath solidified in the middle of his chest. A seam, once one of the vertical grooves in the Talisman, had soundlessly opened. Light slowly poured out and pooled over his mothers hands. From the cloudy interior of the loose, emptying ball, more light spilled through the open seam. From outside came a sudden and loud music of birds celebrating their existence. 12 But of that Jack was only distractedly conscious. He leaned breathlessly forward and watched the Talisman pour itself out onto his mothers bed. Cloudy brightness welled up within it. Seams and sparks of light enlivened it. His mothers eyes twitched. Oh Mom, he whispered. Oh . . . Graygolden light flooded through the opening in the Talisman and cloudily drifted up his mothers arms. Her sallow, wizened face very slightly frowned.

Jack inhaled unconsciously. (What?) (Music?) The graygolden cloud from the heart of the Talisman was lengthening over his mothers body, coating her in a translucent but slightly opaque, delicately moving membrane. Jack watched this fluid fabric slide across Lilys pitiful chest, down her wasted legs. From the open seam in the Talisman a wondrous odor spilled out with the graygolden cloud, an odor sweet and unsweet, of flowers and earth, wholly good, yeasty; a smell of birth, Jack thought, though he had never attended an actual birth. Jack drew it into his lungs and in the midst of his wonder was gifted with the thought that he himself, JackO Sawyer, was being born at this minuteand then he imagined, with a barely perceptible shock of recognition, that the opening in the Talisman was like a vagina. (He had of course never seen a vagina and had only the most rudimentary idea of its structure.) Jack looked directly into the opening in the distended loosened Talisman. Now he became conscious for the first time of the incredible racket, in some way all mixed up with faint music, of the birds outside the dark windows. (Music? What . . . ?) A small colored ball full of light shot past his vision, flashing in the open seam for a moment, then continued beneath the Talismans cloudy surface as it dove into the shifting moving gaseous interior. Jack blinked. It had resembledAnother followed, and this time he had time to see the demarcation of blue and brown and green on the tiny globe, the coastal shorelines and tiny mountain ranges. On that tiny world, it occurred to him, stood a paralyzed Jack Sawyer looking down at an even tinier colored speck, and on that speck stood a JackO the height of a dust mote staring at a little world the size of an atom. Another world followed the first two, spinning in, out, in, out of the widening cloud within the Talisman. His mother moved her right hand and moaned. Jack began openly to weep. She would live. He knew it now. All had worked as Speedy had said, and the Talisman was forcing life back into his mothers exhausted, diseaseridden body, killing the evil that was killing her. He bent forward, for a moment almost giving in to the image of himself kissing the Talisman which filled his mind. The odors of jasmine and hibiscus and freshly overturned earth filled his nostrils. A tear rolled off the end of his nose and sparkled like a jewel in the shafts of light from the Talisman. He saw a belt of stars drift past the open seam, a beaming yellow sun swimming in vast black space. Music seemed to fill the Talisman, the room, the whole world outside. A womans face, the face of a stranger, moved across the open seam. Childrens faces, too, then the faces of other women. . . . Tears rolled down his own face, for he had seen swimming in the Talisman his mothers own face, the confident wisecracking tender features of the Queen of half a hundred quick movies. When he saw his own face drifting among all the worlds and lives falling toward birth within the Talisman, he thought he would burst with feeling. He expanded. He breathed in light. And became at last aware of the astonishment of noises taking place all about him when he saw his mothers eyes stay open as long, at least, as a blessed two seconds . . . (for alive as birds, as alive as the worlds contained within the Talisman, there came to him the sounds of trombones and trumpets, the cries of saxophones; the joined voices of frogs and turtles and gray doves singing, The people who know my magic have filled the land with smoke; there came to him the voices of Wolfs making Wolfmusic at the moon. Water spanked against the bow of a ship and a fish spanked the surface of a lake with the side of its body and a rainbow spanked the ground and a travelling boy spanked a drop of spittle to tell him which way to go and a spanked baby squinched its face and opened its throat; and there came the huge voice of an orchestra singing with its whole massive heart; and the room filled with the smoky trail of a single voice rising and rising and rising over all these forays of sound. Trucks jammed gears and factory whistles blew and somewhere a tire exploded and somewhere a firecracker loudly spent itself and a lover whispered again and a child squalled and the voice rose and rose and for a short time Jack was unaware that he could not see; but then he could again). Lilys eyes opened wide. They stared up into Jacks face with a startled whereamI expression. It was the expression of a newborn infant who has just been spanked into the world. Then she jerked in a startled breath and a river of worlds and tilted galaxies and universes were pulled up and out of the Talisman as she did. They were pulled up in a stream of rainbow colors. They streamed into her mouth and nose . . . they settled, gleaming, on her sallow skin like droplets of dew, and melted inward. For a moment his mother was all clothed in radiance for a moment his mother was the Talisman. All the disease fled from her face. It did not happen in the manner of a timelapse sequence in a movie. It happened all at once. It happened instantly. She was sick . . . and then she was well. Rosy good health bloomed in her cheeks. Wispy, sparse hair was suddenly full and smooth and rich, the color of dark honey. Jack stared at her as she looked up into his face. Oh . . . oh . . . my GOD . . . Lily whispered. That rainbow radiance was fading nowbut the health remained. Mom? He bent forward. Something crumpled like cellophane under his fingers. It was the brittle husk of the Talisman. He put it aside on the nighttable. He pushed several of her medicine bottles out of the way to do it. Some crashed on the floor, and it didnt matter. She would not be needing the medicines anymore. He put the husk down with gentle reverence, suspectingno, knowingthat even that would be gone very soon. His mother smiled. It was a lovely, fulfilled, somewhat surprised smileHello, world, here I am again! What do you know about that? Jack, you came home, she said at last, and rubbed her eyes as if to make sure it was no mirage. Sure, he said. He tried to smile. It was a pretty good smile in spite of the tears that were pouring down his face. Sure, you bet. I feel . . . a lot better, JackO. Yeah? He smiled, rubbed his wet eyes with the heels of his palms. Thats good, Mom. Her eyes were radiant. Hug me, Jacky. In a room on the fourth floor of a deserted resort hotel on the minuscule New Hampshire seacoast, a thirteenyearold boy named Jack Sawyer leaned forward, closed his eyes, and hugged his mother tightly, smiling. His ordinary life of school and friends and games and music, a life where there were schools to go to and crisp sheets to slide between at night, the ordinary life of a thirteenyearold boy (if the life of such a creature can ever, in its color and riot, be considered ordinary) had been returned to him, he realized. The Talisman had done that for him, too. When he remembered to turn and look for it, the Talisman was gone. Are you ready to continue the magnificent adventure that began with The Talisman? Here, available for the first time, is Chapter 1 of BLACK HOUSE, the longawaited sequel to The Talisman, by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Coming from Random House in hardcover in September 2001. Available wherever books are sold. 1 Right here and now, as an old friend used to say, we are in the fluid present, where clearsightedness never guarantees perfect vision. Here about two hundred feet, the height of a gliding eagle, above Wisconsins far western edge, where the vagaries of the Mississippi River declare a natural border. Now an early Friday morning in midJuly a few years into both a new century and a new millennium, their wayward courses so hidden that a blind man has a better chance of seeing what lies ahead than you or I. Right here and now, the hour is just past 6 A.M., and the sun stands low in the cloudless eastern sky, a fat, confident yellowwhite ball advancing as ever for the first time toward the future and leaving in its wake the steadily accumulating past, which darkens as it recedes, making blind men of us all. Below, the early sun touches the rivers wide, soft ripples with molten highlights. Sunlight glints from the tracks of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad running between the riverbank and the backs of the shabby twostory houses along County Road Oo, known as Nailhouse Row, the lowest point of the comfortablelooking little town extending uphill and eastward beneath us. At this moment in the Coulee Country, life seems to be holding its breath. The motionless air around us carries such remarkable purity and sweetness that you might imagine a man could smell a radish pulled out of the ground a mile away. Moving toward the sun, we glide away from the river and over the shining tracks, the backyards and roofs of Nailhouse Row, then a line of HarleyDavidson motorcycles tilted on their kickstands. These unprepossessing little houses were built, early in the century recently vanished, for the metal pourers, mold makers, and crate men employed by the Pederson Nail factory. On the grounds that working stiffs would be unlikely to complain about the flaws in their subsidized accommodations, they were constructed as cheaply as possible. (Pederson Nail, which had suffered multiple hemorrhages during the fifties, finally bled to death in 1963.) The waiting Harleys suggest that the factory hands have been replaced by a motorcycle gang. The uniformly ferocious appearance of the Harleys owners, wildhaired, bushybearded, swagbellied men sporting earrings, black leather jackets, and less than the full complement of teeth, would seem to support this assumption. Like most assumptions, this one embodies an uneasy halftruth. The current residents of Nailhouse Row, whom suspicious locals dubbed the Thunder Five soon after they took over the houses along the river, cannot so easily be categorized. They have skilled jobs in the Kingsland Brewing Company, located just out of town to the south and one block east of the Mississippi. If we look to our right, we can see the worlds largest sixpack, storage tanks painted over with gigantic Kingsland OldTime Lager labels. The men who live on Nailhouse Row met one another on the UrbanaChampaign campus of the University of Illinois, where all but one were undergraduates majoring in English or philosophy. (The exception was a resident in surgery at the UIUC university hospital.) They get an ironic pleasure from being called the Thunder Five the name strikes them as sweetly cartoonish. What they call themselves is the Hegelian Scum. These gentlemen form an interesting crew, and we will make their acquaintance later on. For now, we have time only to note the handpainted posters taped to the fronts of several houses, two lamp poles, and a couple of abandoned buildings. The posters say FISHERMEN, YOU BETTER PRAY TO YOUR STINKING GOD WE DONT CATCH YOU FIRST! REMEMBER AMY! From Nailhouse Row, Chase Street runs steeply uphill between listing buildings with worn, unpainted facades the color of fog the old Nelson Hotel, where a few impoverished residents lie sleeping, a blankfaced tavern, a tired shoe store displaying Red Wing workboots behind its filmy picture window, a few other dim buildings that bear no indication of their function and seem oddly dreamlike and vaporous. These structures have the air of failed resurrections, of having been rescued from the dark westward territory although they were still dead. In a way, that is precisely what happened to them. An ocher horizontal stripe, ten feet above the sidewalk on the facade of the Nelson Hotel and two feet from the rising ground on the opposed, ashen faces of the last two buildings, represents the highwater mark left behind by the flood of 1965, when the Mississippi rolled over its banks, drowned the railroad tracks and Nailhouse Row, and mounted nearly to the top of Chase Street. Where Chase rises above the flood line and levels out, it widens and undergoes a transformation into the main street of French Landing, the town beneath us. The Agincourt Theater, the Taproom Bar Grille, the First Farmer State Bank, the Samuel Stutz Photography Studio (which does a steady business in graduation photos, wedding pictures, and childrens portraits), and shops, not the ghostly relics of shops, line its blunt sidewalks Bentons Rexall drugstore, Reliable Hardware, Saturday Night Video, Regal Clothing, Schmitts Allsorts Emporium, stores selling electronic equipment, magazines and greeting cards, toys, and athletic clothing featuring the logos of the Brewers, the Twins, the Packers, the Vikings, and the University of Wisconsin. After a few blocks, the name of the street changes to Lyall Road, and the buildings separate and shrink into onestory wooden structures fronted with signs advertising insurance offices and travel agencies; after that, the street becomes a highway that glides eastward past a 7Eleven, the Reinhold T. Grauerhammer VFW Hall, a big farmimplement dealership known locally as Goltzs, and into a landscape of flat, unbroken fields. If we rise another hundred feet into the immaculate air and scan what lies beneath and ahead, we see kettle moraines, coulees, blunted hills furry with pines, loamrich valleys invisible from ground level until you have come upon them, meandering rivers, mileslong patchwork fields, and little townsone of them, Centralia, no more than a scattering of buildings around the intersection of two narrow highways, 35 and 93. Directly below us, French Landing looks as though it had been evacuated in the middle of the night. No one moves along the sidewalks or bends to insert a key into one of the locks of the shop fronts along Chase Street. The angled spaces before the shops are empty of the cars and pickup trucks that will begin to appear, first by ones and twos, then in a mannerly little stream, an hour or two later. No lights burn behind the windows in the commercial buildings or the unpretentious houses lining the surrounding streets. A block north of Chase on Sumner Street, four matching redbrick buildings of two stories each house, in westeast order, the French Landing Public Library; the offices of Patrick J. Skarda, M.D., the local general practitioner; and Bell Holland, a twoman law firm now run by Garland Bell and Julius Holland, the sons of its founders; the Heartfield Son Funeral Home, now owned by a vast, funereal empire centered in St. Louis; and the French Landing Post Office. Separated from these by a wide driveway into a goodsized parking lot at the rear, the building at the end of the block, where Sumner intersects with Third Street, is also of redbrick and only two stories high but longer than its immediate neighbors. Unpainted iron bars block the rear secondfloor windows, and two of the four vehicles in the parking lot are patrol cars with light bars across their tops and the letters FLPD on their sides. The presence of police cars and barred windows seem incongruous in this rural vastnesswhat sort of crime can happen here? Nothing serious, surely; surely, nothing worse than shoplifting, drunk driving, and an occasional bar fight. As if in testimony to the peacefulness and regularity of smalltown life, a red van with the words LA RIVIERE HERALD on its side panels drifts slowly down Third Street, pausing at nearly all of the mailbox stands for its driver to insert copies of the days newspaper, wrapped in a blue plastic bag, into gray metal cylinders bearing the same words. When the van turns onto Sumner, where the buildings have mail slots intead of boxes, the route man simply throws the wrapped papers at the front doors. Blue parcels thwack against the doors of the police station, the funeral home, and the office buildings. The post office does not get a paper. What do you know, lights are burning behind the front downstairs windows of the police station. The door opens. A tall, darkhaired young man in a pale blue shortsleeved uniform shirt, a Sam Browne belt, and navy trousers steps outside. The wide belt and the gold badge on Bobby Dulacs chest gleam in the fresh sunlight, and everything he is wearing, including the 9mm pistol strapped to his hip, seems as newly made as Bobby Dulac himself. He watches the red van turn left onto Second Street, and frowns at the rolled newspaper. He nudges it with the tip of a black, highly polished shoe, bending over just far enough to suggest that he is trying to read the headlines through the plastic. Evidently this technique does not work all that well. Still frowning, Bobby tilts all the way over and picks up the newspaper with unexpected delicacy, the way a mother cat picks up a kitten in need of relocation. Holding it a little distance away from his body, he gives a quick glance up and down Sumner Street, aboutfaces smartly, and steps back into the station. We, who in our curiosity have been steadily descending toward the interesting spectacle presented by Officer Dulac, go inside behind him. A gray corridor leads past a blank door and a bulletin board with very little on it to two sets of metal stairs, one going down to a small locker room, shower stalls, and a firing range, the other upward to an interrogation room and two facing rows of cells, none presently occupied. Somewhere nearby, a radio talk show is playing at a level that seems too loud for a peaceful morning. Bobby Dulac opens the unmarked door and enters, with us on his shiny heels, the ready room he has just left. A rank of filing cabinets stands against the wall to our right, beside them a beatup wooden table on which sit neat stacks of papers in folders and a transistor radio, the source of the discordant noise. From the nearby studio of KDCUAM, Your Talk Voice in the Coulee Country, the entertainingly rabid George Rathbun has settled into Badger Barrage, his popular morning broadcast. Good old George sounds too loud for the occasion no matter how low you dial the volume; the guy is just flatout noisythats part of his appeal. Set in the middle of the wall directly opposite us is a closed door with a dark pebbleglass window on which has been painted DALE GILBERTSON, CHIEF OF POLICE. Dale will not be in for another half hour or so. Two metal desks sit at right angles to each other in the corner to our left, and from the one that faces us, Tom Lund, a fairhaired officer of roughly his partners age but without his appearance of having been struck gleaming from the mint five minutes before, regards the bag tweezed between two fingers of Bobby Dulacs right hand. All right, Lund says. Okay. The latest installment. You thought maybe the Thunder Five was paying us another social call? Here. I dont want to read the damn thing. Not deigning to look at the newspaper, Bobby sends the new days issue of La Riviere Herald sailing in a flat, fast arc across ten feet of wooden floor with an athletic snap of his wrist, spins rightward, takes a long stride, and positions himself in front of the wooden table a moment before Tom Lund fields his throw. Bobby glares at the two names and various details scrawled on the long chalkboard hanging on the wall behind the table. He is not pleased, Bobby Dulac; he looks as though he might burst out of his uniform through the sheer force of his anger. Fat and happy in the KDCU studio, George Rathbun yells, Caller, gimme a break, willya, and get your prescription fixed! Are we talking about the same game here? Caller Maybe Wendell got some sense and decided to lay off, Tom Lund says. Wendell, Bobby says. Because Lund can see only the sleek, dark back of his head, the little sneering thing he does with his lip wastes motion, but he does it anyway. Caller, let me ask you this one question, and in all sincerity, I want you to be honest with me. Did you actually see last nights game? I didnt know Wendell was a big buddy of yours, Bobby says. I didnt know you ever got as far south as La Riviere. Here I was thinking your idea of a big night out was a pitcher of beer and trying to break a hundred at the Arden BowlADrome, and now I find out you hang out with newspaper reporters in college towns. Probably get down and dirty with the Wisconsin Rat, too, that guy on KWLA. Do you pick up a lot of punk babes that way? The caller says he missed the first inning on account of he had to pick up his kid after a special counseling session at Mount Hebron, but he sure saw everything after that. Did I say Wendell Green was a friend of mine? asks Tom Lund. Over Bobbys left shoulder he can see the first of the names on the chalkboard. His gaze helplessly focuses on it. Its just, I met him after the Kinderling case, and the guy didnt seem so bad. Actually, I kind of liked him. Actually, I wound up feeling sorry for him. He wanted to do an interview with Hollywood, and Hollywood turned him down flat. Well, naturally he saw the extra innings, the hapless caller says, thats how he knows Pokey Reese was safe. And as for the Wisconsin Rat, I wouldnt know him if I saw him, and I think that socalled music he plays sounds like the worst bunch of crap I ever heard in my life. How did that scrawny pastyface creep get a radio show in the first place? On the college station? What does that tell you about our wonderful UWLa Riviere, Bobby? What does it say about our whole society? Oh, I forgot, you like that shit. No, I like 311 and Korn, and youre so out of it you cant tell the difference between Jonathan Davis and Dee Dee Ramone, but forget about that, all right? Slowly, Bobby Dulac turns around and smiles at his partner. Stop stalling. His smile is none too pleasant. Im stalling? Tom Lund widens his eyes in a parody of wounded innocence. Gee, was it me who fired the paper across the room? No, I guess not. If you never laid eyes on the Wisconsin Rat, how come you know what he looks like? Same way I know he has funnycolored hair and a pierced nose. Same way I know he wears a beattoshit black leather jacket day in, day out, rain or shine. Bobby waited. By the way he sounds. Peoples voices are full of information. A guy says, Looks like itll turn out to be a nice day, he tells you his whole life story. Want to know something else about Rat Boy? He hasnt been to the dentist in six, seven years. His teeth look like shit. From within KDCUs ugly cementblock structure next to the brewery on Peninsula Drive, via the radio Dale Gilbertson donated to the station house long before either Tom Lund or Bobby Dulac first put on their uniforms, comes good old dependable George Rathbuns patented bellow of genial outrage, a passionate, inclusive uproar that for a hundred miles around causes breakfasting farmers to smile across their tables at their wives and passing truckers to laugh out loud I swear, caller, and this goes for my last caller, too, and every single one of you out there, I love you dearly, that is the honest truth, I love you like my momma loved her turnip patch, but sometimes you people DRIVE ME CRAZY! Oh, boy. Bottom of the eleventh inning, two outs! Sixseven, Brewers! Men on second and third. Batter lines to short center field, Reese takes off from third, good throw to the plate, clean tag, clean tag. A BLIND MAN COULDA MADE THAT CALL! Hey, I thought it was a good tag, and I only heard it on the radio, says Tom Lund. Both men are stalling, and they know it. In fact, shouts the handsdown most popular Talk Voice of the Coulee Country, let me go out on a limb here, boys and girls, let me make the following recommendation, okay? Lets replace every umpire at Miller Park, hey, every umpire in the National League, with BLIND MEN! You know what, my friends? I guarantee a sixty to seventy percent improvement in the accuracy of their calls. GIVE THE JOB TO THOSE WHO CAN HANDLE ITTHE BLIND! Mirth suffuses Tom Lunds bland face. That George Rathbun, man, hes a hoot. Bobby says, Come on, okay? Grinning, Lund pulls the folded newspaper out of its wrapper and flattens it on his desk. His face hardens; without altering its shape, his grin turns stony. Oh, no. Oh, hell. What? Lund utters a shapeless groan and shakes his head. Jesus. I dont even want to know. Bobby rams his hands into his pockets, then pulls himself perfectly upright, jerks his right hand free, and clamps it over his eyes. Im a blind guy, all right? Make me an umpireI dont wanna be a cop anymore. Lund says nothing. Its a headline? Like a banner headline? How bad is it? Bobby pulls his hand away from his eyes and holds it suspended in midair. Well, Lund tells him, it looks like Wendell didnt get some sense, after all, and he sure as hell didnt decide to lay off. I cant believe I said I liked the dipshit. Wake up, Bobby says. Nobody ever told you law enforcement officers and journalists are on opposite sides of the fence? Tom Lunds ample torso tilts over his desk. A thick lateral crease like a scar divides his forehead, and his stolid cheeks burn crimson. He aims his finger at Bobby Dulac. This is one thing that really gets me about you, Bobby. How long have you been here? Five, six months? Dale hired me four years ago, and when him and Hollywood put the cuffs on Mr. Thornberg Kinderling, which was the biggest case in this county for maybe thirty years, I cant claim any credit, but at least I pulled my weight. I helped put some of the pieces together. One of the pieces, Bobby says. I reminded Dale about the girl bartender at the Taproom, and Dale told Hollywood, and Hollywood talked to the girl, and that was a big, big piece. It helped get him. So dont you talk to me that way. Bobby Dulac assumes a look of completely hypothetical contrition. Sorry, Tom. I guess Im kind of wound up and beat to shit at the same time. What he thinks is So you got a couple years on me and you once gave Dale this crappy little bit of information. So what? Im a better cop than youll ever be. How heroic were you last night, anyhow? At 1115 the previous night, Armand Beezer St. Pierre and his fellow travelers in the Thunder Five had roared up from Nailhouse Row to surge into the police station and demand of its three occupants, each of whom had worked an eighteenhour shift, exact details of the progress they were making on the issue that most concerned them all. What the hell was going on here? What about the third one, huh, what about Irma Freneau? Had they found her yet? Did these clowns have anything, or were they still just blowing smoke? You need help? Beezer roared. Then deputize us, well give you all the goddamn help you need and then some. A giant named Mouse had strolled smirking up to Bobby Dulac and kept on strolling, jumbo belly to sixpack belly, until Bobby was backed up against a filing cabinet, whereupon the giant Mouse mysteriously inquired, in a cloud of beer and marijuana, whether Bobby had ever dipped into the works of a gentleman named Jacques Derrida. When Bobby replied that he had never heard of the gentleman, Mouse said, No shit, Sherlock, and stepped aside to glare at the names on the chalkboard. Half an hour later, Beezer, Mouse, and their companions were sent away unsatisfied, undeputized, but pacified, and Dale Gilbertson said he had to go home and get some sleep, but Tom ought to remain, just in case. The regular night men had both found excuses not to come in. Bobby said he would stay, too, no problem, Chief, which is why we find these two men in the station so early in the morning. Give it to me, says Bobby Dulac. Lund picks up the paper, turns it around, and holds it out for Bobby to see FISHERMAN STILL AT LARGE IN FRENCH LANDING AREA, reads the headline over an article that takes up three columns on the top lefthand side of the front page. The columns of type have been printed against a background of pale blue, and a black border separates them from the remainder of the page. Beneath the head, in smaller print, runs the line Identity of Psycho Killer Baffles Police. Underneath the subhead, a line in even smaller print attributes the article to Wendell Green, with the support of the editorial staff. The Fisherman, Bobby says. Right from the start, your friend has his thumb up his butt. The Fisherman, the Fisherman, the Fisherman. If I all of a sudden turned into a fiftyfoot ape and started stomping on buildings, would you call me King Kong? Lund lowers the newspaper and smiles. Okay, Bobby allows, bad example. Say I held up a couple banks. Would you call me John Dillinger? Well, says Lund, smiling even more broadly, they say Dillingers tool was so humungous, they put it in a jar in the Smithsonian. So . . . Tom Lund looks down and reads As the police in French Landing fail to discover any leads to the identity of the fiendish double murderer and sex criminal this reporter has dubbed the Fisherman, the grim specters of fear, despair, and suspicion run increasingly rampant through the streets of that little town, and from there out into the farms and villages throughout French County, darkening by their touch every portion of the Coulee Country. Just what we need, Bobby says, Jeezus! and in an instant has crossed the room and is leaning over Tom Lunds shoulder, reading the Heralds front page with his hand resting on the butt of his Glock, as if ready to drill a hole in the article right here and now. Our traditions of trust and good neighborliness, our habit of extending warmth and generosity to all [writes Wendell Green, editorializing like crazy] are eroding daily under the corrosive onslaught of these dread emotions. Fear, despair, and suspicion are poisonous to the soul of communities large and small, for they turn neighbor against neighbor and make a mockery of civility. Two children have been foully murdered and their remains partially consumed. Now a third child has disappeared. Eightyearold Amy St. Pierre and sevenyearold Johnny Irkenham fell victim to the passions of a monster in human form. Neither will know the happiness of adolescence or the satisfactions of adulthood. Their grieving parents will never know the grandchildren they would have cherished. The parents of Amy and Johnnys playmates shelter their children within the safety of their own homes, as do parents whose children never knew the deceased. As a result, summer playgroups and other programs for young children have been canceled in virtually every township and municipality in French County. With the disappearance of tenyearold Irma Freneau seven days after the death of Amy St. Pierre and only three after that of Johnny Irkenham, public patience has grown dangerously thin. As this correspondent has already reported, Merlin Graasheimer, fiftytwo, an unemployed farm laborer of no fixed abode, was set upon and beaten by an unidentified group of men in a Fountain side street late Tuesday evening. Another such epidose occurred in the early hours of Thursday morning, when Elvar Praetorious, thirtysix, a Swedish tourist traveling alone, was assaulted by three men, again unidentified, while asleep in La Rivieres Leif Eriksson Park. Graasheimer and Praetorious required only routine medical attention, but future incidents of vigilantism will almost certainly end more seriously. Tom Lund looks down at the next paragraph, which describes the Freneau girls abrupt disappearance from a Chase Street sidewalk, and pushes himself away from his desk. Bobby Dulac reads silently for a time, then says, You gotta hear this shit, Tom. This is how he winds up When will the Fisherman strike again? For he will strike again, my friends, make no mistake. And when will French Landings chief of police, Dale Gilbertson, do his duty and rescue the citizens of this county from the obscene savagery of the Fisherman and the understandable violence produced by his own inaction? Bobby Dulac stamps to the middle of the room. His color has heightened. He inhales, then exhales, a magnificent quantity of oxygen.

How about the next time the Fisherman strikes, Bobby says, how about he goes right up Wendell Greens flabby rear end? Im with you, says Tom Lund. Can you believe that shinola? Understandable violence? Hes telling people its okay to mess with anyone who looks suspicious! Bobby levels an index finger at Lund. I personally am going to nail this guy. That is a promise. Ill bring him down, alive or dead. In case Lund may have missed the point, he repeats, Personally. Wisely choosing not to speak the words that first come to his mind, Tom Lund nods his head. The finger is still pointing. He says, If you want some help with that, maybe you should talk to Hollywood. Dale didnt have no luck, but could be youd do better. Bobby waves this notion away. No need. Dale and me . . . and you, too, of course, we got it covered. But I personally am going to get this guy. That is a guarantee. He pauses for a second. Besides, Hollywood retired when he moved here, or did you forget? Hollywoods too young to retire, Lund says. Even in cop years, the guy is practically a baby. So you must be the next thing to a fetus. And on their cackle of shared laughter, we float away and out of the ready room and back into the sky, where we glide one block farther north, to Queen Street. Moving a few blocks east we find, beneath us, a low, rambling structure that branches out from a central hub occupies, with its wide, rising breadth of lawn dotted here and there with tall oaks and maples, the whole of a block lined with bushy hedges in need of a good trim. Obviously an institution of some kind, the structure at first resembles a progressive elementary school in which the various wings represent classrooms without walls, the square central hub the dining room and administrative offices. When we drift downward, we hear George Rathbuns genial bellow rising toward us from several windows. The big glass front door swings open, and a trim woman in catseye glasses comes out into the bright morning, holding a poster in one hand and a roll of tape in the other. She immmediately turns around and, with quick, efficient gestures, fixes the poster to the door. Sunlight reflects from a smoky gemstone the size of a hazlenut on the third finger of her right hand. While she takes a moment to admire her work, we can peer over her crisp shoulder and see that the poster announces, in a cheerful burst of handdrawn balloons, that TODAY IS STRAWBERRY FEST!!!, when the woman walks back inside, we take in the presence, in the portion of the entry visible just beneath the giddy poster, of two or three folded wheelchairs. Beyond the wheelchairs, the woman, whose chestnut hair has been pinned back into an architectural whorl, strides on her highheeled pumps through a pleasant lobby with blond wooden chairs and matching tables strewn artfully with magazines, marches past a kind of unmanned guardpost or reception desk before a handsome fieldstone wall, and vanishes, with the trace of a skip, through a burnished door marked WILLIAM MAXTON, DIRECTOR. What kind of school is this? Why is it open for business? Why is it putting on festivals, in the middle of July? We could call it a graduate school, for those who reside here have graduated from every stage of their existences but the last, which they live out, day after day, under the careless stewardship of Mr. William Chipper Maxton, Director. This is the Maxton Elder Care Facility, oncein a more innocent time, and before the cosmetic renovations done in the mideightiesknown as the Maxton Nursing Home, which was owned and managed by its founder, Herbert Maxton, Chippers father. Herbert was a decent if wishywashy man who, it is safe to say, would be appalled by some of the things the sole fruit of his loins gets up to. Chipper never wanted to take over the family playpen, as he calls it, with its freight of gummers, zombies, bed wetters, and droolies, and after getting an accounting degree at UWLa Riviere (with hardearned minors in promiscuity, gambling, and beer drinking), our boy accepted a position with the Madison, Wisconsin, office of the Internal Revenue Service, largely for the purpose of learning how to steal from the government undetected. Five years with the IRS taught him much that was useful, but when his subsequent career as a freelancer failed to match his ambitions, he yielded to his fathers increasingly frail entreaties and threw in his lot with the undead and the droolies. With a certain grim relish, Chipper acknowledged that despite a woeful shortage of glamour, his fathers business would at least provide him with the opportunity to steal from the clients and the government alike. Let us flow in through the big glass doors, cross the handsome lobby (noting, as we do so, the mingled odors of air freshener and ammonia that pervade even the public areas of all such institutions), pass through the door bearing Chippers name, and find out what that wellarranged young woman is doing here so early. Beyond Chippers door lies a windowless cubicle equipped with a desk, a coatrack, and a small bookshelf crowded with computer printouts, pamphlets, and flyers. A door stands open beside the desk. Through the opening, we see a much larger office, paneled in the same burnished wood as the directors door and containing leather chairs, a glasstopped coffee table, and an oatmealcolored sofa. At its far end looms a vast desk untidily heaped with papers and so deeply polished it seems nearly to glow. Our young woman, whose name is Rebecca Vilas, sits perched on the edge of this desk, her legs crossed in a particularly architectural fashion. One knee folds over the other, and the calves form two nicely molded, roughly parallel lines running down to the triangular tips of the black highheeled pumps, one of which points to four oclock and the other to six. Rebecca Vilas, we gather, has arranged herself to be seen, has struck a pose intended to be appreciated, though certainly not by us. Behind the catseye glasses, her eyes look skeptical and amused, but we cannot see what has aroused these emotions. We assume that she is Chippers secretary, and this assumption, too, expresses only half of the truth as the ease and irony of her attitude imply, Ms. Vilass duties have long extended beyond the purely secretarial. (We might speculate about the source of that nice ring she is wearing; as long as our minds are in the gutter, we will be right on the money.) We float through the open door, follow the direction of Rebeccas increasingly impatient gaze, and find ourselves staring at the sturdy, khakiclad rump of her kneeling employer, who has thrust his head and shoulders into a goodsized safe, in which we glimpse stacks of record books and a number of manila envelopes apparently stuffed with currency. A few bills flop out of these envelopes as Chipper pulls them from the safe. You did the sign, the poster thing? he asks without turning around. Aye, aye, mon capitaine, says Rebecca Vilas. And a splendid day it is we shall be havin for the great occasion, too, as is only roight and proper. Her Irish accent is surprisingly good, if a bit generic. She has never been anywhere more exotic than Atlantic City, where Chipper used his frequent flier miles to escort her for five enchanted days two years before. She learned the accent from old movies. I hate Strawberry Fest, Chipper says, dredging the last of the envelopes from the safe. The zombies wives and children mill around all afternoon, cranking them up so we have to sedate them into comas just to get some peace. And if you want to know the truth, I hate balloons. He dumps the money onto the carpet and begins to sort the bills into stacks of various denominations. Only Oi was wonderin, in my simple country manner, says Rebecca, why Oi should be requested to appear at the crack o dawn on the grand day. Know what else I hate? The whole music thing. Singing zombies and that stupid deejay. Symphonic Stan with his big band records, whoo boy, talk about thrills. I assume, Rebecca says, dropping the stageIrish accent, you want me to do something with that money before the action begins. Time for another journey to Miller. An account under a fictitious name in the State Provident Bank in Miller, forty miles away, receives regular deposits of cash skimmed from patients funds intended to pay for extra goods and services. Chipper turns around on his knees with his hands full of money and looks up at Rebecca. He sinks back down to his heels and lets his hands fall into his lap. Boy, do you have great legs. Legs like that, you ought to be famous. I thought youd never notice, Rebecca says. Chipper Maxton is fortytwo years old. He has good teeth, all his hair, a wide, sincere face, and narrow brown eyes that always look a little damp. He also has two kids, Trey, nine, and Ashley, seven and recently diagnosed with ADD, a matter Chipper figures is going to cost him maybe two thousand a year in pills alone. And of course he has a wife, his lifepartner, Marion, thirtynine years of age, five foot five, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 190 pounds. In addition to these blessings, as of last night Chipper owes his bookie 13,000, the result of an unwise investment in the Brewers game George Rathbun is still bellowing about. He has noticed, oh, yes he has, Chipper has noticed Ms. Vilass splendidly cantilevered legs. Before you go over there, he says, I was thinking we could kind of stretch out on the sofa and fool around. Ah, Rebecca says. Fool around how, exactly? Gobble, gobble, gobble, Chipper says, grinning like a satyr. You romantic devil, you, says Rebecca, a remark that utterly escapes her employer. Chipper thinks he actually is being romantic. She slides elegantly down from her perch, and Chipper pushes himself inelegantly upright and closes the safe door with his foot. Eyes shining damply, he takes a couple of thuggish, strutting strides across the carpet, wraps one arm around Rebecca Vilass slender waist and with the other slides the fat manila envelopes onto the desk. He is yanking at his belt before he begins to pull Rebecca toward the sofa. So I can see him? says clever Rebecca, who understands exactly how to turn her lovers brains to porridge . . . . . . and before Chipper obliges her, we do the sensible thing and float out into the lobby, which is still empty. A corridor to the left of the reception desk takes us to two large, blond, glassinset doors marked DAISY and BLUEBELL, the names of the wings to which they give entrance. Far down the gray length of BLUEBELL, a man in baggy coveralls dribbles ash from his cigarette onto the tiles over which he is dragging with exquisite slowness, a filthy mop. We move into DAISY. The functional parts of Maxtons are a great deal less attractive than the public areas. Numbered doors line both sides of the corridor. Handlettered cards in plastic holders beneath the numerals give the names of the residents. Four doors along, a desk, at which a burly male attendant in an unclean white uniform sits dozing upright, faces the entrance to the mens and womens bathroomsat Maxtons, only the most expensive rooms, those on the other side of the lobby, in Asphodel, provide anything but a sink. Dirty mopswirls harden and dry all up and down the tiled floor, which stretches out before us to improbable length. Here, too, the walls and the air seem the same shade of gray. If we look closely at the edges of the hallway, at the juncture of the walls and the ceiling, we see spiderwebs, old stains, accumulations of grime. PineSol, ammonia, urine, and worse scent the atmosphere. As an elderly lady in Bluebell Wing likes to say, when you live with a bunch of people who are old and incontinent, you never get far from the smell of caca. The rooms themselves vary according to the conditions and capacities of their inhabitants. Since nearly everyone is asleep, we can glance into a few of these quarters. Here in D10, a single room two doors past the dozing aide, old Alice Weathers lies (snoring gently, dreaming of dancing in perfect partnership with Fred Astaire across a white marble floor) surrounded by so much of her former life that she must navigate past the chairs and end tables to maneuver from the door to her bed. Alice still possesses even more of her wits than she does her old furniture, and she cleans her room herself, immaculately. Next door in D12, two old farmers named Thorvaldson and Jesperson, who have not spoken to each other in years, sleep, separated by a thin curtain, in a bright clutter of family photographs and grandchildrens drawings. Farther down the hallway, D18 presents a spectacle completely opposite to the clean, crowded jumble of D10, just as its inhabitant, a man known as Charles Burnside, could be considered the polar opposite of Alice Weathers. In D18, there are no end tables, hutches, overstuffed chairs, gilded mirrors, lamps, woven rugs, or velvet curtains this barren room contains only a metal bed, a plastic chair, and a chest of drawers. No photographs of children and grandchildren stand atop the chest, and no crayon drawings of blocky houses and stick figures decorate the walls. Mr. Burnside has no interest in housekeeping, and a thin layer of dust covers the floor, the window sill, and the chests bare top. D18 is bereft of history, empty of personality; it seems as brutal and soulless as a prison cell. A powerful smell of excrement contaminates the air. For all the entertainment offered by Chipper Maxton and all the charm of Alice Weathers, it is Charles Burnside, Burny, we have most come to see. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming hardcover edition of Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition. A Ballantine Book Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group Copyright 1984 by Stephen King and Peter Straub Excerpt from Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub 2001 by Stephen King and Peter Straub All rights reserved under International and PanAmerican Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published by Viking PenguinG. P. Putnams Sons in 1984. Ballantine is a registered trademark and the Ballantine colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc. www.ballantinebooks.com First Ballantine Books Edition August 2001 eISBN 9780345452405 v3.0 Conclusion So endeth this chronicle. It being strictly the history of a boy, it must stop here; the story could not go much further without becoming the history of a man. When one writes a novel about grown people, he knows exactly where to stopthat is, with a marriage; but when he writes of juveniles, he must stop where he best can. Most of the characters who perform in this book still live, and are prosperous and happy. Some day it may seem worthwhile to take up the story again and see what . . . they turned out to be; therefore, it will be wisest not to reveal any of that part of their lives at present. Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Epilogue In a billowing white bedroom filled with anxious women, Laura DeLoessian, Queen of the Territories, opened her eyes.

Title page Mystery Tales of Edgar Allan Poe The Black Cat Landmarks Mystery Tales of Edgar Allan Poe The Black Cat Cover The black cat Edgar Allan Poe Published 1843Source Wikisource This book has been downloaded from www.aliceandbooks.com. You can find many more public domain books in our website The black cat For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet mad am I notand very surely do I not dream. But tomorrow I die, and today I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences these events have terrifiedhave torturedhave destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me they presented little but horrorto many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the commonplacesome intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects. From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and in my manhood I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and selfsacrificing love of a brute which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man. I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, goldfish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat. This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point, and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens just now to be remembered. Plutothis was the cat's namewas my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets. Our friendship lasted in this manner for several years, during which my general temperament and characterthrough the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperancehad (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets of course were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected but illused them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon mefor what disease is like Alcohol!and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevisheven Pluto began to experience the effects of my illtemper. One night, returning home much intoxicated from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him, when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed at once to take its flight from my body, and a more than fiendish malevolence, ginnurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame. I took from my waistcoatpocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity. When reason returned with the morningwhen I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauchI experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty, but it was at best a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed. In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of Perverseness. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heartone of the indivisible primary faculties or sentiments which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itselfto offer violence to its own natureto do wrong for the wrong's sake onlythat urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offense; hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sina deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it, if such a thing were possible, even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God. On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair. I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts, and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls with one exception had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here in great measure resisted the action of the fire, a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words "Strange!" "Singular!" and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvelous. There as a rope about the animal's neck. When I first beheld this apparitionfor I could scarcely regard it as lessmy wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd, by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown through an open window into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it. Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat, and during this period there came back into my spirit a halfsentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place. One night, as I sat halfstupefied in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of gin or of rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cata very large onefully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast. Upon my touching him he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made no claim to itknew nothing of ithad never seen it before. I continued my caresses, and when I prepared to go home the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do so, occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. "When it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favorite with my wife. For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated, butI know not how or why it wasits evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike or otherwise violently illuse it, but graduallyvery graduallyI came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence as from the breath of a pestilence. What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast was the discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed in a high degree that humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures. With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make tho reader comprehend. Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber in this manner to my breast. At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chieflylet me confess it at onceby absolute dread of the beast. This dread was not exactly a dread of physical eviland yet I should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to ownyes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to ownthat the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me had been heightened by one of the merest chimeras it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my attention more than once to the character of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite, but by slow degreesdegrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time my reason struggled to reject as fancifulit had at length assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to nameand for this above all I loathed and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I daredit was now, I say, the image of a hideousof a ghastly thingof the Gallows!O, mournful and terrible engine of horror and of crimeof agony and of death! And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere humanity. And a brute beastwhose fellow I had contemptuously destroyeda brute beast to work out for mefor me a man, fashioned in the image of the High Godso much of insufferable woe! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of rest any more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and in the latter I started hourly from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weightan incarnate nightmare that I had no power to shake offincumbent eternally upon my heart! Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimatesthe darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while from the sudden frequent and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers. One day she accompanied me upon some household errand into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an ax, and forgetting in my wrath the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal, which of course would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded by the interference into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the ax in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot without a groan. This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith and with entire deliberation to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments and destroying them by fire. At another I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yardabout packing it in a box, as if merchandise, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellaras the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their victims. For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection caused by a false chimney or fireplace, that had been filled up and made to resemble the rest of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect anything suspicious. And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crowbar I easily dislodged the bricks, and having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that position, while with little trouble I relaid the whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new brickwork. When I had finished I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly, and said to myself"Here at last, then, my labor has not been in vain." My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness, for I had at length firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it at the moment there could have been been no doubt of its fate, but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and forbore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe or to imagine the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the nightand thus for one night at least since its introduction into the house I soundly and tranquilly slept, aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul! The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror, had fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been institutedbut of course nothing was to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured. Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came very unexpectedly into the house, and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied, and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but one word by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness. "Gentlemen," I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, "I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the by, gentlemen, thisthis is a very wellconstructed house." [In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.] "I may say an excellently wellconstructed house. These wallsare you going, gentlemen?these walls are solidly put together;" and here, through the mere frenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily with a cane which I held in my hand upon that very portion of the brickwork behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom. But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the archfiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb!by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhumana howla wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation. Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb! This book has been downloaded from www.aliceandbooks.com. You can find many more public domain books in our website