The Mask – Read Now and Download Mobi

THE MASK

Dean Koontz

Original copyright year: 1981

ISBN 0 4251 2758 3 (Paperback)

Date of e-text:

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This book is dedicated to Willa and Dave Roberts
and to Carol and Don McQuinn who have no faults
except that they live too far away from us

A dirge for her, the doubly dead, in that she died so young.

Edgar Allan Poe. Lenore

And much of Madness, and more of Sin, And Horror the soul of the plot.

Edgar Allan Poe, The Conqueror Worm

Extreme terror gives us back the gestures of our childhood.

Chazal

Prologue

LAURA was in the cellar, doing some spring cleaning and hating every minute of it. She didnt dislike the work itself; she was by nature an industrious girl who was happiest when she had chores to do. But she was afraid of the cellar.

For one thing, the place was gloomy. The four narrow windows, set high in the walls, were hardly larger than embrasures, and the dust-filmed panes of glass permitted only weak, chalky light to enter. Even brightened by a pair of lamps, the big room held on tenaciously to its shadows, unwilling to be completely disrobed. The flickering amber light from the lamps revealed damp stone walls and a hulking, coal-fired furnace that was cold and unused on this fine, warm May afternoon. On a series of long shelves, row upon row of quart jars reflected splinters of light, but their contentshome-canned fruit and vegetables that had been stored here for the past nine monthsremained unilluminated. The corners of the morn were all dark, and the low, open-beamed ceiling was hung with shadows like long banners of funeral crepe.

The cellar always had a mildly unpleasant odor, too. It was musty, rather like a limestone cave. In the spring and summer, when the humidity was high, a mottled gray-green fungus sometimes sprang up in the corners, a disgusting scablike growth, fringed with hundreds of tiny white spores that resembled insect eggs; that grotesquery added its own thin but nonetheless displeasing fragrance to the cellar air.

However, neither the gloom nor the offending odors nor the fungus gave rise to Lauras fears; it was the spiders that frightened her. Spiders ruled the cellar. Some of them were small, brown, and quick; others were charcoal gray, a bit bigger than the brown ones, but just as fast-moving as their smaller cousins. There were even a few blue-black giants as large as Lauras thumb.

As she wiped dust and a few cobwebs from the jars of home-canned food, always alert for the scuttling movement of spiders, Laura grew increasingly angry with her mother. Mama could have let her clean some of the upstairs rooms instead of the cellar Aunt Rachael or Mama herself could have cleaned down here because neither of them worried about spiders. But Mama knew that Laura was afraid of the cellar, and Mama was in the mood to punish her. It was a terrible mood, black as thunderclouds. Laura had seen it before. Too often. It descended over Mama more frequently with every passing year, and when she was in its thrall, she was a different person from the smiling, always singing woman that she was at other times. Although Laura loved her mother, she did not love the short-tempered, mean-spirited woman that her mother sometimes became. She did not love the hateful woman who had sent her down into the cellar with the spiders.

Dusting the jars of peaches, pears, tomatoes, beets, beans, and pickled squash, nervously awaiting the inevitable appearance of a spider, wishing she were grown up and married and on her own, Laura was startled by a sudden, sharp sound that pierced the dank basement air. At first it was like the distant, forlorn wail of an exotic bird, but it quickly became louder and more urgent. She stopped dusting, looked up at the dark ceiling, and listened closely to the eerie ululation that came from overhead. After a moment she realized that it was her Aunt Rachaels voice and that it was a cry of alarm.

Upstairs, something fell over with a crash. It sounded like shattering porcelain. It must have been Mamas peacock vase, If it was the vase, Mama would be in an extremely foul mood for the rest of the week.

Laura stepped away from the shelves of canned goods and started toward the cellar stairs, but she stopped abruptly when she heard Mama scream. It wasnt a scream of rage over the loss of the vase; there was a note of terror in it.

Footsteps thumped across the living room floor, toward the front door of the house. The screen door opened with the familiar singing of its long spring, then banged shut. Rachael was outside now, shouting, her words unintelligible but still conveying her fear.

Laura smelled smoke.

She hurried to the stairs and saw pale tongues of fire at the top. The smoke wasnt heavy, but it had an acrid stench.

Heart pounding, Laura climbed to the uppermost step. Waves of heat forced her to squint, but she could see into the kitchen. The wall of fire wasnt solid. There was a narrow route of escape, a corridor of cool safety; the door to the back porch was at the far end.

She lifted her long skirt and pulled it tight across her hips and thighs, bunching it in both hands to prevent it from trailing in the flames. She moved gingerly onto the fire-ringed landing, which creaked under her, but before she reached the open door, the kitchen exploded in yellow-blue flames that quickly turned orange. From wall to wall, floor to ceiling, the room was an inferno; there was no longer a path through the blaze. Crazily, the fire-choked doorway brought to Lauras mind the image of a glittering eye in a jack-o-lantern.

In the kitchen, windows exploded, and the fire eddied in the sudden change of drafts, pushing through the cellar door, lashing at Laura. Startled, she stumbled backwards, off the landing. She fell. Turning, she grabbed at the railing, missed it, and stumbled down the short flight, cracking her head against the stone floor at the bottom.

She held on to consciousness as if it were a raft and she a drowning swimmer. When she was certain she wouldnt faint, she got to her feet. Pain coruscated across the top of her head. She raised one hand to her brow and found a trickle of blood, a small abrasion. She was dizzy and confused.

During the minute or less that she had been incapacitated, fire had spread across the entire landing at the head of the stairs. It was moving down onto the first step.

She couldnt keep her eyes focused. The rising stairs and the descending fire repeatedly blurred together in an orange haze.

Ghosts of smoke drifted down the stairwell. They reached out with long, insubstantial arms, as if to embrace Laura.

She cupped her hands around her mouth. Help!

No one answered.

Somebody help me! Im in the cellar!

Silence.

Aunt Rachael! Mama! For Gods sake, somebody help me!

The only response was the steadily increasing roar of the fire.

Laura had never felt so alone before. In spite of the tides of heat washing over her, she felt cold inside. She shivered.

Although her head throbbed worse than ever, and although the abrasion above her right eye continued to weep blood, at least she was having less trouble keeping her eyes focused. The problem was that she didnt like what she saw.

She stood statue-still, transfixed by the deadly spectacle of the flames. Fire crawled lizardlike down the steps, one by one, and it slithered up the rail posts, then crept down the rail with a crisp, chuckling sound.

The smoke reached the bottom of the steps and enfolded her. She coughed, and the coughing aggravated the pain in her head, making her dizzy again. She put one hand against the wall to steady herself.

Everything was happening too fast. The house was going up like a pile of well-seasoned tinder.

Im going to die here.

That thought jolted her out of her trance. She wasnt ready to die. She was far too young. There was so much of life ahead of her, so many wonderful things to do, things she had long dreamed about doing. It wasnt fair. She refused to die.

She gagged on the smoke. Turning away from the burning stairs, she put a hand over her nose and mouth, but that didnt help much.

She saw flames at the far end of the cellar, and for an instant she thought she was already encircled and that all hope of rescue was gone. She cried out in despair, but then she realized the blaze hadnt found its way into the other end of the room after all. The two points of fire that she was seeing were only the twin oil lamps that had provided her with light. The flames in the lamps were harmless, safely ensconced in tall glass chimneys.

She coughed violently again, and the pain in her head settled down behind her eyes. She found it difficult to concentrate. Her thoughts were like droplets of quicksilver, sliding over one another and changing shape so often and so fast that she couldnt make sense of some of them.

She prayed silently and fervently.

Directly overhead, the ceiling groaned and appeared to shift. For a few seconds she held her breath, clenched her teeth, and stood with her hands fisted at her sides, waiting to be buried in rubble. But then she saw that the ceiling wasnt going to collapsenot yet.

Trembling, whimpering softly, she scurried to the nearest of the four high-set windows, It was rectangular, approximately eight inches from sill to top and eighteen inches from sash to sash, much too small to provide her with a means of escape. The other three windows were identical to the first; there was no use even taking a closer look at them.

The air was becoming less breathable by the second. Lauras sinuses ached and burned. Her mouth was filled with the revulsive, bitter taste of the smoke.

For too long she stood beneath the window, staring up in frustration and confusion at the meager, milky light that came through the dirty pane and through the haze of smoke that pressed tightly against the glass. She had the feeling she was overlooking an obvious and convenient escape hatch; in fact she was sure of it. There was a way out, and it had nothing to do with the windows, but she couldnt get her mind off the windows; she was fixated on them, just as she had been fixated on the sight of the advancing flames a couple of minutes ago. The pain in her head and behind her eyes throbbed more powerfully than ever, and with each agonizing pulsation, her thoughts became more muddled.

Im going to die here.

A frightening vision flashed through her mind. She saw herself afire, her dark hair turned blond by the flames that consumed it and standing straight up on her head as if it were not hair but the wick of a candle. In the vision, she saw her face melting like wax, bubbling and steaming and liquefying, the features flowing together until her face no longer resembled that of a human being, until it was the hideously twisted countenance of a leering demon with empty eye sockets.

No!

She shook her head, dispelling the vision.

She was dizzy and getting dizzier. She needed a draught of clean air to rinse out her polluted lungs, but with each breath she drew more smoke than she had drawn last time. Her chest ached.

Nearby, a rhythmic pounding began; the noise was even louder than her heartbeat, which drummed thunderously in her ears.

She turned in a circle, gagging and. coughing, searching for the source of the hammering sound, striving to regain control of herself, struggling hard to think.

The hammering stopped.

Laura…

Above the incessant roar of the tire, she heard someone calling her name.

Laura…

Im down here… in the cellar! she shouted. But the shout came out as nothing more than a whispered croak. Her throat was constricted and already raw from the harsh smoke and the fiercely hot air.

The effort required to stay on her feet became too great for her. She sank to her knees on the stone floor, slumped against the wall, and slid down until she was lying on her side.

Laura…

The pounding began again. A fist beating on a door.

Laura discovered that the air at floor level was cleaner than that which she had been breathing. She gasped frantically, grateful for this reprieve from suffocation.

For a few seconds the throbbing pain behind her eyes abated, and her thoughts cleared, and she remembered the outside entrance to the cellar, a pair of doors slant-set against the north wall of the house. They were locked from the inside, so that no one could get in to rescue her, in the panic and confusion she had forgotten about those doors. But now, if she kept her wits about her, she would be able to save herself.

Laura! It was Aunt Rachaels voice.

Laura crawled to the northwest corner of the room, where the doors sloped down at the top of a short flight of steps. She kept her head low, breathing the tainted but adequate air near the floor. The edges of the mortared stones tore her dress and scraped skin off her knees.

To her left, the entire stairwell was burning now, and flames were spreading across the wooden ceiling. Refracted and diffused by the smoky air, the firelight glowed on all sides of Laura, creating the illusion that she was crawling through a narrow tunnel of flames. At the rate the blaze was spreading, the illusion would soon be fact.

Her eyes were swollen and watery, and she wiped at them as she inched toward escape. She couldnt see very much. She used Aunt Rachaels voice as a beacon and otherwise relied on instinct.

Laura! The voice was near. Right above her.

She felt along the wall until she located the setback in the stone. She moved into that recess, onto the first step, lifted her head, but could see nothing: the darkness here was seamless.

Laura, answer me. Baby, are you in there?

Rachael was hysterical, screaming so loudly and pounding on the outside doors with such persistence that she wouldnt have heard a response even if Laura had been capable of making one.

Where was Mama? Why wasnt Mama pounding on the door, too? Didnt Mama care?

Crouching in that cramped, hot, lightless space, Laura reached up and put her hand against one of the two slant-set doors above her bead. The sturdy barrier quivered and rattled under the impact of Rachaels small fists. Laura groped blindly for the latch. She put her hand over the warm metal fixtureand squarely over something else, too. Something strange and unexpected. Something that squirmed and was alive. Small but alive. She jerked convulsively and pulled her hand away. But the thing she touched had shifted its grip from the latch to her flesh, and it came away from the door when she withdrew her hand. It skittered out of her palm and over her thumb and across the back of her hand and along her wrist and under the sleeve of her dress before she could brush it away.

A spider.

She couldnt see it, but she knew what it was. A spider. One of the really big ones, as large as her thumb, a plump black body that glistened like a fat drop of oil, inky black and ugly. For a moment she froze, unable even to draw a breath.

She felt the spider moving up her arm, and its bold advance snapped her into action. She slapped at it through the sleeve of her dress, but she missed. The spider bit her above the crook of her arm, and she winced at the tiny nip of pain, and the disgusting creature scurried into her armpit. It bit her there, too, and suddenly she felt as though she was living through her worst nightmare, for she feared spiders more than she feared anything else on earthcertainly more than she feared fire, for in her desperate attempt to kill the spider, she had forgotten all about the burning house that was dissolving into ruin above herand she flailed in panic, lost her balance, rolled backwards off the steps, into the main room of the cellar, cracking one hip on the stone floor. The spider tickled its way along the inside of her bodice until it was between her breasts. She screamed but could make no sound whatsoever. She put a hand to her bosom and pressed hard, and even through the fabric she could feel the spider squirming angrily against the palm of her hand, and she could feel its frenzied struggle even more directly on her bare breast, to which it was pressed, but she persisted until at last she crushed it, and she gagged again, but this time not merely because of the smoke.

For several seconds after killing the spider, she lay on the floor in a tight fetal position, shuddering violently and uncontrollably. The repulsive, wet mass of the smashed spider slid very slowly down the curve of her breast. She wanted to reach inside her bodice and pluck the foul wad from herself, but she hesitated because, irrationally, she was afraid it would somehow come to life again and sting her fingers.

She tasted blood. She had bitten her lip.

Mama…

Mama had done this to her. Mama had sent her down here, knowing there were spiders. Why was Mama always so quick to deal out punishment, so eager to assign penance?

Overhead, a beam creaked, sagged. The kitchen floor cracked open. She felt as though she were staring up into Hell. Sparks showered down. Her dress caught fire, and she scorched her hands putting it out.

Mama did this to me.

Because her palms and fingers were blistered and peeling, she couldnt crawl on her hands and knees any longer, so she got to her feet, although standing up required more strength and determination than she had thought she possessed. She swayed, dizzy and weak.

Mama sent me down here.

Laura could see only pulsing, all-encompassing orange luminescence, through which amorphous smoke ghosts glided and whirled. She shuffled toward the short flight of steps that led to the outside cellar doors, but after she had gone only two yards, she realized she was headed in the wrong direction. She turned back the way she had comeor back the way she thought she had comebut after a few steps she bumped into the furnace, which was nowhere near the outside doors. She was completely disoriented.

Mama did this to me.

Laura squeezed her ruined hands into raw, bloody fists. In a rage she pounded on the furnace, and with each blow she fervently wished that she were beating her mother.

The upper reaches of the burning house twisted and rumbled. In the distance, beyond an eternity of smoke, Aunt Rachaels voice echoed hauntingly: Laura… Laura…

Why wasnt Mama out there helping Rachael break down the cellar doors? Where in Gods name was she? Throwing coal and lamp oil on the fire?

Wheezing, gasping, Laura pushed away from the furnace and tried to follow Rachaels voice to safety.

A beam tore loose of its moorings, slammed into her back, and catapulted her into the shelves of home canned food. Jars fell, shattered. Laura went down in a rain of glass. She could smell pickles, peaches.

Before she could determine if any bones were broken, before she could even lift her face out of the spilled food, another beam crashed down, pinning her legs.

There was so much pain that her mind simply blanked it out altogether. She was not even sixteen years old, and there was only so much she could bear. She sealed the pain in a dark corner of her mind; instead of succumbing to it, she twisted and thrashed hysterically, raged at her fate, and cursed her mother.

Her hatred for her mother wasnt rational, but it was so passionately felt that it took the place of the pain she could not allow herself to feel. Hate flooded through her, filled her with so much demonic energy that she was nearly able to toss the heavy beam off her legs.

Damn you to Hell, Mama.

The top floor of the house caved in upon the ground floor with a sound like cannons blasting.

Damn you, Mama! Damn you!

The first two floors of flaming rubble broke through the already weakened cellar ceiling.

Mama

PART ONE
Something Wicked This Way
Comes…

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
whoever knocks!

Shakespeare, Macbeth

1

ACROSS the somber gray clouds, lightning followed a jagged course like cracks in a china plate. In the unsheltered courtyard outside Alfred OBrians office, the parked cars glimmered briefly with hard-edged reflections of the storm light. The wind gusted, whipping the trees. Rain beat with sudden fury against the three tall office windows, then streamed down the glass, blurring the view beyond.

OBrian sat with his back to the windows. While thunder reverberated through the low sky and seemed to hammer on the roof of the building, he read the application that Paul and Carol Tracy had just submitted to him.

Hes such a neat little man, Carol thought as she watched OBrian. When he sits very still like that, youd almost think he was a mannequin.

He was exceedingly well groomed. His carefully combed hair looked as if it had received the attention of a good barber less than an hour ago. His mustache was so expertly trimmed that the halves of it appeared to be perfectly symmetrical. He was wearing a gray suit with trouser creases as tight and straight as blades, and his black shoes gleamed. His fingernails were manicured, and his pink, well-scrubbed hands looked sterile.

When Carol had been introduced to OBrian less than a week ago, she had thought he was prim, even prissy, and she had been prepared to dislike him. She was quickly won over by his smile, by his gracious manner, and by his sincere desire to help her and Paul.

She glanced at Paul, who was sitting in the chair next to hers, his own tensions betrayed by the angular position of his lean, usually graceful body. He was watching OBrian intently, but when he sensed that Carol was looking at him, he turned and smiled. His smile was even nicer than OBrians, and as usual, Carols spirits were lifted by the sight of it. He was neither handsome nor ugly, this man she loved; you might even say he was plain, yet his face was enormously appealing because the pleasing, open composition of it contained ample evidence of his gentleness and sensitivity. His hazel eyes were capable of conveying amazingly subtle degrees and mixtures of emotions. Six years ago, at a university symposium entitled Abnormal Psychology and Modern American Fiction, where Carol had met Paul, the first thing that had drawn her to him had been those warm, expressive eyes, and in the intervening years they had never ceased to intrigue her. Now he winked, and with that wink he seemed to be saying: Dont worry; OBrian is on our side; the application will be accepted; everything will turn out all right; I love you.

She winked back at him and pretended to be confident, even though she was sure he could see through her brave front.

She wished that she could be certain of winning Mr. OBrians approval. She knew she ought to be overflowing with confidence, for there really was no reason why OBrian would reject them. They were healthy and young. Paul was thirty-five, and she was thirty-one, and those were excellent ages at which to set out upon the adventure they were contemplating. Both of them were successful in their work. They were financially solvent, even prosperous. They were respected in their community. Their marriage was happy and trouble-free, stronger now than at any time in the four years since their wedding. In short, their qualifications for adopting a child were pretty much impeccable, but she worried nonetheless.

She loved children, and she was looking forward to raising one or two of her own. During the past fourteen yearsin which she had earned three degrees at three universities and had established herself in her professionshe had postponed many simple pleasures and had skipped others altogether. Getting an education and launching her career had always come first. She had missed too many good parties and had foregone an unremembered number of vacations and getaway weekends. Adopting a child was one pleasure she did not want to postpone any longer.

She had a strong psychological needalmost a physical needto be a mother, to guide and shape children, to give them love and understanding. She was intelligent enough and sufficiently self-aware to realize that this deep-seated need arose, at least in part, from her inability to conceive a child of her own flesh and blood.

The thing we want most, she thought, is always the thing we cannot have.

She was to blame for her sterility, which was the result of an unforgivable act of stupidity committed a long time ago; and of course her culpability made her condition harder to bear than it would have been if naturerather than her own foolishnesshad cursed her with a barren womb. She had been a severely troubled child, for she had been raised by violent, alcoholic parents who had frequently beaten her and who had dealt out large doses of psychological torture. By the time she was fifteen, she was a hellion, engaged in an angry rebellion against her parents and against the world at large. She hated everyone in those days, especially herself. In the blackest hours of her confused and tormented adolescence, she had gotten pregnant. Frightened, panicky, with no one to turn to, she tried to conceal her condition by wearing girdles, by binding herself with elastic cloth and tape, and by eating as lightly as possible to keep her weight down. Eventually, however, complications arose because of her attempts to hide her pregnancy, and she nearly died. The baby was born prematurely, but it was healthy. She had put it up for adoption and hadnt given it much thought for a couple of years, though these days she often wondered about the child and wished she could have kept it somehow. At the time, the fact that her ordeal had left her sterile did not depress her, for she didnt think she would ever want to be pregnant again. But with a lot of help and love from a child psychologist named Grace Mitowski, who did charity work among juvenile wards of the court, Carol had turned her life completely around.

She had learned to like herself and, years later, had come to regret the thoughtless actions that had left her barren.

Fortunately, she regarded adoption as a more-than-adequate solution to her problem. She was capable of giving as much love to an adopted child as she would have given to her own offspring. She knew she would be a good and caring mother, and she longed to prove itnot to the world but to herself; she never needed to prove anything to anyone but herself, for she was always her own toughest critic.

Mr. OBrian looked up from the application and smiled. His teeth were exceedingly white. This looks really fine, he said, indicating the form he had just finished reading. In fact, its splendid. Not everyone that applies to us has credentials like these.

Its kind of you to say so, Paul told him.

OBrian shook his head. Not at all. Its simply the truth. Very impressive.

Carol said, Thank you.

Leaning back in his chair, folding his hands on his stomach, OBrian said, I do have a couple of questions. Im sure theyre the same ones the recommendations committee will ask me, so I might as well get your responses now and save a lot of back-and-forth later on.

Carol stiffened again.

OBrian apparently noticed her reaction, for he quickly said, Oh, its nothing terribly serious. Really, it isnt. Believe meI wont be asking you half as many questions as I ask most couples who come to see us.

In spite of OBrians assurances, Carol remained tense.

Outside, the storm-dark afternoon sky grew steadily darker as the thunderheads changed color from gray to blue black, thickened, and pressed closer to the earth.

OBrian swiveled in his chair to face Paul. Dr. Tracy, would you say youre an overachiever?

Paul seemed surprised by the question. He blinked and said, Im not sure what you mean.

You are the chairman of the department of English at the college, arent you?

Yes. Im on sabbatical this semester, and the vice-chairman is handling most things for the time being. Otherwise, Ive been in charge of the department for the past year and a half.

Arent you rather young to hold such a post?

Somewhat young, Paul admitted. But thats no credit to me. You see, its a thankless position, all work and no glory. My senior colleagues in the department craftily maneuvered me into it so that none of them would be stuck with the job.

Youre being modest.

No, Im really not, Paul said. Its nothing much.

Carol knew that he was being modest. The departmental chairmanship was a prized position, an honor. But she understood why Paul was playing it down; he had been unsettled by OBrians use of the word overachiever. She had been unsettled by it, too. Until this moment she had never thought that an unusually long list of achievements might count against them.

Beyond the tall windows, lightning zigzagged down the sky. The day flickered and, just for a second or two, so did the electric lights in OBrians office.

Still addressing Paul, OBrian said, Youre also an author.

Yes.

Youve written a very successful textbook for use in American literature courses. Youve turned out a dozen monographs on a variety of subjects, and youve done a local history of the county. And two childrens books, and a novel.

The novel was about as successful as a horse trying to walk a tightrope, Paul said. The New York Times critic said it was a perfect example of academic posturing, stuffed full of themes and symbols, utterly lacking in substance and narrative drive, infused with ivory-tower naiveté.

OBrian smiled. Does every writer memorize his bad reviews?

I suppose not. But I have that one engraved on my cerebral cortex because theres an uncomfortable amount of truth in it.

Are you writing another novel? Is that why youve taken a sabbatical?

Paul was not surprised by the question. Clearly he now understood what OBrian was digging for. Yes, in fact I am writing a new novel. This one actually has a plot. He laughed with easy self-deprecation.

Youre also involved in charity work.

Not much.

Quite a lot, OBrian disagreed. The Childrens Hospital Fund, the Community Chest, the student scholarship program at the collegeall of that in addition to your regular job and your writing. Yet you dont think youre an overachiever?

No, I really dont think I am. The charity work amounts to just a couple of meetings a month. Its no big thing. Its the least I can do, considering my own good fortune. Paul edged forward on his chair.

Maybe youre worried that I wont have time to give to a child, but if thats whats troubling you, then you can put your mind at rest. Ill make the time. This adoption is extremely important to us, Mr. OBrian. We both want a child very badly, and if we are lucky enough to get one, we certainly wont ever neglect it.

Oh, Im sure you wont, OBrian said quickly, raising his hands placatingly. That isnt at all what I meant to imply. Oh, certainly not. Im on your side in this matter. I mean that very sincerely. He swiveled to face Carol. Dr. Tracythe other Dr. Tracywhat about you? Do you consider yourself an overachiever?

Lightning slashed through the panoply of clouds again, nearer this time than before; it seemed to strike the ground no more than two blocks away. The ensuing crash of thunder rattled the tall windows.

Carol used the interruption provided by the thunderclap to consider her response, and she decided that OBrian would appreciate forthrightness more than modesty. Yes. Id say Im an overachiever. Im involved in two of the three charities that Paul has his hand in. And I know Im a bit young to have established a psychiatric practice as successful as mine is. Im also a guest lecturer at the college on a fairly regular basis. And Im doing post-doctoral research on autistic children. During the summer I manage to keep a little vegetable garden going, and I do some needlepoint in the winter months, and I even brush my teeth three times a day, every day, without fail.

OBrian laughed. Three times a day, huh? Oh, youre most definitely an overachiever.

The warmth of his laughter reassured Carol, and with renewed confidence she said, I believe I understand what youre concerned about. Youre wondering if Paul and I might expect too much of our child.

Exactly, OBrian said. He noticed a speck of lint on his coat sleeve and plucked it off. Parents who are overachievers tend to push their kids too hard, too fast, too soon.

Paul said, Thats a problem that arises only when parents are unaware of the danger. Even if Carol and I are overachieverswhich Im not prepared to admit just yetwe wouldnt pressure our kids to do more than they were capable of doing. Each of us has to find his own pace in life. Carol and I realize that a child should be guided, not hammered into a mold.

Of course, Carol said.

OBrian appeared to be pleased. I knew youd say thator something very like it.

Lightning flashed again. This time it seemed to strike even closer than before, only a block away. Thunder cracked, then cracked again. The overhead lights dimmed, fluttered, reluctantly came back to full power.

In my psychiatric practice, I deal with a wide variety of patients who have all kinds of problems, Carol told OBrian, but I specialize in the mental disorders and emotional disturbances of children and adolescents. Sixty or seventy percent of my patients are seventeen or younger. Ive treated several kids whove suffered serious psychological damage at the hands of parents who were too demanding, who pushed them too hard in their schoolwork, in every aspect of their intellectual and personal development. Ive seen the wounded ones, Mr. OBrian, and Ive nursed them as best I could, and because of those experiences, I couldnt possibly turn around and do to my children what Ive seen some parents do to theirs. Not that I wont make mistakes. Im sure I will. My full share of them. But the one that you mentioned wont be among them.

Thats valid, OBrian said, nodding. Valid and very well put. Im sure that when I tell the recommendations committee what youve just said, theyll be quite satisfied on this point. He spotted another tiny speck on his sleeve and removed it, frowning as if it were not merely lint, but offal. Another question theyre bound to ask: Suppose the child you adopt turns out to be not only an underachiever but… well… basically less intelligent than either of you. For parents as oriented toward an intellectual life as you are, wouldnt you be somewhat frustrated with a child of just averageor possibly slightly below averageintelligence?

Well, even if we were capable of having a child of our own, Paul said, there wouldnt be any guarantee that hed be a prodigy or anything of that sort. But if he was… slow… wed still love him. Of course we would. And the same goes for any child we might adopt.

To OBrian, Carol said, I think youve got too high an opinion of us. Neither of us is a genius, for heavens sake! Weve gotten as far as we have primarily through hard work and perseverance, not because we were exceptionally bright. I wish it had come that easy, but it didnt.

Besides, Paul said, you dont love a person merely because hes intelligent. Its his entire personality that counts, the whole package, and a lot of factors contribute to that package, a great many things other than just intellect.

Good, OBrian said. Im glad to hear you feel that way. The committee will respond well to that answer, too.

For the past few seconds, Carol had been aware of the distant wail of sirens. Fire engines. Now they were not as distant as they had been; they were rapidly growing nearer, louder.

I think maybe one of those last two bolts of lightning caused some real damage when it touched down, Paul said.

OBrian swung his chair around toward the center window, which was directly behind his desk. It did sound as if it struck nearby.

Carol looked at each of the three windows, but she couldnt see any smoke rising from behind the nearest rooftops. Then again, the view was blurred and visibility was reduced by the water-spotted panes of glass and by the curtains of mist and gray rain that wavered and whipped and billowed beyond the glass.

The sirens swelled.

More than one truck, OBrian said.

The fire engines were right outside the office for a momentat least two trucks, perhaps threeand then they passed, heading into the next block.

OBrian pushed up from his chair and stepped to the window.

As the first sirens dwindled just a little, new ones shrieked in the street behind them.

Must be serious, Paul said. Sounds as if at least two engine companies are responding.

I see smoke, OBrian said.

Paul rose from his chair and moved toward the windows to get a better look.

Somethings wrong here.

That thought snapped into Carols mind, startling her as if a whip had cracked in front of her face. A powerful, inexplicable current of panic surged through her, electrified her. She gripped the arms of her chair so tightly that one of her fingernails broke.

Something… is… wrong… very wrong…

Suddenly the air was oppressively heavyhot, thick, as if it were not air at all but a bitter and poisonous gas of some kind. She tried to breathe, couldnt. There was an invisible, crushing weight on her chest.

Get away from the windows!

She tried to shout that warning, but panic had short-circuited her voice. Paul and OBrian were at different windows, but they both had their backs to her, so that neither of them could see she had been gripped by sudden, immobilizing fear.

Fear of what? she demanded of herself. What in the name of God am l so scared of?

She struggled against the unreasonable terror that had locked her muscles and joints. She started to get up from the chair, and that was when it happened.

A murderous barrage of lightning crashed like a volley of mortar fire, seven or eight tremendous bolts, perhaps more than thatshe didnt count them, couldnt count themone right after the other, without a significant pause between them, each fierce boom overlapping the ones before and after it, yet each clearly louder than its predecessors, so loud that they made her teeth and bones vibrate, each bolt smashing down discernibly closer to the building than had the bolt before it, closer to the seven-foot-high windowsthe gleaming, flashing, rattling, now-black, now-milky, now-shining, now-blank, now-silvery, now-coppery windows.

The sharp bursts of purple-white light produced a series of jerky, stroboscopic images that were burned forever into Carols memory: Paul and OBrian standing there, silhouetted against the natural fireworks, looking small and vulnerable; outside, the rain descending in an illusion of hesitation; wind-lashed trees heaving in a strobe-choppy rage; lightning blasting into one of those trees, a big maple, and then an ominous dark shape rising from the midst of the explosion, a torpedo like thing, spinning straight toward the center window (all of this transpiring in only a second or two, but given a queer, slow-motion quality by the flickering lightning and, after a moment, by the overhead electric light as well, which began to flicker, too); OBrian throwing one arm up in front of his face in what appeared to be half a dozen disconnected movements; Paul turning toward OBrian and reaching for him, both men like figures on a motion picture screen when the film slips and stutters in the projector; OBrian lurching sideways; Paul seizing him by a coat sleeve, pulling him back and down toward safety (only a fraction of a second after the lightning splintered the maple); a huge tree limb bursting through the center window even as Paul was pulling OBrian out of the way; one leafy branch sweeping across OBrians head, ripping his glasses loose, tossing them into the airhis face, Carol thought, his eyes!and then Paul and OBrian falling to the floor, out of sight; the enormous limb of the shattered maple slamming down on top of OBrians desk in a spray of water, glass, broken mullions, and smoking chips of bark; the legs of the desk cracking and collapsing under the brutal impact of the ruined tree.

Carol found herself on the floor, beside her overturned chair. She couldnt remember falling.

The fluorescent tubes blinked off, stayed off.

She was lying on her stomach, one cheek pressed to the floor, staring in shock at the shards of glass and the torn maple leaves that littered the carpet. As lightning continued to stab down from the turbulent sky, wind roared through the missing window and stirred some of the loose leaves into a frantic, dervishlike dance; accompanied by the cacophonous music of the storm, they whirled and capered across the office, toward a row of green filing cabinets. A calendar flapped off the wall and swooped around on wings of January and December, darting and soaring and kiting as if it were a bat. Two paintings rattled on their wire hangers, trying to tear themselves free. Papers were everywherestationery, forms, small sheets from a note pad, bulletins, a newspaperall rustling and skipping this way and that, floating up, diving down, bunching together and slithering along the floor with a snakelike hiss.

Carol had the eerie feeling that all of the movement in the room was not solely the result of the wind, that some of it was caused by a… presence. Something threatening. A bad poltergeist. Demonic spirits seemed to be at work in the office, flexing their occult muscles, knocking things off the walls, briefly taking up residence in a body composed only of leaves and rumpled sheets of newsprint.

That was a crazy idea, not at all the sort of thing she would ordinarily think of. She was surprised and disconcerted by a thrill of superstitious fear that coursed through her.

Lightning flared again. And again.

Wincing at the painfully sharp sound, wondering if lightning could get into a room through an open window, she put her arms over her head, for what little protection they provided.

Her heart was pounding, and her mouth was dry.

She thought about Paul, and her heartbeat grew even more frantic. He was over by the windows, on the far side of the desk, out of sight, under some of the maple trees branches. She didnt think he was dead. He hadnt been directly in the path of the tree. OBrian might be dead, yes, depending on how that small branch had struck his head, depending on whether he had been lucky or not, because maybe a pointed twig had been driven deep into his eye and his brain when his glasses had been knocked off, but Paul was surely alive. Surely. Nevertheless, he could be seriously injured, bleeding.

Carol started to push herself up onto her hands and knees, anxious to find Paul and give him any first aid he might need. But another bolt of blinding, ear shattering lightning spent itself just outside the building, and fear turned her muscles into wet rags. She didnt even have the strength to crawl, and she was infuriated by her weakness, for she had always been proud of her strength, determination, and unflagging willpower. Cursing herself, she slumped back to the floor.

Somethings trying to stop us from adopting a baby.

That incredible thought struck her with the same cold, hard force as had the forewarning of the window's implosion, which had come to her an instant before the impossible barrage of lightning had blasted into the courtyard.

Somethings trying to stop us from adopting a baby.

No. That was ridiculous. The storm, the lightningthey were nothing more than acts of nature. They hadnt been directed against Mr. OBrian just because he was going to help them adopt a child.

Absurd.

Oh, yeah? she thought as the deafening thunder and the unholy light of the storm filled the room. Acts of nature, huh? When have you ever seen lightning like this before?

She hugged the floor, shaking, cold, more afraid than she had been since she was a little girl. She tried to tell herself that it was only the lightning that she was afraid of, for that was very much a legitimate, rational fear, but she knew she was lying. It was not just the lightning that terrified her. In fact, that was the least of it. There was something else, something she couldnt identify, something formless and nameless in the room, and the very presence of it, whatever the hell it was, pushed a panic button deep inside her, on a sub-subconscious, primitive level; this fear was gut-deep, instinctive.

A dervish of windblown leaves and papers whirled across the floor, directly toward her. It was a big one: a column about two feet in diameter, five or six feet high, composed of a hundred or more pieces of this and that. It stopped very near her, writhing, churning, hissing, changing shape, glimmering silver-dark in the flashing storm light, and she felt threatened by it. As she stared up at the whirlwind, she had the mad notion that it was staring down at her. After a moment it moved off to the left a few feet, then returned, paused in front of her again, hesitated, then scurried busily to the right, but came back once more, looming above her as if it were trying to make up its mind whether or not to pounce and tear her to shreds and sweep her up along with the leaves, newspaper pages, envelopes, and other flotsam by which it defined itself.

Its nothing more than a whirlwind of lifeless junk! she told herself angrily.

The wind-shaped phantom moved away from her.

See? she told herself scornfully. Just lifeless junk. Whats wrong with me? Am I losing my mind?

She recalled the old axiom that was supposed to provide comfort in moments like this: If you think youre going mad, then you must be completely sane, for a lunatic never has doubts about his sanity. As a psychiatrist, she knew that hoary bit of wisdom was an oversimplification of complex psychological principles, but in essence it was true. So she must be sane.

Nevertheless, that frightening, irrational thought came to her again, unbidden, unwanted: Somethings trying to stop us from adopting a baby.

If the maelstrom in which she lay was not an act of nature, then what was it? Was she to believe that the lightning had been sent with the conscious intent of transforming Mr. OBrian into a smoking heap of charred flesh? That was a fruitcake notion, for sure.

Who could use lightning as if it were a pistol? God? God wasnt sitting up in Heaven, aiming at Mr. OBrian, popping away at him with lightning bolts, just to screw up the adoption process for Carol and Paul Tracy. The Devil? Blasting away at poor Mr. OBrian from the depths of Hell? That was a looney idea. Jesus!

She wasnt even sure she believed in God, but she knew she definitely did not believe in the Devil.

Another window imploded, showering glass over her.

Then the lightning stopped.

The thunder decreased from a roar to a rumble, fading like the noise of a passing freight train.

There was a stench of ozone.

The wind was still pouring in through the broken windows, but apparently with less force than it had exerted a moment ago, for the whirling columns of leaves and papers subsided to the floor, where they lay in piles, fluttering and quivering as if exhausted.

Something…

Something…

Somethings trying to stop us fromShe clamped off that unwanted thought as though it were a spurting artery. She was an educated woman, dammit. She prided herself on her levelheadedness and common sense. She couldnt permit herself to succumb to these disturbing, uncharacteristic, utterly superstitious fears.

Freaky weatherthat was the explanation for the lightning. Freaky weather. You read about such things in the newspapers every once in a while. A half an inch of snow in Beverly Hills. An eighty-degree day in the middle of an otherwise frigid Minnesota winter.

Rain falling briefly from an apparently cloudless blue sky. Although a lightning strike of this magnitude and intensity was undoubtedly a rare occurrence, it probably had happened before, sometime, somewhere, probably more than once. Of course it had. Of course.

In fact, if you picked up one of those popular books in which the authors compiled all kinds of world records, and if you turned to the chapter on weather, and if you looked for a subsection entitled Lightning, you would most likely find an impressive list of other serial lightning strikes that would put this one to shame. Freaky weather. Thats what it was. Thats all it was. Nothing stranger than that, nothing worse.

For the time being, at least, Carol managed to put aside all thoughts of demons and ghosts and malign poltergeists and other such claptrap.

In the relative quiet that followed in the wake of the fast-diminishing thunder, she felt her strength returning. She pushed up from the floor, onto her knees. With the clinking sound of mildly disturbed wind chimes, pieces of glass fell from her gray skirt and green blouse; she wasnt cut or even scratched. She was a bit dazed, however, and for a moment the floor appeared to roll sickeningly from side to side, as if this were a stateroom aboard a ship.

In the office next door, a woman began to cry hysterically. There were shouts of alarm, and someone began calling for Mr. OBrian. No one had yet burst into the office to see what had happened, which meant that only a second or two had elapsed since the lightning had stopped, although it seemed to Carol as if a minute or two had passed.

Over by the windows, someone groaned softly.

Paul? she said.

If there was an answer, it was drowned out by a sudden gust of wind that briefly stirred the papers and leaves again.

She recalled the way that branch had whipped across OBrians head, and she shuddered. But Paul hadnt been touched. The tree had missed him. Hadnt it?

Paul!

With renewed fear, she got to her feet and moved quickly around the desk, stepping over splintered maple branches and an overturned wastebasket.

2

THAT Wednesday afternoon, following a lunch of Campbells vegetable soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, Grace Mitowski went into her study and curled up on the sofa to sleep for an hour or so. She never napped in the bedroom because that formalized it somehow, and though she had been taking naps three or four days a week for the past year, she still had not reconciled herself to the fact that she needed a midday rest. To her way of thinking, naps were for children and for old, used-up, burnt-out people. She wasnt in her childhood any moreneither the first nor the second, thank youand although she was old, she certainly wasnt used up or burnt out. Being in bed in the middle of the day made her feel lazy, and she couldnt abide laziness in anyone, especially not in herself. Therefore, she took naps on the study sofa, with her back to the shuttered windows, lulled by the monotonous ticking of the mantel clock.

At seventy, Grace was still as mentally agile and energetic as she had ever been. Her gray matter hadnt begun to deteriorate at all; it was only her treacherous body that caused her grief and frustration. She had a touch of arthritis in her hands, and when the humidity was highas it was todayshe also suffered from a dull but unrelenting ache of bursitis in her shoulders. Although she did all of the exercises that her doctor recommended, and although she walked two miles every morning, she found it increasingly difficult to maintain her muscle tone. From the time she was a young girl, throughout most of her life, she had been in love with books, and she had been able to read all morning, all afternoon, and most of the evening without eyestrain; nowadays, usually after only a couple of hours of reading, her eyes felt grainy and hot. She regarded each of her infirmities with extreme indignation, and she struggled against them, even though she knew this was a war she was destined to lose.

That Wednesday afternoon she took a break from the battle, a brief period of R and R. Two minutes after she stretched out on the sofa, she was asleep.

Grace did not dream often, and she was even less often plagued by bad dreams. But Wednesday afternoon, in the book-lined study, her sleep was continuously disturbed by nightmares. Several times she stirred, came half awake, and heard herself gasping in panic. Once, drifting up from some hideous and threatening vision, she heard her own voice crying out wordlessly in terror, and she realized she was thrashing on the couch, twisting and torturing her aching shoulders. She tried to come fully awake, but she could not; something in the dream, something dark and menacing, reached up with icy, clammy hands and pulled her down into deep sleep again, down and down, all the way down into a lightless place where an unnamable creature gibbered and muttered and chuckled in a mucous-wet voice.

An hour later, when she finally woke up and managed to cast off the clutching dream, she was standing in the middle of the shadow-shrouded room, several steps away from the sofa, but she had no memory of getting to her feet. She was shaking, sheathed in sweat.

Ive got to tell Carol Tracy.

Tell her what?

Warn her.

Warn her about what?

Its coming. Oh, God…

Whats coming?

Just like in the dream.

What about the dream?

Already her memory of the nightmare had begun to dissolve; only fragments of it remained with her, and each of those disassociated images was evaporating as if it were a splinter of dry ice. All she could remember was that Carol had been a part of it, and had been in awful danger. And somehow she knew that the dream had been more than just an ordinary dream….

As the nightmare receded, Grace became uncomfortably aware of how gloomy the study was. Before taking her nap, she had switched off the lamps. The shutters were all closed, and only thin blades of light were visible between the wooden slats. She had the irrational but unshakable feeling that something had followed her up from the dream, something vicious and evil that had undergone a magical metamorphosis from a creature of the imagination into one composed of solid flesh, something that was now crouched in a corner, watching, waiting.

Stop it!

But the dream was…

Only a dream.

Along the edges of the shutters, the taut threads of light abruptly brightened, then dimmed, then grew bright again as lightning flashed outside. A roof-rattling crash of thunder quickly followed, and more lightning, too, an unbelievable amount of it, one blue-white explosion after another, so that for at least half a minute the cracks in the shutters looked like sputtering electrical wires, white-hot with sparking current.

Still drugged with sleep and slightly confused, Grace stood in the middle of the unlighted room, rocking from side to side, listening to the thunder and the wind, watching the intense pulse of lightning. The extreme violence of the storm seemed unreal, and she concluded that she was still under the influence of the dream, misinterpreting what she was seeing. It couldnt possibly be as savage outside as it appeared to be.

Grace…

She thought she heard something call to her from over by the tallest set of bookshelves, directly behind her. Judging from its slurred, distorted pronunciation of her name, its mouth was severely malformed.

Theres nothing behind me! Nothing.

Nevertheless, she did not turn around.

When the lightning finally stopped and the long-sustained crescendo of thunder subsided, the air seemed thicker than it had been a minute ago. She had difficulty breathing. The room was darker, too.

Grace…

A confining mantle of claustrophobia settled over her. The dimly visible walls appeared to ripple and move closer, as if the chamber might shrink around her until it was precisely the size and shape of a coffin.

Grace…

She stumbled to the nearest window, banging her hip against the desk, nearly tripping over a lamp cord. She fumbled with the lever on the shutters, her fingers stiff and unresponsive. At last the slats opened wide; gray but welcome light poured into the study; forcing her to squint but gladdening her as well. She leaned against the shutters and stared out at the cloud-plated sky, resisting the insane urge to look over her shoulder to see if there really was something monstrous lurking there with a hungry grin on its face. She drew deep, gasping breaths, as if the daylight itselfrather than the airsustained her.

Graces house was atop a small knoll, at the end of a quiet street, sheltered by several large pine trees and by one enormous weeping willow; from her study window she could see the rain-swollen Susquehanna a couple of miles away. Harrisburg, the state capital, huddled solemnly, drearily along the rivers banks. The clouds hung low over the city, trailing bedraggled beards of mist that obscured the upper floors of the tallest buildings.

When shed blinked the last grains of sleep out of her eyes, when her nerves had stopped jangling, she turned around and surveyed the room. A quiver of relief swept through her, unknotting her muscles.

She was alone.

With the storm temporarily quiet, she could hear the mantel clock again. It was the only sound.

Hell, yes, youre alone, she told herself scornfully. What did you expect? A green goblin with three eyes and a mouthful of sharp teeth? You better watch yourself, Grace Louise Mitowski, or youll wind up in a rest home, sitting all day in a rocking chair, happily chatting with ghosts, while smiling nurses wipe drool off your chin.

Having led an active life of the mind for so many years, she worried more about creeping senility than about anything else. She knew she was as sharp and alert as she had ever been. But what about tomorrow and the day after? Because of her medical training, and because she had kept up with her professional reading even after closing down her psychiatric practice, she was up to date on all the latest findings about senility, and she knew that only fifteen percent of all elderly people suffered from it. She also knew that more than half of those cases were treatable with proper nutrition and exercise. She knew her chances of becoming mentally incapacitated were small, only about one in eighteen. Nevertheless, although she was conscious of her excessive sensitivity regarding the subject, she still worried. Consequently, she was understandably disturbed by this uncharacteristic notion that something had been in the study with her a few moments ago, something hostile and… supernatural. As a lifelong skeptic with little or no patience for astrologers and psychics and their ilk, she could not justify even a fleeting belief in such superstitious non-sense; to her way of thinking, beliefs of that nature were… well… feebleminded.

But good, sweet God, what a nightmare that had been!

She had never before experienced a dream even one-tenth as bad as that one. Although the grisly details had completely faded away, she could still clearly remember the mood of itthe terror, the gut-wrenching horror that had permeated every nasty image, every ticking sound.

She shivered.

The sweat that the dream had squeezed out of her was beginning to feel like a thin glaze of ice on her skin.

The only other thing she remembered from the nightmare was Carol. Screaming. Crying for help.

Until now, none of Graces infrequent dreams had included Carol, and there was a temptation to view her appearance in this one with alarm, to see it as an omen. But of course it wasnt surprising that Carol should eventually have a role in one of Graces dreams, for the loved-one-in-danger theme was common in nightmares. Any psychologist would attest to that, and Grace was a psychologist, a good one, although she was entering her third year of retirement. She cared deeply about Carol. If shed had a child of her own, she couldnt have loved it any more than she loved Carol.

She had first met the girl sixteen years ago, when Carol had been an angry, obstinate, obstreperous fifteen-year-old delinquent who had recently given birth to a baby that had nearly killed her, and who, subsequent to that traumatic episode, had been remanded to a juvenile detention facility for possession of marijuana and for a host of other offenses. In those days, in addition to a private psychiatric practice, Grace had performed eight hours a week of free service to assist the overworked counseling staff at the reform school in which Carol was held. Carol was incorrigible, determined to kick you in the teeth if you smiled at her, but even then her intelligence and innate goodness were there, to be seen by anyone who looked closely enough, beneath the rough exterior. Grace had taken a very close look indeed, and had been intrigued, impressed. The girls obsessively foul language, her vicious temper, and her amoral pose had been nothing more than defense mechanisms, shields with which she protected herself from the physical and psychological abuse dished out by her parents.

As Grace gradually unearthed the horrendous story of Carols monstrous home life, she became convinced that reform school was the wrong place for the girl. She used her influence with the court to get Carol permanently removed from the custody of her parents. Later, she arranged to serve as Carols foster parent. She had watched the girl respond to love and guidance, had watched her grow from a brooding, self centered, self-destructive teenager into a warm, self-assured, admirable young woman with hopes and dreams, a woman of character, a sensitive woman. Playing a part in that exciting transformation had been perhaps the most satisfying thing that Grace had ever done.

The only regret she had about her relationship with Carol was the role she had played in putting the baby up for adoption. But there had been no reasonable alternative. Carol simply hadnt been financially or emotionally or mentally capable of providing for the infant. With that responsibility to attend to, she would never have had an opportunity to grow and change. She would have been miserable all her life, and she would have made her child miserable, too. Unfortunately, even now, sixteen years later, Carol felt guilty about giving her baby away. Her guilt became overpowering on each anniversary of the childs birth. On that black day, Carol sank into a deep depression and became uncharacteristically uncommunicative. The excessive anguish that she suffered on that one day was evidence of the deep-seated, abiding guilt that she carried with her, to a lesser degree, during the rest of the year. Grace wished she had foreseen this reaction, wished she had done more to assuage Carols guilt.

Im a psychologist, after all, she thought. I should have anticipated it.

Perhaps when Carol and Paul adopted someone elses child, Carol would feel that the scales had at last been balanced. The adoption might relieve some of her guilt, in time.

Grace hoped it would. She loved Carol like a daughter and wanted only the best for her.

And of course she couldnt bear the thought of losing Carol. Therefore, Carols appearance in a nightmare wasnt the least bit mysterious. It was certainly not an omen.

Clammy with stale sweat, Grace turned to the study window again, seeking warmth and light, but the day was ashen, chilly, forbidding. Wind pressed on the glass, soughed softly under the eaves one floor above.

In the city, near the river, a roiling column of smoke rose into the rain and mist. She had not noticed it a minute ago, but it must have been there; it was too much smoke to have appeared in only a few seconds. Even from this distance, she could see a glint of fire at the base of the dark column.

She wondered if lightning had done the dirty work. She recalled the storm flashing and roaring with extraordinary power in those first seconds after she had awakened. At the time, groggy and bleary-eyed, she had thought her sleep-dulled senses were misleading her and that the extreme violence of the lightning was largely illusory or even imaginary. Could that incredible, destructive barrage have been real after all?

She glanced at her wristwatch.

Her favorite radio station would carry its hourly newscast in less than ten minutes. Maybe there would be a story about the fire and the lightning.

After shed straightened the throw pillows on the sofa, she stepped out of the study and spotted Aristophanes at the far end of the downstairs hall, near the front door. He was sitting up straight and tall, his tail curled forward and across his front paws, his head held high, as if he were saying, A Siamese cat is the very best thing on earth, and I am an exceedingly handsome example of the species, and dont you dare forget it.

Grace held one hand toward him, rapidly rubbing her thumb against her forefinger. Kitty-kitty-kitty.

Aristophanes didnt move.

Kitty-kitty-kitty. Come here, Ari. Come on, baby.

Aristophanes got up and went through the archway on his left, into the dark living room.

Stubborn damn cat, she said affectionately.

She went into the downstairs bathroom and washed her face and combed her hair. The mundane task of grooming herself took her mind off the nightmare. Gradually, she began to relax. Her eyes were watery and bloodshot. She rinsed them out with a few drops of Murine.

When she came out of the bathroom, Aristophanes was sitting in the hallway again, watching her.

Kitty-kitty-kitty, she coaxed.

He stared unblinkingly.

Kitty-kitty-kitty.

Aristophanes rose to his feet, cocked his head, and examined her with curious, shining eyes. When she took a step toward him, he turned and quickly slunk away, casting one backward glance, then disappearing into the living room again.

Okay, Grace said. Okay, buster. Have it your way. Snub me if you want. But just see if theres any Meow Mix in your bowl tonight.

In the kitchen she snapped on the lights, then the radio. The station came in clearly enough, though there was a continuous crackle of storm-generated static.

While she listened to tales of economic crises and breathless accounts of airplane hijackings and rumors of war, Grace put a clean paper filter in the coffee machine, filled the brewing basket with drip-ground Colombian, and added half a spoonful of chicory. The story of the fire came at the end of the newscast, and it was only a sketchy bulletin. The reporter knew nothing more than that lightning had struck a couple of buildings in the heart of the city and that one of them, a church, was afire. He promised more details on the half hour.

When the coffee was ready, Grace poured some for herself. She took her mug to the small table by the kitchens only window, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

In the backyard, the myriad rosesred, pink, orange, white, yellowlooked preternaturally bright, almost phosphorescent, against the cinereous backdrop of the rain.

Two psychology journals had arrived in the morning mail. Grace opened one of them with pleasant anticipation.

Halfway through an article about new findings in criminal psychology, as she finished her first mug of coffee, there was a pause between songs on the radio, a few seconds of dead air, and in that brief quietude, she heard furtive movement behind her. She turned in her chair and saw Aristophanes.

Come to apologize? she asked.

Then she realized that he appeared to have been sneaking up on her, and that now, confronted, he was frozen; every lithe muscle in his small body was spring-taut, and the fur bristled along his arched back.

Ari? Whats wrong, you silly cat?

He whirled and ran out of the kitchen.

3

CAROL sat in a chrome chair with shiny black vinyl cushions, and she slowly sipped whiskey from a paper cup.

Paul slumped in the chair next to hers. He didnt sip his whiskey; he gulped the stuff. It was an excellent bourbon, Jack Daniels Black Label, thoughtfully provided by an attorney named Marvin Kwicker, who had offices down the hall from Alfred OBrian and who realized that a restorative was urgently needed. Pouring bourbon for Carol, Marvin had said, Kwicker with liquor, which he had probably said ten thousand times before, but he still enjoyed his own joke. Kwicker with liquor, he repeated when dispensing a double shot to Paul. Although Paul wasnt much of a drinker, he needed every drop that the attorney gave him. His hands were still shaking.

The reception lounge that served OBrians office was not large, but most of the people who worked on the same floor had congregated here to talk about the lightning that had shaken the building, to marvel that the place hadnt caught fire, to express surprise that the electric power had been restored so quickly, and to wait their turns for a peek at the rubble and ruin in OBrians inner sanctum. The resultant roar of conversation did nothing to soothe Pauls nerves.

Every thirty seconds or so, a bleached blonde with a shrill voice repeated the same words of amazement:

I cant believe nobody got killed in all that! I cant believe nobody got killed. Each time she spoke, regardless of where she was in the room, her voice carried over the din and made Paul wince. I cant believe nobody got killed. She sounded somewhat disappointed.

Alfred OBrian was sitting at the reception desk. His secretary, a prim-looking woman whose hair was drawn back in a tight bun, was trying to apply Merthiolate to half a dozen scratches on her bosss face, but OBrian seemed more concerned about the condition of his suit than he was about himself. He plucked and brushed at the dirt, lint, and small fragments of tree bark that clung to his jacket.

Paul finished his whiskey and looked at Carol. She was still badly shaken. Contrasted with her glossy dark hair, her face was very pale.

Apparently, she saw the concern in his eyes, for she took his hand, squeezed it, and smiled reassuringly. However, the smile didnt set well on her lips; it was tremulous.

He leaned close to her, so that she could hear him above the excited chatter of the others. Ready to get out of here?

She nodded.

Over by the window, a young executive type raised his voice. Hey! Hey, everybody! Better look sharp. The TV news people just drove up to the front door.

If we get trapped by reporters, Carol said, well be here an hour or more.

They left without saying goodbye to OBrian. In the hall, as they headed toward a side entrance, they slipped into their raincoats. Outside, Paul opened his umbrella and put one arm around Carols waist. They hurried across the slippery macadam parking lot, stepping gingerly around huge puddles. The gusting wind was chilly for early September, and it kept changing direction until it finally got under the umbrella and turned it inside out. The cold, wind-driven rain was falling so hard that it stung Pauls face. By the time they reached the car, their hair was plastered to their heads, and a lot of water had found its way down the backs of their necks, under the collars of their coats.

Paul half expected the Pontiac to be lightning-damaged, but it was just as they had left it. The engine turned over without protest.

Leaving the parking lot, he started to turn left but put his foot on the brake pedal when he saw that the street was sealed off by police cars and fire trucks just half a block away. The church was still ablaze, in spite of the pouring rain and in defiance of the big streams of water that the firemen directed onto it.

Black smoke billowed into the gray day, and behind the blasted windows, flames spurted and churned.

Clearly, the church was going to be a total loss.

He turned right, instead, and drove home through rain-choked streets. where the gutters overflowed and where every depression in the pavement had been transformed into a treacherous lake that had to be negotiated with utmost caution to avoid drowning the engine and stalling out.

Carol slouched in her seat and huddled against the passenger-side door, hugging herself. Although the heater was on, she was obviously cold.

Paul realized his teeth were chattering.

The trip home took ten minutes. and during that time neither of them said a word. The only sounds were the whispery hiss of the tires on the wet pavement and the metronomic thump of the windshield wipers. The silence was not uncomfortable or strained, but there was a peculiar intensity about it, an aura of tremendous, pent-up energy. Paul had the feeling that if he did speak, the surprise would send Carol straight through the roof of the car.

They lived in a Tudor-style house, which they had painstakingly restored, and as always, the sight of itthe stone walk, the big oak doors framed by carriage lamps, the leaded-glass windows, the gabled rooflinepleased Paul and gave him the warm feeling that this was where he belonged. The automatic garage door rolled up, and he pulled the Pontiac inside, next to Carols red Volkswagen Rabbit.

In the house, they maintained their silence.

Pauls hair was wet, and the legs of his trousers clung damply to him, and the back of his shirt was still soaked. He figured he was going to come down with a nasty cold if he didnt get into some dry clothes right away. Apparently, Carol had the same thought, and they went straight upstairs to the master bedroom.

She opened the closet doors, and he switched on a bedside lamp. Shivering, they stripped out of their wet clothes.

When they were nearly undressed, they glanced at each other. Their eyes locked.

Still, they didnt speak. They didnt need to.

He took her in his arms, and they kissed lightly at first, tenderly. Her mouth was warm and soft and vaguely flavored with whiskey.

She clutched him, pulled him closer, her fingertips digging into the muscles of his back. She pushed her mouth hard against his, scraped his lip with her teeth, thrust her tongue deep, and abruptly their kisses grew hot, demanding.

Something seemed to snap in him, and in her, too, for their desire was suddenly marked by animal urgency. They responded to each other in a hungry, almost frenzied fashion, hastily casting off the last of their clothes, pawing at each other, squeezing, stroking. She nipped his shoulder with her teeth. He gripped her buttocks and kneaded them with uncharacteristic crudity, but she didnt wince or try to pull away; indeed, she pressed even more insistently against him, rubbing her breasts over his chest and grinding her hips against his. The soft whimpers that escaped from her were not sounds of pain; they clearly expressed her eagerness and need. In bed, his energy was manic, and his staying power amazed him. He was insatiable, and so was she. They thrust and thrashed and flexed and tensed in perfect harmony, as if they were not only joined but fused, as if they were a single organism, shaken by only one set of stimuli instead of two. Every vestige of civilization slipped from them, and for a long while the only noises they made were animal sounds: panting; groaning; throaty grunts of pleasure; short, sharp cries of excitement. At last Carol uttered the first word to pass between them since they had left OBrians office:

Yes. And again, arching her slender, graceful body, tossing her head from side to side on the pillow: Yes, yes! It was not merely an orgasm to which she was saying yes, for shed already had a couple of those and had announced them with only ragged breathing and soft mewling. She was saying yes to life, yes to the fact that she still existed and was not just a charred and oozing lump of unanimated flesh, yes to the miraculous fact that they had both survived the lightning and the deadly, splintered branches of the toppling maple tree. Their unrestrained, fiercely passionate coupling was a slap in Deaths face, a not wholly rational but nevertheless satisfying denial of the grim specters very existence. Paul repeated the word as if chanting an incantationYes, yes, yes!as he emptied himself into her a second time, and it seemed as though his fear of death spurted out of him along with his seed.

Spent, they stretched out on their backs, side by side on the disheveled bed. For a long time they listened to the rain on the roof and to the persistent thunder, which was no longer loud enough to rattle the windows.

Carol lay with her eyes closed, her face completely relaxed. Paul studied her, and, as he had done on countless other occasions during the past four years, he wondered why she had ever consented to marry him. She was beautiful. He was not. Anyone putting together a dictionary could do worse than to use a picture of his face as the sole definition of the word plain. He had once jokingly expressed a similar opinion of his physical appearance, and Carol had been angry with him for talking about himself that way.

But it was true, and it didnt really matter to him that he was not Burt Reynolds, just so long as Carol didnt notice the difference. It was not only his plainness of which she seemed unaware; she could not comprehend her own beauty, and she insisted she was actually rather plain, or at least no more than a little bit pretty, no, not even pretty, just sort of cute, but kind of funny-looking cute. Her dark haireven now, when it was matted and curled by rain and sweatwas thick, glossy, lovely. Her skin was flawless, and her cheekbones were so well sculpted that it was difficult to believe the clumsy hand of nature could have done the job. Carol was the kind of woman you saw on the arm of a tall, bronzed Adonis, not with the likes of Paul Tracy. Yet here she was, and he was grateful to have her beside him. He never ceased to be surprised that they were compatible in every respectmentally, emotionally, physically.

Now, as rain began to beat on the roof and windows with renewed force, Carol sensed that he was staring at her, and she opened her eyes. They were so brown that, from a distance of more than a few inches, they looked black. She smiled. I love you.

I love you, he said.

I thought you were dead.

Wasnt.

After the lightning stopped, I called you, but you didnt answer for the longest time.

I was busy with a call to Chicago, he said, grinning.

Seriously.

Okay. It was San Francisco.

I was scared.

I couldnt answer you right away, he said soothingly. In case youve forgotten, OBrian fell on top of me, Knocked the wind right out. He doesnt look so big, but hes as solid as a rock. I guess he builds a lot of muscles by picking lint off his suits and shining his shoes nine hours a day.

That was a pretty brave thing you did.

Making love to you? Think nothing of it.

Playfully, she slapped his face. You know what I mean. You save OBrians life.

Nope.

Yes, you did. He thought so, too.

For Gods sake, I didnt step in front of him and shield him from the tree with mine own precious bod! I just pulled him out of the way. Anyone would have done the same.

She shook her head. Wrong. Not everyone thinks as fast as you do.

A fast thinker, huh? Yeah. Thats something Ill admit to being. Im a fast thinker, but Im sure no hero. I wont let you pin that label on me because then youll expect me to live up to it. Can you just imagine what a hell on earth Supermans life would be if he ever married Lois Lane? Her expectations would be so high!

Anyway, Carol said, even if you wont admit it, OBrian knows you saved his life, and thats the important thing.

It is?

Well, I was pretty sure the adoption agency would approve us. But now theres not the slightest doubt about it.

Theres always a slim chance

No, she said, interrupting him. OBrians not going to fail you after you saved his life. Not a chance. Hes going to wrap the recommendations committee around his finger.

Paul blinked, then slowly broke into a smile. Ill be damned. I didnt think of that.

So youre a hero, Papa.

Well… maybe I am, Mama.

I think I prefer Mom.

And I prefer Dad.

What about Pop?

Pop isnt a name. Its a sound a champagne cork makes.

Are you suggesting a celebration? she asked.

I thought wed put on our robes, mosey down to the kitchen, and whip up an early dinner. If youre hungry, that is.

Famished.

You can make a mushroom salad, he said. Ill whip up my famous fettuccine Alfredo. Weve got a bottle or two of Mumms Extra Dry weve been saving for a special occasion. Well open that, pile our plates high with fettuccine Alfredo and mushrooms, come back up here, and have dinner in bed.

And watch the TV news while we eat.

Then pass the evening reading thrillers and sipping champagne until we cant keep our eyes open.

Sounds wonderfully, sinfully lazy, she said.

More evenings than not, he spent two hours proofreading and polishing his novel. And it was an unusual night when Carol didnt have some paperwork to catch up on.

As they dressed in robes and bedroom slippers, Paul said, Weve got to learn to take most evenings off. Well have to spend plenty of time with the kid. Well owe it to him.

Or her.

Or them, he said.

Her eyes shone. You think theyll let us adopt more than one?

Of course they willonce weve proven we can handle the first. After all, he said self-mockingly, am I not the hero who saved good old Al OBrians life?

On their way to the kitchen, halfway down the stairs, she stopped and turned and hugged him. Were really going to have a family.

So it seems.

Oh, Paul, I dont remember when Ive ever been so happy. Tell me this feelings going to last forever.

He held her, and it was very fine to have her in his arms. When you got right down to it, affection was even better than sex; being needed and loved was better than making love.

Tell me nothing can go wrong, she said.

Nothing can go wrong, and that feeling you have will last forever, and Im glad youre so happy. There. Hows that?

She kissed his chin and the corners of his mouth, and he kissed her nose.

Now, he said, can we please get some fettuccine before I start chewing my tongue?

Such a romantic.

Even romantics get hungry.

As they reached the bottom of the steps, they were startled by a sudden, loud hammering sound. It was steady but arrhythmic: Thunk, thunk, thunk-thunkthunk, thunk-thunk…

Carol said, What the devils that?

Its coming from outside… and above us.

They stood on the last step, looking up and back toward the second floor.

Thunk, thunk-thunk, thunk, thunk…

Damn, Paul said. Ill bet one of the shutters came loose in the wind. They listened for a moment, and then he sighed. Ill have to go out and fix it,

Now? In the rain?

If I dont do anything, the wind might tear it clean off the house. Worse yet, it might just hang there and clatter all night. We wont get any sleep, and neither will half the neighborhood.

She frowned. But the lightning… Paul, after everything thats happened, I dont think you should risk climbing around on a ladder in the middle of a storm.

He didnt like the idea, either. The thought of being high on a ladder in the middle of a thunderstorm made his scalp prickle.

She said, I dont want you to go out there if

The hammering stopped.

They waited.

Wind. The patter of rain. The branches of a tree scraping lightly against an outside wall.

At last, Paul said, Too late. If it was a shutter, its been torn off.

I didnt hear it fall.

It wouldnt make much noise if it dropped in the grass or the shrubbery.

So you dont have to go out in the rain, she said, crossing the foyer toward the short hall that led to the kitchen.

He followed her. Yeah, but now its a bigger repair job.

As they entered the kitchen, their footsteps echoing hollowly off the quarry-tile floor, she said, You dont have to worry about it until tomorrow or the day after. Right now, all youve got to worry about is the sauce for the fettuccine. Dont let it curdle.

Taking a copper saucepan from a rack of gleaming utensils that hung over the center utility island, he pretended to be insulted by her remark. Have I ever curdled the sauce for the fettuccine?

Seems to me the last time you made it, the stuff was

Never!

Yes, she said teasingly. Yes, it definitely wasnt up to par the last time. She took a plastic bag of mushrooms from the big, stainless-steel refrigerator. Although it breaks my heart to tell you this, the last time you made fettuccine Alfredo, the sauce was as lumpy as the mattress in a ten-dollar-a-night motel.

What a vile accusation! Besides, what makes you such an expert on ten-dollar-a-night motels? Are you leading a secret life I ought to know about?

Together, they prepared dinner, chatting about this and that, bantering a lot, flying to amuse each other and to elicit a laugh now and then. For Paul, the world dwindled until they were the only two people in it. The universe was no larger than the warm, familiar kitchen.

Then lightning flickered, and the cozy mood was broken. It was soft lightning, nothing as dazzling and destructive as the bolts that had struck outside of OBrians office a few hours ago. Nevertheless, Paul stopped talking in midsentence, his attention captured by the flash, his eyes drawn to the long, many-paned window behind the sink. On the rear lawn, the trees appeared to writhe and shimmer and ripple in the fluttering storm light, so that it seemed he was looking not at the trees themselves but at their reflections in the surface of a lake.

Suddenly, another movement caught his eye, though he wasnt sure what he was seeing. The afternoon, which had been gray and dark to begin with, was now gradually giving away to an early night, and thin fog was drifting in. Shadows lay everywhere.

The meager daylight was deceptive, muddy; it distorted rather than illuminated those things it touched. In that penumbral landscape, something abruptly darted out from behind the thick trunk of an oak tree, crossed a stretch of open grass, and quickly disappeared behind a lilac bush.

Carol said, Paul? Whats wrong?

Someones out on the lawn.

In this rain? Who?

I dont know.

She joined him by the window. I dont see anybody.

Someone ran from the oak to the lilac bush. He was hunched over and moving pretty fast.

Whats he look like?

I cant say. Im not even sure it was a man. Might have been a woman.

Maybe it was just a dog.

Too big.

Couldve been Jasper.

Jasper was the Great Dane that belonged to the Hanrahan family, three doors down the street. He was a large, piercing-eyed, friendly animal with an amazing tolerance for small children and a liking for Oreo cookies.

They wouldnt let Jasper out in weather like this, Paul said. They pamper that mutt.

Lightning pulsed softly again, and a violent gust of wind whipped the trees back and forth, and rain began to fall harder than beforeand in the middle of that maelstrom, something rushed out from the lilac bush.

There! Paul said.

The intruder crouched low, obscured by the rain and the mist, a shadow among shadows. It was illuminated so briefly and strangely by the lightning that its true appearance remained tantalizingly at the edge of perception. It loped toward the brick wall that marked the perimeter of the property, vanished for a moment in an especially dense patch of fog, reappeared as an amorphous black shape, then changed direction, paralleling the wall now, heading toward the gate at the northwest corner of the rear lawn. As the darkening sky throbbed with lightning once more, the intruder fled through electric-blue flashes, through the open gate, into the street, and away.

Just the dog, Carol said.

Paul frowned. I thought I saw…

What?

A face. A woman looking back… just for a second, just as she went through the gate.

No, Carol said. It was Jasper.

You saw him?

Clearly?

Well, no, not clearly. But I could see enough to tell that it was a dog the size of a small pony, and Jaspers the only pooch around who fits that description.

I guess Jaspers a lot smarter than he used to be.

Carol blinked. What do you mean?

Well, he had to unlatch the gate to get into the yard. He never used to be able to do that trick.

Oh, of course he didnt. We must have left the gate open.

Paul shook his head. Im sure it was closed when we drove up a while ago.

Closed, maybebut not latched. The wind pushed it open, and Jasper wandered in.

Paul stared out at the rain-slashed fog, which glowed dully with the last somber rays of the fading twilight. I guess youre right, he said, though he was not entirely convinced. I better go latch the gate.

No, no, Carol said quickly. Not while the storms on.

Now look here, sugarface, Im not going to jump into bed and pull the blankets over my head every time theres a little thunderjust because of what happened this afternoon.

I dont expect you to, she said. But before you start dancing in the rain like Gene Kelly, youve got to let me get over what happened today. Its still too fresh in my mind for me to stand here watching you while you cavort across the lawn in the lightning.

Itll only take a moment and

Say, are you trying to get out of making that fettuccine? she asked, cocking her head and looking at him suspiciously.

Certainly not. Ill finish making it as soon as Ive gone and closed the gate.

I know what youre up to, mister, she said smugly. Youre hoping you will be struck by lightning because you know your sauce is going to turn out lumpy, and you simply cant take the humiliation.

Thats a base canard, he said, falling easily into their game again. I make the silkiest fettuccine Alfredo this side of Rome. Silkier than Sophia Lorens thighs.

All I know is, the last time you made it, the stuff was as lumpy as a bowl of oatmeal.

I thought you said it was as lumpy as a mattress in a ten-dollar-a-night motel.

She lifted her head proudly. Im not just a one-simile woman, you know.

How well I know.

So are you going to make fettuccineor will you take the cowards way out and get killed by lightning?

Ill make you eat your words, he said.

Grinning, she said, Thats easier than eating your lumpy fettuccine.

He laughed. All right, all right. You win. I can latch the gate in the morning.

He returned to the stove, and she went back to the cutting board where she was mincing parsley and scallions for the salad dressing.

He knew she was probably right about the intruder. Most likely, it had been Jasper, chasing a cat or looking for an Oreo handout. The thing hed thought he had seenthe slightly twisted, moon-white face of a woman, lightning reflected in her eyes, her mouth curled into a snarl of hatred or ragehad surely been a trick of light and shadow. Still, the incident left him uneasy. He could not entirely regain the warm, cozy feeling hed had just before hed looked out the window.

Grace Mitowski filled the yellow plastic bowl with Meow Mix and put it in the corner by the kitchen door.

Kitty-kitty-kitty.

Aristophanes didnt respond.

The kitchen wasnt Aris favorite place in the house, for it was the only room in which he was not permitted to climb wherever he wished. He wasnt actually much of a climber anyway. He lacked the spirit of adventure that many cats had, and he usually stayed on the floor. However, even though he had no burning desire to scamper up on the kitchen counters, he didnt want anyone telling him he couldnt do it.

Like most cats, he resisted discipline and despised all rules. Nevertheless, as little as he liked the kitchen, he never failed to put in an appearance at mealtime. In fact, he was often waiting impatiently by his bowl when Grace came to fill it.

She raised her voice. Kitty-kitty-kitty.

There was no answering meow. Aristophanes did not, as expected, come running, his tail curled up slightly, eager for his dinner.

Ari-Ari-Ari! Soups on, you silly cat.

She put away the box of cat food and washed her hands at the sink.

Thunk, thunk-thunk!

The hammering soundone hard blow followed by two equally hard blows struck close togetherwas so sudden and loud that Grace jerked in surprise and almost dropped the small towel on which she was drying her hands. The noise had come from the front of the house. She waited a moment, and there was only the sound of the wind and falling rain, and thenThunk! Thunk!

She hung the towel on the rack and stepped into the downstairs hallway.

Thunk-thunk-thunk!

She walked hesitantly down the hall to the front door and snapped on the porch light. The door had a peephole, and the fish-eye lens provided a wide view. She couldnt see anyone; the porch appeared to be deserted.

THUNK!

That blow was delivered with such force that Grace thought the door had been torn from its hinges. There was a splintering sound as she jumped back, and she expected to see chunks of wood exploding into the hall. But the door still hung firmly in place, though it vibrated noisily in its frame; the deadbolt rattled against the lock plate.

THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!

Stop that! she shouted. Who are you? Whos there?

The pounding stopped, and she thought she heard adolescent laughter.

She had been on the verge of either calling the police or going for the pistol she kept in her nightstand, but when she heard the laughter, she changed her mind. She could certainly handle a few kids without help. She wasnt so old and weak and fragile that she needed to call the cops to deal with a bunch of ornery little pranksters.

Cautiously, she drew aside the curtain on the long, narrow window beside the door. Tense, ready to step away quickly if someone made a threatening move toward the glass, she looked out. There was no one on the porch.

She heard the laughter again. It was high-pitched, musical, girlish.

Letting the curtain fall back into place, she turned to the door, unlocked it, and stepped onto the threshold.

The night wind was raw and wet. Rain drizzled off the scalloped eaves of the porch.

The immediate area in front of the house offered at least a hundred hiding places for the hoaxers. Bristling shrubbery rustled in the wind, just the other side of the railing, and the yellowish glow from the insect-repelling bulb in the porch ceiling illuminated little more than the center of the porch. The walkway that led from the bottom of the porch steps to the street was flanked by hedges that looked blue black in the darkness. Among the many shades of night, none of the pranksters were visible.

Grace waited, listened.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, but there was no laughter, no giggling in the darkness.

Maybe it wasnt kids.

Who else?

You see them on TV news all the time. The ironeyed ones who shoot and stab and strangle people for the fun of it. They seem to be everywhere these days, the misfits, the psychopaths.

That was not adult laughter. This is kids work.

Still, maybe! better get inside and lock the door.

Stop thinking like a frightened old lady, dammit!

It was odd that any of the neighborhood children would harass her, for she was on excellent terms with all of them. Of course, maybe these werent kids from the immediate neighborhood. Just a couple of streets away, everyone was a stranger to her.

She turned and examined the outer face of the front door. She could find no indication that it had been struck repeatedly and violently only moments ago. The wood was not chipped or cracked; it wasnt even slightly marred.

She was amazed because she was certain she had heard the wood splintering. What would kids use that would make a lot of noise while leaving absolutely no marks on the door? Bean bags or something of that nature? No. A bean bag wouldnt have made such a horrendous racket; the impact of the bag against the door might have been loud, yes, very loud indeed, if it had been swung with sufficient force, but the sound wouldnt have been so hard, so sharp.

Again, she slowly scanned the yard. Nothing moved out there except the wind-stirred foliage.

For nearly a minute she watched and listened. She would have waited longer, if only to prove to any mischievous young observers that she was not a frightened old lady who could be easily intimidated; but the air was damp and chilly, and she began to worry about catching a cold.

She went inside and closed the door.

She waited with her hand on the knob, expecting the kids to return shortly. The first time they hit the door, she would jerk it open and catch them red-handed, before they could dart off the porch and hide.

Two minutes passed. Three minutes. Five.

No one hammered on the door, which was distinctly strange. To pranksters, the fun wasnt in the first assault so much as in the second and third and fourth; their intent was not to startle but to torment.

Apparently, the defiant stance she had taken in the doorway had discouraged them. Very likely, they were on their way to another house, seeking a more excitable victim.

She snapped the lock into place.

What kind of parents would allow their children to be out playing in an electrical storm like this?

Shaking her head in dismay at the irresponsibility of some parents, Grace headed back the hall, and with each step she half expected the hammering to start again. But it didnt.

She had planned to have a light, nutritious dinner of steamed vegetables covered with Cheddar cheese, accompanied by a slice or two of home-baked cornbread, but she wasnt hungry yet. She decided to watch the ABC evening news before preparing dinneralthough she knew that, with the world in the state it was, the news might put her off her dinner altogether.

In the study, before she had a chance to turn on the television set and hear the latest atrocity stories, she found a mess on the seat of her big armchair. For a moment she could do nothing but stare at the ruin in disbelief: hundreds of feathers; shreds of cloth; colorful, unraveled threads that had once constituted a needlework pattern, but which now lay in a bright, meaningless tangle amidst drifts of goosedown. A couple of years ago, Carol Tracy had given her a set of three small, exceedingly lovely, handmade needlework throw pillows. It was one of those gifts that had been clawed to pieces and left on the armchair.

Aristophanes.

Ari hadnt ripped up anything important since he was a kitten. An act as destructive as this was quite out of character for him, but he was surely the culprit. There was not really another suspect to be seriously considered.

Ari! Where are you hiding, you sneaky Siamese?

She went to the kitchen.

Aristophanes was standing at the yellow bowl, eating his Meow Mix. He glanced up as she entered the room.

You fur-footed menace, she said. What in the world has gotten into you today?

Aristophanes blinked, sneezed, rubbed his muzzle with one paw, and returned to his dinner with lofty, catlike indifference to her exasperation and puzzlement.

Later that night, in her darkened bedroom, Carol Tracy stared at the adumbral ceiling and listened to her husbands soft, steady breathing. He had been asleep for only a few minutes.

The night was quiet. The rain had stopped, and the sky was no longer shaken by thunder. Occasionally, wind brushed across the shingled roof and sighed wearily at the windows, but the fury had gone out of it.

Carol teetered pleasantly on the edge of sleep. She was a bit lightheaded from the champagne she had been slowly sipping throughout the evening, and she felt as if she were floating in warm water, with gentle waves lapping at her sides.

She thought dreamily about the child they would adopt, tried to envision its appearance. A gallery of sweet young faces filled her imagination. If it was an infant, rather than a three- or four-year-old, they would name it themselves: Jason, if a boy; Julia, if a girl. Carol rocked herself on the thin line between wakefulness and dreams by rolling those two names back and forth in her mind: Jason, Julia, Jason, Julia, Jason…

Falling off the edge, dropping into a well of sleep, she had the ugly, unwelcome thought she had resisted so strenuously earlier in the day: Somethings trying to stop us from adopting a baby.

Then she was in a strange place where there was not much light, where something hissed and murmured sullenly just out of sight, where the purple-amber shadows had substance and crowded close with menacing intent. In that unknown place, the nightmare unrolled with the frantic, nerve-jarring rhythm of player-piano music.

At first she was running in utter lightlessness, and then she was suddenly running from one room to another in a large house, weaving through a forest of furniture, knocking over a floor lamp, banging one hip against the sharp corner of a credenza, stumbling and nearly falling over the loose edge of an oriental carpet. She plunged through an archway, into a long hall, and turned and looked back into the room from which she had come, but the room wasnt there any longer. The house existed only in front of her; behind, there was perfect, featureless blackness.

Blackness… and then a glimmer of something. A glint. A splinter of light. A silvery, moving object. The thing swung from side to side, vanishing into darkness, reappearing with a gleam a second later, vanishing again, back and forth, back and forth, rather like a pendulum, never visible long enough to be identified. Although she couldnt quite see what the silvery thing was, she could tell that it was moving toward her, and she knew she must get away from it or die. She ran along the hall to the foot of the stairs, climbed quickly to the second floor. She glanced back and down, but the stairs were not there any more. Just an inky pit. And then the brief flash of something swinging back and forth in that pit… again… again like a ticking metronome. She rushed into the bedroom, slammed the door, grabbed a chair with the intention of bracing it under the knoband discovered that, while her back was turned, the door had disappeared, as had the wall in which it had been set.

Where the wall had been, there was subterranean gloom. And a silvery flicker. Very close now. Closer still. She screamed but made no sound, and the mysteriously gleaming object arced over her head and(Thunk!)

This is more than just a dream, she thought desperately. Much more than that. This is a memory, a prophecy, a warning. This is a(Thunk!)

She was running in another house that was altogether different from the first. This place was smaller, the furnishings less grand. She did not know where she was, yet she knew she had been here before. The house was familiar, just as the first place had been. She hurried through a doorway, into a kitchen.

Two bloody, severed heads were on the kitchen table. One of them was a mans head, and the other was a womans. She recognized them, felt that she knew them well, but was unable to think of their names.

The four dead eyes were wide but sightless; the two mouths gaped, the swollen tongues protruding over the purple lips. As Carol stood transfixed by that grisly sight, the dead eyes rolled in their sockets and focused on her. The cold lips twisted into icy smiles. Carol turned, intending to flee, but there was only a void behind her and a glint of light off the hard surface of something silvery and then(Thunk!)

She was running through a mountain meadow in reddish, late-afternoon light. The grass was knee-high, and the trees loomed ahead of her. When she looked over her shoulder, the meadow was no longer back there. Only blackness, as before. And the rhythmically swinging, shimmering, steadily approaching thing to which she was unable to fix a name. Gasping, her heart racing, she ran faster, reached the trees, glanced back once more, saw that she had not run nearly fast enough to escape, cried out and(Thunk!)

For a long time the nightmare shifted from one of those three dreamscapes to the otherfrom the first house to the meadow to the second house to the meadow to the first house againuntil at last she woke with an unvoiced scream caught in her throat.

She sat straight up, shuddering. She was cold and yet slick with sweat; she slept in just a T-shirt and panties, and both garments clung to her skin, unpleasantly sticky. The frightening sound from the nightmare continued to echo in her mindthunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunkand she realized that her subconscious had borrowed that noise from reality, from the wind-loosened shutter that had startled her and Paul earlier.

Gradually, the pounding noise faded and blended with the thumping of her heart.

She drew back the covers and swung her bare legs out of bed. She sat on the edge of the mattress, hugging herself.

Dawn had come. Gray light seeped in around the drapes; it was too dim to reveal the details of the furniture, but it was just bright enough to deepen the shadows and distort the shapes of everything, so that the room seemed like an alien place.

The rain had stopped a couple of hours before shed gone to bed, but the storm had returned while shed been sleeping. Rain pattered on the roof and gurgled through the gutters and the downspouts. Low thunder rumbled like a distant cannonade.

Paul was still asleep, snoring softly.

Carol knew she wouldnt be able to get back to sleep. Like it or not, rested or not, she was up for the day.

Without turning on a light, she went into the master bathroom. In the weak glow of dawn, she stripped out of her damp T-shirt and panties. While soaping herself in the shower, she thought about the nightmare, which had been considerably more vivid than any dream shed ever had before.

That strange, jarring soundthunk, thunkhad been the most frightening thing in the dream, and the memory of it still nagged her. It wasnt just an ordinary hammering noise; there was an odd echo to it, a hardness and sharpness she couldnt quite define. She decided it was not only a case of her subconscious mind borrowing the noise the shutter had made earlier. The terrifying sound in the dream was caused by something considerably more disturbing than the mere banging of an unmoored shutter. Furthermore, she was sure she had heard precisely that sound on another occasion, too. Not in the nightmare. In real life. In another place… a long time ago…

As she let the hot water stream over her, sluicing away the soap, she tried to recall where and when she had heard exactly that same unsettling sound, for it suddenly seemed important for her to identify it. Without understanding why, she felt vaguely threatened as long as she could not recall the source of the sound. But remembrance hung tantalizingly beyond the limits of her reach, like the title of a hauntingly familiar but unnamable piece of music.

4

AT 8:45, after breakfast, Carol left for work, and Paul went upstairs to the rear bedroom that he had converted into an office. He had created a Spartan atmosphere in which to write without distraction. The off-white walls were bare, unadorned by even a single painting. The room contained only an inexpensive desk, a typists chair, an electric typewriter, a jar bristling with pens and pencils, a deep letter tray that now contained nearly two hundred manuscript pages of the novel he had started at the beginning of his sabbatical, a telephone, a three-shelf bookcase filled with reference works, a bottled-water dispenser in one corner, and a small table upon which stood a Mr. Coffee machine.

This morning, as usual, he prepared a pot of coffee first thing. Just as he pressed the switch labeled BREWER and poured water into the top of the Mr. Coffee, the telephone rang. He sat on the edge of the desk, picked up the receiver. Hello.

Paul? Grace Mitowski.

Good morning, love. How are you?

Well, these old bones dont like rainy weather, but otherwise Im coping.

Paul smiled. Listen, I know you can still run circles around me any time.

Nonsense. Youre a compulsive worker with a guilt complex about leisure. Not even a nuclear reactor has your energy.

He laughed. Dont psychoanalyze me, Grace. I get enough of that from my wife.

Speaking of whom…

Sorry, but you just missed her. You ought to be able to catch her at the office in half an hour.

Grace hesitated.

Hot coffee began to drizzle into the Pyrex pot, and the aroma of it swiftly filled the room.

Sensing tension in Graces hesitation, Paul said, Whats wrong?

Well… She cleared her throat nervously. Paul, how is she? Shes not ill or anything?

Carol? Oh, no. Of course not.

Youre sure? I mean, you know that girls like a daughter to me. if anything was wrong, Id want to know.

Shes fine. Really. In fact she had a physical exam last week. The adoption agency required it. Both of us passed with flying colors.

Grace was silent again.

Frowning, Paul said, Why are you worried all of a sudden?

Well… youll think old Gracie is losing her marbles, but Ive had two disturbing dreams, one during a nap yesterday, the other last night, and Carol was in both. I seldom dream, so when I have two nightmares and wake up both times feeling Ive got to warn Carol…

Warn her about what?

I dont know. All I remember about the dreams is that Carol was in them. I woke up thinking: its coming. Ive got to warn Carol that its coming. I know that sounds silly. And dont ask me what it might be. I cant remember. But I feel Carols in danger. Now Lord knows, I dont believe in dream prophecies and garbage like that. I think I dont believe in themyet here I am calling you about this.

The coffee was ready. Paul leaned over, turned off the brewer. The strange thing isCarol and I were nearly hurt in a freak accident yesterday. He told her about the damage at OBrians office.

Good God, she said, I saw that lightning when I woke up from my nap, but it never occurred to me that you and Carol… that the lightning might be the very thing I was… the very thing my dream oh, hell! Im afraid to say it because I might sound like a superstitious old fool, but here goes anyway: Was there actually something prophetic about that dream? Did I foresee the lightning strike a few minutes before it happened?

If nothing else, Paul said uneasily, its at least a remarkable coincidence.

They were silent for a moment, wondering, and then she said, Listen, Paul, I dont recall that weve ever discussed this subject much before, but tell medo you believe in dream prophecies, clairvoyance, things of that nature?

I dont believe, and I dont disbelieve. Ive never really made up my mind.

Ive always been so smug about it. Always considered it a pack of lies, delusions, or just plain nonsense. But after this

Youre reconsidering.

Lets just say a tiny doubt has cropped up. And now Im more worried about Carol than I was when I called you.

Why? I told you she wasnt even scratched.

She escaped once, Grace said, but I had two dreams, and one of them came to me hours after the lightning. So maybe the it is something else. I mean, if the first dream had some truth in it, then maybe the second does, too. God, isnt this crazy? If you start believing in just a little bit of this nonsense, you get carried away with it real fast. But I cant help it. Im still concerned about her.

Even if your first dream was prophetic, Paul said, the second one was probably just a repeat of it, an echo, not a whole new dream.

You think so?

Sure. This never happened to you before, so why should it happen again? Most likely, it was just a freak thing… like the lightning yesterday.

Yeah, I guess youre probably right, she said, sounding somewhat relieved. Maybe it could happen once. Maybe I can accept that. But Im not Edgar Cayce or Nostradamus. And I can guarantee you Im never going to be writing a weekly column of predictions for the National Enquirer.

Paul laughed.

Still, she said, I wish I could remember exactly what happened in both those nightmares.

They talked a while longer, and when Paul finally hung up, he stared at the receiver for a moment, frowning. Although he was pretty much convinced that the timing of Graces dream had been merely a strange coincidence, he was nonetheless affected by it, more profoundly affected than seemed reasonable.

its coming.

The moment Grace had voiced those two words, Paul had felt a gut-deep, bone-deep chill.

its coming.

Coincidence, he told himself. Sheer coincidence and nonsense. Forget about it.

Gradually he became aware, once again, of the rich aroma of hot coffee. He rose from the edge of the desk and filled a mug with the steaming brew.

For a minute or two he stood at the window behind the desk, sipping coffee, staring out at the dirty, scudding clouds and at the incessant rain. Eventually he lowered his gaze and looked down into the rear yard, instantly recalling the intruder he had seen last evening while he and Carol had been making dinner: that briefly glimpsed, pale, distorted, lightning-illuminated face; a womans face; shining eyes; mouth twisted into a snarl of rage or hatred. Or perhaps it had just been Jasper, the Great Dane, and a trick of light.

THUNK!

The sound was so loud and unexpected that Paul jumped in surprise. If his mug hadnt been half empty, he would have spilled coffee all over the carpet.

THUNK! THUNK!

It couldnt be the same shutter theyd heard last evening, for it would have continued banging all night. Which meant there were now two of them to repair.

Jeez, he thought, the old homestead is falling down around my ears.

THUNK!

The source of the sound was nearby; in fact it was so close that it seemed to originate within the room. Paul pressed his forehead against the cool window glass, peered out to the left, then to the right, trying to see if that pair of shutters was in place. As far as he could see, they were both properly anchored. Thunk, thunk-thunk, thunk, thunk…

The noise grew softer but settled into a steady, arhythmical beat that was more irritating than the louder blows had been. And now it seemed to be coming from another part of the house.

Although he didnt want to get up on a ladder and fix a shutter in the rain, that was exactly what had to be done, for he couldnt get any writing accomplished with that constant clattering to distract him. At least there hadnt been any lightning this morning.

He put his mug on the desk and started out of the room. Before he reached the door, the telephone rang.

So its going to be one of those days, he thought wearily.

Then he realized that the shutter had stopped banging the moment the phone had rung. Maybe the wind had wrenched it loose of the house, in which case repairs could wait until the weather improved.

He returned to his desk and answered the telephone. It was Alfred OBrian, from the adoption agency. Initially, the conversation was awkward, and Paul was embarrassed by it. OBrian insisted on expressing his gratitude: You saved my life; you really did! He was equally insistent about repeatedly and quite unnecessarily apologizing for his failure to express that gratitude yesterday, immediately following the incident in his office: But I was so shaken, stunned, I just wasnt thinking clearly enough to thank you, which was unforgivable of me. Each time Paul protested at the mention of words like heroic, and brave, OBrian became even more vociferous than before. At last, Paul stifled his objections and allowed the man to get it out of his system; OBrian was determined to cleanse his conscience in much the same way that he fussed with the minute specks of lint on his suit jacket. Finally, however, he seemed to feel he had atoned for his (largely imaginary) thoughtlessness, and Paul was relieved when the conversation changed directions.

OBrian had a second reason for calling, and he got straight to it now, as if he, too, was suddenly embarrassed. He could not (he explained with more apologies) locate the application form that the Tracys had brought to his office the previous day. Of course, when that tree crashed through the window, it scattered a lot of papers all over the floor. A terrible mess. Some of them were rumpled and dirty when we gathered them up, and a great many of them were damp from the rain. In spite of that, Margie, my secretary, was able to put them in orderexcept, of course, for your application. We cant find it anywhere. I suppose it might have blown out through one of the broken windows. I dont know why your papers should be the only ones weve lost, and of course we must have a completed, signed application before we can present your names to the recommendations committee. Im extremely sorry about this inconvenience, Mr. Tracy, I truly am.

It wasnt your fault, Paul said. Ill just stop in later today and pick up another form. Carol and I can fill it out and sign it tonight.

Good, OBrian said. Im glad to hear that. It has to be back in my hands early tomorrow morning if were going to make the next meeting of the committee. Margie needs three full business days to run the required verifications on the information in your application, and thats just about how much time we have before next Wednesdays committee meeting. If we miss that session, theres not another one for two weeks.

Ill be in to pick up the form before noon, Paul assured him. And Ill have it back to you first thing Friday morning.

They exchanged goodbyes, and Paul put down the phone.

THUNK!

When he heard that sound, he sagged, dispirited.

He was going to have to fix a shutter after all. And then drive into the city to pick up the new application. And then drive home. And by the time he did all of that, half the day would be shot, and he wouldnt have written a single word.

THUNK! THUNK!

Dammit, he said.

Thunk, thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk…

It definitely was going to be one of those days.

He went downstairs to the hall closet where he kept his raincoat and galoshes.

The windshield wipers flogged back and forth, back and forth, with a short, shrill squeak that made Carol grit her teeth. She hunched forward a bit, over the steering wheel, squinting through the streaming rain.

The streets glistened; the macadam was slick, greasy looking. Dirty water raced along the gutters and formed filthy pools around clogged drainage grids.

At ten minutes past nine, the morning rush hour was just over. Although the streets were still moderately busy, traffic was moving smoothly and swiftly. In fact everyone was driving too fast to suit Carol, and she hung back a little, watchful and cautious.

Two blocks from her office, her caution proved justified, but it still wasnt enough to avert disaster altogether. Without bothering to look for oncoming traffic, a young blond woman stepped out from between two vans, directly into the path of the VW Rabbit.

Christ! Carol said, ramming her foot down on the brake pedal so hard that she lifted herself up off the seat.

The blonde glanced up and froze, wide-eyed.

Although the VW was moving at only twenty miles an hour, there was no hope of stopping it in time. The brakes shrieked. The tires bitbut also skiddedon the wet pavement.

God, no! Carol thought with a sick, sinking feeling.

The car hit the blonde and lifted her off the ground, tossed her backwards onto the hood, and then the rear end of the VW began to slide around to the left, into the path of an oncoming Cadillac, and the Caddy swerved, brakes squealing, and the other driver hit his horn as if he thought a sufficient volume of sound might magically push Carol safely out of his way, and for an instant she was certain they would collide, but the Caddy slid past without scraping, missing her by only an inch or twoall of this in two or three or four secondsand at the same time the blonde rolled off the hood, toward the right side, the curb side, and the VW came to a full stop, sitting aslant the street, rocking on its springs as if it were a childs hobby horse.

None of the shutters was missing. Not one. None of them was loose and flapping in the wind, as Paul had thought.

Wearing galoshes and a raincoat with a hood, he walked all the way around the house, studying each set of shutters on the first and second floors, but he couldnt see anything amiss. The place showed no sign of storm damage.

Perplexed, he circled the house again, each step resulting in a squishing noise as the rain-saturated lawn gave like a sodden sponge beneath him. This time around, he looked for broken tree limbs that might be swinging against the walls when the wind gusted. The trees were all intact.

Shivering in the unseasonably chilly autumn air, he just stood on the lawn for a minute or two, cocking his head to the right and then to the left, listening for the pounding that had filled the house moments ago. He couldnt hear it now. The only sounds were the soughing wind, the rustling trees, and the rain driving into the grass with a soft, steady hiss.

At last, his face numbed by the cold wind and by the heat-leaching rain, he decided to halt his search until the pounding started again and gave him something to get a fix on. Meanwhile, he could drive downtown and pick up the application form at the adoption agency. He put one hand to his face, felt his beard stubble, remembered Alfred OBrians compulsive neatness, and figured he ought to shave before he went.

He reentered the house by way of the screened-in rear porch, leaving his dripping coat on a vinyl-upholstered glider and shedding his galoshes before going into the kitchen. Inside, he closed the door behind him and basked for a moment in the warm air.

THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!

The house shuddered as if it had received three extremely hard, rapid blows from the enormous fist of a giant. Above the kitchens central utility island, where a utensil rack was suspended from the ceiling, copper pots and pans swung on their hooks and clattered against one another.

THUNK!

The wall clock rattled on its hook; if it had been any less firmly attached than it was, it would have flung itself off the wall, onto the floor.

Paul moved toward the middle of the room, trying to ascertain the direction from which the pounding was coming.

THUNK! THUNK!

The oven door fell open.

The two dozen small jars nestled in the spice rack began to clink against one another.

What the hell is happening here? he wondered uneasily.

THUNK!

He turned slowly, listening, seeking.

The pots and pans clattered again, and a large ladle slipped from its hook and fell with a clang to the butcher-block work surface that lay under it.

Paul looked up at the ceiling, tracking the sound.

THUNK!

He expected to see the plaster crack, but it didnt.

Nevertheless, the source of the sound was definitely overhead.

Thunk, thunk-thunk, thunk…

The pounding suddenly grew quieter than it had been, but it didnt fade away altogether. At least the house stopped quivering, and the cooking utensils stopped banging together.

Paul headed for the stairs, determined to track down the cause of the disturbance.

The blonde was in the gutter, flat on her back, one arm out at her side with the palm up and the hand slack, the other arm draped across her belly. Her golden hair was muddy. A three-inch-deep stream of water surged around her, carrying leaves and grit and scraps of paper litter toward the nearest storm drain, and her long hair fanned out around her head and rippled silkily in those filthy currents.

Carol knelt beside the woman and was shocked to see that the victim wasnt actually a woman at all. She was a girl, no older than fourteen or fifteen. She was exceptionally pretty, with delicate features, and at the moment she was frighteningly pale.

She was also inadequately dressed for inclement weather. She wore white tennis shoes, jeans, and a blue and white checkered blouse. She had neither a raincoat nor an umbrella.

With trembling hands, Carol lifted the girls right arm and felt the wrist for a pulse. She found the beat at once; it was strong and steady.

Thank God, Carol said shakily. Thank God, thank God.

She began to examine the girl for bleeding. There did not seem to be any serious injuries, no major blood loss, just a few shallow cuts and abrasions. Unless, of course, the bleeding was internal.

The driver of the Cadillac, a tall man with a goatee, stepped around the end of the VW Rabbit and looked down at the injured girl. Is she dead?

No, Carol said. She gently thumbed back one of the girls eyelids, then the other. Just unconscious. Probably a mild concussion. Is anyone calling an ambulance?

I dont know, he said.

Then you call one. Quickly.

He hurried away, splashing through a puddle that was deeper than the tops of his shoes.

Carol pressed down on the girls chin; the jaw was slack, and the mouth fell open easily. There was no visible obstruction, no blood, nothing that might choke her, and her tongue was in a safe position.

A gray-haired woman in a transparent plastic raincoat, carrying a red and orange umbrella, appeared out of the rain. It wasnt your fault, she told Carol.

I saw it happen. I saw it all. The child darted out in front of you without looking. There wasnt a thing you could have done to prevent it.

I saw it, too, said a portly man who didnt quite fit under his black umbrella. I saw the kid walking down the street like she was in a trance or something. No coat, no umbrella. Eyes kind of blank. She stepped off the curb, between those two vans, and just stood there for a few seconds, like she was just waiting for someone to come along so she could step out and get herself killed. And by God, thats what happened.

Shes not dead, Carol said, unable to keep a tremor out of her voice. Theres a first-aid kit on the back seat of my car. Will one of you get it for me?

Sure, the portly man said, turning toward the vw.

The first-aid kit contained, among other things, a packet of tongue depressors, and Carol wanted to have those handy. Although the unconscious girl didnt appear to be headed for imminent convulsions, Carol intended to be prepared for the worst.

A crowd had begun to gather.

A siren sounded a couple of blocks away, approaching fast. It was probably the police; the ambulance couldnt have made it so fast.

Such a pretty child, the gray-haired woman said, staring down at the stricken girl.

Other onlookers murmured in agreement.

Carol stood up and stripped out of her raincoat.

There was no point in covering the girl, for she was already as wet as she could get. Instead, Carol folded the coat, knelt down again, and carefully slipped the makeshift pillow under the victim, elevating her head just a bit above the gushing water.

The girl didnt open her eyes or stir in any way whatsoever. A tangled strand of golden hair had fallen across her face, and Carol carefully pushed it aside for her. The girls skin was hot to the touch, fevered, in spite of the cold rain that bathed it.

Suddenly, while her fingers were still touching the girls cheek, Carol felt dizzy and was unable to get her breath. For a moment she thought she was going to pass out and collapse on top of the unconscious teenager. A black wave rose behind her eyes, and then in that darkness there was a brief flash of silver, a glint of light off a moving object, the mysterious thing from her nightmare.

She gritted her teeth, shook her head, and refused to be swept away in that dark wave. She pulled her hand away from the girls cheek, put it to her own face; the dizzy spell passed as abruptly as it had come. Until the ambulance arrived, she was responsible for the injured girl, and she was determined not to fail in that responsibility.

Huffing slightly, the portly man hurried back with the first-aid kit. Carol took one of the tongue depressors out of its crisp cellophane wrapperjust in case.

A police car rounded the corner and stopped behind the Volkswagen. Its revolving emergency beacons splashed red light across the wet pavement and appeared to transform the puddles of rainwater into pools of blood.

As the squad cars siren died with a growl, another, more distant siren became audible. To Carol, that warbling, high-pitched wail was the sweetest sound in the world.

The horror is almost over, she thought.

But then she looked at the girls chalk-white face, and her relief was clouded with doubt. Perhaps the horror wasnt over after all; perhaps it had only just begun.

Upstairs, Paul walked slowly from room to room, listening to the hammering sound.

Thunk… thunk…

The source was still overhead. In the attic. Or on the roof.

The attic stairs were behind a paneled door at the end of the second-floor hallway. They were narrow, unpainted, and they creaked as Paul climbed them.

Although the attic had full flooring, it was not otherwise a finished room. The construction of the walls was open for inspection; the pink fiber glass insulation, which somewhat resembled raw meat, and the regularly spaced supporting studs, like ribs of bone, were visible. Two naked, hundred-watt bulbs furnished light, and shadows coiled everywhere, especially toward the eaves. For all of its length and for half of its width, the attic was high enough to allow Paul to walk through it without stooping.

The patter of rain on the roof was more than just a patter up here. It was a steady hissing, a soft, all-encompassing roar.

Nevertheless, the other sound was audible above the drumming of the rain:

Thunk… thunk-thunk…

Paul moved slowly past stacks of cardboard cartons and other items that had been consigned to storage: a pair of large touring trunks; an old six-pronged coat rack; a tarnished brass floor lamp; two busted-out, cane-bottomed chairs that he intended to restore some day. A thin film of whitish dust draped shroudlike over all the contents of the room.

Thunk… thunk…

He walked the length of the attic, then slowly returned to the center of it and stopped. The source of the sound seemed to be directly in front of his face, only inches away. But there was nothing here that could possibly be the cause of the disturbance; nothing moved.

Thunk… thunk… thunk… thunk…

Although the hammering was softer now than it had been a few minutes ago, it was still solid and forceful; it reverberated through the frame of the house. The pounding had acquired a monotonously simple rhythm, too; each blow was separated from the ones before and after it by equal measures of time, resulting in a pattern not unlike the beating of a heart.

Paul stood in the attic, in the dust, smelling the musty odor common to all unused places, trying to get a fix on the sound, trying to understand how it could be coming out of thin air, and gradually his attitude toward the disturbance changed. He had been thinking of it as nothing more than the audible evidence of storm damage to the house, as nothing more than tedious and perhaps expensive repairs that might have to be made, an interruption in his writing schedule, an inconvenience, nothing more. But as he turned his head from side to side and squinted into every shadow, as he listened to the relentless thudding, he suddenly perceived that there was something ominous about the sound.

Thunk… thunk… thunk…

For reasons he could not define, the noise now seemed threatening, malevolent.

He felt colder in this sheltered place than he had felt outside in the wind and rain.

Carol wanted to ride to the hospital in the ambulance with the injured girl, but she knew she would only be in the way. Besides, the first police officer on the scene, a curly-headed young man named Tom Weatherby, needed to get a statement from her.

They sat in the front seat of the patrol car, which smelled like the peppermint lozenges on which Weatherby was sucking. The windows were made opaque by shimmering streams of rain. The police radio sputtered and crackled.

Weatherby frowned. Youre soaked to the skin. Ive got a blanket in the trunk. Ill get it for you.

No, no, she said. Ill be fine. Her green knit suit had become saturated. Her rain-drenched hair was pasted to her head and hung slackly to her shoulders.

At the moment, however, she didnt care about her appearance or about the goosebumps that prickled her skin. Lets just get this over with.

Well… if youre sure youre okay.

Im sure.

As he turned up the thermostat on the car heater, Weatherby said, By any chance, do you know the kid who stepped in front of your car?

Know her? No. Of course not.

She didnt have any ID on her. Did you notice if she was carrying a purse when she walked into the street?

I cant say for sure.

Try to remember.

I dont think she was.

Probably not, he said. After all, if she goes walking in a storm like this without a raincoat or an umbrella, why would she bother to take a purse? Well search the street anyway. Maybe she dropped it somewhere.

What happens if you cant find out who she is? How will you get in touch with her parents? I mean, she shouldnt be alone at a time like this.

No problem, Weatherby said. Shell tell us her name when she regains consciousness.

If she does.

Hey, she will. Theres no need to be concerned about that. She didnt seem seriously injured.

Carol worried about it nonetheless.

For the next ten minutes, Weatherby asked questions, and she answered them. When he finished filling out the accident report, she quickly read over it, then signed at the bottom.

Youre in the clear, Weatherby said. You were driving under the speed limit, and three witnesses say the girl stepped out of a blind spot right in front of you, without bothering to look for traffic. It wasnt your fault.

I should have been more careful.

I dont see what else you could have done.

Something. Surely I could have done something, she said miserably.

He shook his head. No. Listen, Dr. Tracy, Ive seen this sort of thing happen before. Theres an accident, and somebodys hurt, and nobodys really to blameyet one of the people involved has a misplaced sense of responsibility and insists on feeling guilty. And in this case, if there is anybody to blame, its the kid herself, not you. According to the witnesses, she was behaving strangely just before you turned the corner, almost as if she intended to get herself run down.

But why would such a pretty girl want to throw herself in front of a car?

Weatherby shrugged. You told me you were a psychiatrist. You specialize in children and teenagers, right? So you must know all the answers better than I do. Why would she want to kill herself? Could be trouble at homea father who drinks too much and makes heavy passes at his own little girl, a mother who doesnt want to hear about it. Or maybe the kid was just jilted by her boyfriend and thinks the world is coming to an end. Or just discovered she was pregnant and decided she couldnt face her folks with the news. There must be hundreds of reasons, and Im sure youve heard most of them in your line of work.

What he said was true, but it didnt make Carol feel better.

If only Id been driving slower, she thought. If only Id been quicker to react, maybe that poor girl wouldnt be in the hospital now.

She might have been on drugs, too, Weatherby said. Too damned many kids fool around with dope these days. I swear, some of they'll swallow any pill theyre given. If it isnt something that can be swallowed, theyll sniff it or stick it in a vein. This kid you hit might have been so high she didnt even know where she was when she stepped in front of your car. Now, if thats the case, are you going to tell me its still somehow your fault?

Carol leaned back in the seat, closed her eyes, and let her breath out with a shudder. God, I dont know what to tell you. All I know is… I feel wrung out.

Thats perfectly natural, after what youve just been through. But it isnt natural to feel guilty about this. It wasnt your fault, so dont dwell on it. Put it behind you and get on with your life.

She opened her eyes, looked at him, and smiled. You know, Officer Weatherby, I have a hunch youd make a pretty good psychotherapist.

He grinned. Or a terrific bartender.

Carol laughed.

Feeling better? he asked.

A little bit.

Promise me you wont lose any sleep over this.

Ill try not to, she said. But Im still concerned about the girl. Do you know which hospital theyve taken her to?

I can find out, he said.

Would you do that for me? Id like to go talk to the doctor whos handling her case. If he tells me shes going to be all right, Ill find it a whole lot easier to take your advice about getting on with my life.

Weatherby picked up the microphone and asked the police dispatcher to find out where the injured girl had been taken.

The television antenna!

Standing in the attic, staring up at the roof above his head, Paul laughed out loud when he realized what was causing the pounding noise. The sound wasnt coming out of the empty air in front of his face, which was what he had thought for one unsettling moment. It was coming from the roof, where the television antenna was anchored. They had subscribed to cable TV a year ago, but they hadnt removed the old antenna. It was a large, directional, remote-control model affixed to a heavy brace-plate; the plate was bolted through the shingles and attached directly to a roof beam. Apparently, a nut or some other fastener had loosened slightly, and the wind was tugging at the antenna, rocking the brace-plate up and down on one of its bolts, slamming it repeatedly against the roof. The solution to the big mystery was amusingly mundane.

Or was it?

Thunk… thunk… thunk…

The sound was softer now than ever before, barely audible above the roar of the rain on the roof, and it was easy to believe that the antenna could be the cause of it. Gradually, however, as Paul considered this answer to the puzzle, he began to doubt if it was the correct answer. He thought about how loud and violent the pounding had been a few minutes ago when he had been in the kitchen: the entire house quivering, the oven door falling open, bottles rattling in the spice rack. Could a loose antenna really generate so much noise and vibration?

Thunk… thunk…

As he stared up at the ceiling, he tried to make himself believe unequivocally in the antenna theory. If it was striking a roof beam in precisely the right way, at a very special angle, so that the impact was transmitted through the entire frame of the house, perhaps a loose antenna could cause the pots and pans to clatter against one another in the kitchen and could make it seem as if the ceilings were about to crack. After all, if you set up exactly the right vibrations in a steel suspension bridge, you could bring it to ruin in less than a minute, regardless of the number of bolts and welds and cables holding it together. And although Paul didnt believe there was even a remote danger of a loose antenna causing that kind of apocalyptic destruction to a wood-frame house, he knew that moderate force, applied with calculation and pinpoint accuracy, could have an effect quite out of proportion to the amount of energy expended. Besides, the TV antenna had to be the root of the disturbance, for it was the only explanation he had left.

The hammering noise became even softer and then faded altogether. He waited for a minute or two, but the only sound was the rain on the shingles overhead.

The wind must have changed direction. In time it would change back again, and the antenna would begin to rock on its brace-plate, and the pounding would start once more.

As soon as the storm was over, he would have to get the extension ladder out of the garage, go up onto the roof, and dismantle the antenna. He should have taken care of that chore shortly after they had subscribed to the cable television service. Now, because he had delayed, he was going to lose precious writing timeand at one of the most difficult and crucial points in his manuscript. That prospect frustrated him and made him nervous.

He decided to shave, drive downtown, and pick up the new set of application papers at the adoption agency. The storm might pass by the time he got home again. If it did, if he could be on the roof by eleven-thirty, he ought to be able to tear down the antenna, then have a bite of lunch, and work on his book all afternoon, barring further interruptions. But he suspected there would be further interruptions. He had already resigned himself to the fact that it was one of those days.

As he left the attic and turned out the lights, the house quivered under another blow.

THUNK!

Just one this time.

Then all was quiet again.

The visitors lounge at the hospital looked like an explosion in a clowns wardrobe. The walls were canary yellow; the chairs were bright red; the carpet was orange; the magazine racks and end tables were made of heavy purple plastic; and the two large abstract paintings were done primarily in shades of blue and green.

The loungeobviously the work of a designer who had read too much about the various psychological mood theories of colorwas supposed to be positive, life-affirming. It was supposed to lift the spirits of visitors and take their minds off sick friends and dying relatives. In Carol, however, the determinedly cheery decor elicited the opposite reaction from that which the designer had intended, It was a frenetic room; it abraded the nerves as effectively as coarse sandpaper would abrade a stick of butter.

She sat on one of the red chairs, waiting for the doctor who had treated the injured girl. When he came, his stark white lab coat contrasted so boldly with the flashy decor that he appeared to radiate a saintlike aura.

Carol rose to meet him, and he asked if she was Mrs. Tracy, and he said his name was Sam Hannaport. He was tall, very husky, square-faced, florid, in his early fifties. He looked as if he would be loud and gruff, perhaps even obnoxious, but in fact he was soft-spoken and seemed genuinely concerned about how the accident had affected Carol both physically and emotionally. It took her a couple of minutes to assure him that she was all right on both counts, and then they sat down on facing red chairs.

Hannaport raised his bushy eyebrows and said, You look as if you could use a hot bath and a big glassful of warm brandy.

I was soaked to the skin, she said, but Im pretty well dried out now. What about the girl?

Cuts, contusions, abrasions, he said.

Internal bleeding?

Nothing showed up on the tests.

Fractures?

Not a broken bone in her body. She came through it amazingly well. You couldnt have been driving very fast when you hit her.

I wasnt. But considering the way she slipped up onto the hood and then rolled off into the gutter, I thought maybe… Carol shuddered, unwilling to put words to what she had thought.

Well, the kids in good condition now. She regained consciousness in the ambulance, and she was alert by the time I saw her.

Thank God.

Theres no indication that shes even mildly concussed. I dont foresee any lasting effects.

Relieved, Carol sagged back in the red chair. Id like to see her, talk to her.

Shes resting now, Dr. Hannaport said. I dont want her disturbed at the moment. But if youd like to come back this evening, during visiting hours, shell be able to see you then.

Ill do that. Ill definitely do that. She blinked.

Good heavens, I havent even asked you what her name is.

His bushy eyebrows rose again. Well, weve got a small problem about that.

Problem? Carol tensed up again. What do you mean? Cant she remember her name?

She hasnt remembered it yet, but

Oh, God.

she will.

You said no concussion

I swear to you, it isnt serious, Hannaport said. He took her left hand in his big hard hands and held it as if it might crack and crumble at any moment.

Please dont excite yourself about this. The girl is going to be fine. Her inability to remember her name isnt a symptom of severe concussion or any serious brain injury; not in her case, anyway. She isnt confused or disoriented. Her field of vision is normal, and she has excellent depth perception. We tested her thought processes with some math problemsaddition, subtraction, multiplicationand she got them all correct. She can spell any word you throw at her; shes a damn good speller, that one. So shes not severely concussed. Shes simply suffering from mild amnesia. Its selective amnesia, you understand, just a loss of personal memories, not a loss of skills and education and whole blocks of social concepts. She hasnt forgotten how to read and write, thank God; shes only forgotten who she is, where she came from, and how she got to this place. Which sounds more serious than it really is. Of course, shes disconcerted and apprehensive. But selective amnesia is the easiest kind to recover from.

I know, Carol said. But somehow that doesnt make me feel a whole hell of a lot better.

Hannaport squeezed her hand firmly and gently.

This kind of amnesia is only very, very rarely permanent or even long-lasting. Shell most likely remember who she is before dinnertime.

If she doesnt?

Then the police will find out who she is, and the minute she hears her name, the mists will clear.

She wasnt carrying any ID.

I know, he said. Ive talked to the police.

So what happens if they cant find out who she is?

They will. He patted her hand one last time, then let go.

I dont see how you can be so sure.

Her parents will file a missing-persons report. Theyll have a photograph of her. When the police see the photograph, theyll make a connection. Itll be as simple as that.

She frowned. What if her parents dont report her missing?

Why wouldnt they?

Well, what if shes a runaway from out of state? Even if her folks did file a missing-persons report back in her hometown, the police here wouldnt necessarily be aware of it.

The last time I looked, runaway kids favored New York City, California, Floridajust about any place besides Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Theres always an exception to any rule.

Hannaport laughed softly and shook his head. If pessimism were a competitive sport, youd win the world series.

She blinked in surprise, then smiled. Im sorry. I guess I am being excessively gloomy.

Glancing at his watch, getting up from his chair, he said, Yes, I think you are. Especially considering how well the girl came through it all. It could have been a lot worse.

Carol got to her feet, too. In a rush, the words falling over one another, she said, I guess maybe the reason it bothers me so much is because I deal with disturbed children every day, and its my job to help them get well again, and thats all I ever wanted to do since I was in high schoolwork with sick kids, be a healerbut now Im responsible for all the pain this poor girl is going through.

You mustnt feel that way. You didnt intend to harm her.

Carol nodded. I know Im not being entirely rational about the situation, but I cant help feeling the way I feel.

I have some patients to see, Hannaport said, glancing at his watch again. But let me leave you with one thought that might help you handle this.

Id like to hear it.

The girl suffered only minor physical injuries. I wont say they were negligible injuries, but they were damned close to it. So youve got nothing to feel guilty about on that score. As for her amnesia… well, maybe the accident had nothing to do with it.

Nothing to do with it? But I assumed that when she hit her head on the car or on the pavement

Im sure you know a blow on the head isnt the only cause of amnesia, Dr. Hannaport said. Its not even the most common factor in such cases. Stress, emotional shockthey can result in loss of memory. In fact we dont yet understand the human mind well enough to say for sure exactly what causes most cases of amnesia. As far as this girl is concerned, everything points to the conclusion that she was in her current state even before she stepped in front of your car.

He emphasized each argument in favor of his theory by raising fingers on his right hand. One: She wasnt carrying any ID, Two: She was wandering around in the pouring rain without a coat or an umbrella, as if she was in a daze. Three: From what I understand, the witnesses say she was acting very strange before you ever came on the scene. He waggled his three raised fingers. Three very good reasons why you shouldnt be so eager to blame yourself for the kids condition.

Maybe youre right, but I still

I am right, he said. Theres no maybe about it. Give yourself a break, Dr. Tracy.

A woman with a sharp, nasal voice paged Dr. Hannaport on the hospitals tinny public address system.

Thank you for your time, Carol said. Youve been more than kind.

Come back this evening and talk to the girl if you want. Im sure youll find she doesnt blame you one bit.

He turned and hurried across the gaudy lounge, in answer to the pages call; the tails of his white lab coat fluttered behind him.

Carol went to the pay phones and called her office. She explained the situation to her secretary, Thelma, and arranged for the rescheduling of the patients she had intended to see today. Then she dialed home, and Paul answered on the third ring.

You just caught me as I was going out the door, he said. Ive got to drive down to OBrians office and pick up a new set of application papers. Ours were lost in the mess yesterday. So far, this has been a day I should have slept through.

Ditto on this end, she said.

Whats wrong?

She told him about the accident and briefly summarized her conversation with Dr. Hannaport.

It could have been worse, Paul said. At least we can be thankful no one was killed or crippled.

Thats what everyone keeps telling me: It could have been worse, Carol. But it seems plenty bad enough to me.

Are you all right?

Yeah. I told you. I wasnt even scratched.

I dont mean physically. I mean, are you together emotionally? You sound shaky.

I am. Just a little.

Ill come to the hospital, he said.

No, no. Thats not necessary.

Are you sure you should drive?

I drove here after the accident without trouble, and Im feeling better now than I did then. Ill be okay. What Im going to do is, Im going over to Graces house. Shes only a mile from here; its easier than going home. I have to sponge off my clothes, dry them out, and press them. I need a shower, too. Ill probably have an early dinner with Grace, if thats all right by her, and then Ill come back here during visiting hours this evening.

When will you be home?

Probably not until eight or eight-thirty.

Ill miss you.

Miss you, too.

Give my best to Grace, he said. And tell her I think she is the next Nostradamus.

Whats that supposed to mean?

Grace called a while ago. Said she had two nightmares recently, and you figured in both. She was afraid something was going to happen to you.

Seriously?

Yeah. She was embarrassed about it. Afraid Id think she was getting senile or something.

You told her about the lightning yesterday?

Yeah. But she felt something else would happen, something bad.

And it did.

Creepy, huh?

Decidedly, Carol said. She remembered her own nightmare: the black void; the flashing, silvery object drawing nearer, nearer.

Im sure Gracell tell you all about it, Paul said. And Ill see you this evening.

I love you, Carol said.

Love you, too.

She put down the phone and went outside to the parking lot.

Gray-black thunderheads churned across the sky, but only a thin rain was falling now. The wind was still cold and sharp; it sang in the power lines overhead, sounding like a swarm of angry wasps.

The semiprivate room had two beds, but the second one was not currently in use. At the moment, no nurse was present either. The girl was alone.

She lay under a crisp white sheet and a creamcolored blanket, staring at the acoustic-tile ceiling. She had a headache, and she could feel each dully throbbing, burning cut and abrasion on her battered body, but she knew she was not seriously hurt.

Fear, not pain, was her worst enemy. She was frightened by her inability to remember who she was. On the other hand, she was plagued by the inexplicable yet unshakable feeling that it would be foolish and exceedingly dangerous to remember her past. Without knowing why, she suspected that full remembrance would be the death of heran odd notion that she found more frightening than anything else.

She knew her amnesia wasnt the result of the accident. She had a misty recollection of walking along the street in the rain a minute or two before she had blundered in front of the Volkswagen. Even then, she had been disoriented, afraid, unable to remember her name, utterly unfamiliar with the strange city in which she found herself and unable to recall how she had gotten there. The thread of her memory definitely had begun unraveling prior to the accident.

She wondered if it was possible that her amnesia was like a shield, protecting her from something horrible in the past. Did forgetfulness somehow equal safety?

Why? Safety from what?

What could I be running from? she asked herself.

She sensed that recovery of her identity was possible. In fact her memories seemed almost within her grasp. She felt as though the past lay at the bottom of a dark hole, close enough to touch; all she had to do was summon sufficient strength and courage to poke her hand into that lightless place and grope for the truth, without fear of what might bite her.

However, when she tried hard to remember, when she probed into that hole, her fear grew and grew until it was no longer just ordinary fear; it became incapacitating terror. Her stomach knotted, and her throat swelled tight, and she broke out in a greasy sweat, and she became so dizzy that she nearly fainted.

On the edge of unconsciousness, she saw and heard something disturbing, alarminga fuzzy fragment of a dream, a visionwhich she couldnt quite identify but which frightened her nonetheless. The vision was composed of a single sound and a single, mysterious image. The image was hypnotic but simple: a quick flash of light, a silvery glimmer from a not-quite-visible object that was swinging back and forth in deep shadows; a gleaming pendulum, perhaps. The sound was hard-edged and threatening but not identifiable, a loud hammering noise, yet more than that.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

She jerked, quivered, as if something had struck her.

Thunk!

She wanted to scream, couldnt.

She realized that her hands were fisted and that they were full of twisted, sweat-soaked sheets.

Thunk!

She stopped trying to remember who she was.

Maybe its better that I dont know, she thought.

Her heartbeat gradually slowed to normal, and she was able to draw her breath without wheezing. Her stomach unknotted.

The hammering sound faded.

After a while she looked at the window. A flock of large, black birds reeled across the turbulent sky.

Whats going to happen to me? she wondered.

Even when the nurse came in to see how she was doing, and even when the doctor joined the nurse a moment later, the girl felt utterly, dishearteningly alone.

5

GRACES kitchen smelled of coffee and warm spice cake. Rain washed down the window, obscuring the view of the rose garden that lay behind the house.

Ive never believed in clairvoyance or premonitions.

Neither have I, Grace said. But now I wonder. After all, I have two nightmares about you getting hurt, and the next thing I hear is that youve had two close calls, just as if you were acting out a script or something.

They sat at the small table by the kitchen window. Carol was wearing one of Graces robes and a pair of Graces slippers while her own clothes finished drying out.

Only one close call, she told Grace. The lightning. That was a gut-wrencher, all right. But I wasnt really in any danger this morning. That poor girl was the one who nearly got killed.

Grace shook her head. No. It was a close call for you, too. Didnt you tell me you slid toward the oncoming traffic when you braked to avoid the girl? And didnt you say the Cadillac missed you by an inch or less? Well, what if it hadnt missed? If that Caddy had rammed your little VW, you certainly wouldnt have walked away without a scratch.

Frowning, Carol said, I hadnt looked at it that way.

Youve been so busy worrying about the girl that you havent had a chance to think about yourself.

Carol ate a bite of spice cake and washed it down with coffee. Youre not the only one having nightmares. She summarized her own dream: the severed heads, the houses that dissolved behind her as she passed through them, the flickering, silvery object.

Grace clasped her hands around her coffee cup and hunched over the table. There was worry in her blue eyes. Thats one nasty dream. What do you make of it?

Oh, I dont think its prophetic.

Why couldnt it be? Mine appear to have been.

Yes, butit doesnt follow that both of us are turning into soothsayers. Besides, my dream didnt make a whole lot of sense. It was just too wild to be taken seriously. I mean, severed heads that suddenly come to lifethat sort of thing isnt really going to happen.

It could be prophetic without being literally prophetic. I mean, it might be a symbolic warning.

Of what?

I dont see any easy interpretation of it. But I really think you ought to be extra careful for a while. God, I know Im starting to sound like a phony gypsy fortune-teller, like Maria Ouspenskya in all those old monster movies from the thirties, but I still dont think you should dismiss it as just an ordinary dream. Especially not after whats already happened.

Later, after lunch, as Grace squirted some liquid soap into the sinkful of dirty dishes, she said, Hows the situation with the adoption agency? Does it look like theyll give you and Paul a child soon?

Carol hesitated.

Grace glanced at her. Something wrong?

Taking the dish towel from the rack and unfolding it, Carol said, No. Not really. OBrian says well be approved. Its a sure thing, he says.

But youre still worried about it.

A little, Carol admitted.

Why?

Im not sure. Its just that… Ive had this feeling…

What feeling?

That it wont work out.

Why shouldnt it?

I cant shake the idea that somebodys trying to stop us from adopting.

Who?

Carol shrugged.

OBrian? Grace asked.

No, no. Hes on our side.

Someone on the recommendations committee?

I dont know. I dont actually have any evidence of ill will toward Paul and me. I cant point my finger at anyone.

Grace washed some silverware, put it in the drainage rack, and said, Youve wanted to adopt for so long that you cant believe its finally happening, so youre looking for boogeymen where there arent any.

Maybe.

Youre just spooked because of the lightning yesterday and the accident this morning.

Maybe.

Thats understandable. It spooks me, too. But the adoption will go through as smooth as can be.

I hope so, Carol said. But she thought about the lost set of application forms, and she wondered.

By the time Paul got back from the adoption agency, the rain had stopped, though the wind was still cold and damp.

He got the ladder out of the garage and climbed onto the least slanted portion of the many-angled roof. The wet shingles squeaked under his feet as be moved cautiously across the slope toward the television antenna, which was anchored near a brick chimney.

His legs were rubbery. He suffered from a mild case of acrophobia, a fear that had never become incapacitating because he occasionally forced himself to challenge and overcome it, as he was doing now.

When he reached the chimney, he put a hand against it for support and looked out across the roofs of the neighboring homes. The storm-dark September sky had settled lower, lower, until it appeared to be only six or eight feet above the tallest houses. He felt as if he could raise his arm and rap his knuckles on the bellies of the clouds, eliciting a hard, ironlike clank.

He crouched with his back to the chimney and inspected the TV antenna. The brace-plate was held down by four bolts that went through the shingles, either directly into a roof beam or into a stud linking two beams. None of the bolts was missing. None of them was loose. The plate was firmly attached to the house, and the antenna was anchored securely to the plate. The antenna could not possibly have been responsible for the hammering sound that had shaken the house.

After washing the dishes, Grace and Carol went into the study. The room reeked of cat urine and feces. Aristophanes had made his toilet on the seat of the big easy chair.

Stunned, Grace said, I dont believe it. Ari always uses the litter box like hes supposed to do. Hes never done anything like this before.

Hes always been a fussy cat, hasnt he? Fastidious.

Exactly. But now look what hes done. That chairll have to be reupholstered. I guess Id better find the silly beast, put his nose to this mess, and give him a good scolding. I dont want this to become a habit, for Gods sake.

They looked in every room, but they couldnt find Aristophanes. Apparently, he had slipped out of the house by way of the pet door in the kitchen.

Returning to the study with Grace, Carol said, Earlier, you mentioned something about Ari tearing up a few things.

Grace winced. Yes. I didnt want to have to tell youbut he shredded two of those lovely little needlepoint pillows you made for me. I was sick about it. After all the work you put into those, and then he Just,

Dont worry about it, Carol said. Ill make you a couple of new pillows. I enjoy doing it. Needlepoint relaxes me. I only asked because I thought maybe, if Aris been doing a lot of things thatre out of character, it might be a sign that he isnt well.

Grace frowned. He looks healthy. His coats glossy, and hes certainly as spry as ever.

Animals are like people in some ways. And when a person suddenly starts behaving strangely, that can be an indication of a physical malady, anything from a brain tumor to an inbalanced diet.

I suppose I ought to take him to the vet.

Carol said, While theres a break in the rain, why dont we go outside and see if we can find him?

Wasted effort. When a cat doesnt want to be found, it wont be found. Besides, hell come back by dinnertime: Ill keep him in all night, and take him to the vets in the morning. Grace looked at the mess on the easy chair, grimaced, and shook her head. This isnt like my Ari, she said worriedly. Its just not like him at all.

The number on the open door was 316.

Hesitantly, Carol stepped into the white and blue hospital room and stopped just past the threshold. The place smelled vaguely of Lysol.

The girl was sitting up in the bed nearest the window, her face averted from the door, staring out at the twilight-shrouded hospital grounds. She turned her head when she realized she was no longer alone, and when she looked at Carol there was no recognition in her blue-gray eyes.

May I come in? Carol asked.

Sure.

Carol went to the foot of the bed. How are you feeling?

Okay.

With all the scrapes and cuts and bruises, it must be hard to get comfortable.

Gee, Im not banged up all that bad. Im just a little sore. Its nothing thats going to kill me. Everyone's so nice; youre all making too much of a fuss about me.

Hows your head feel?

I had a headache when I first came to, but its been gone for hours.

Double vision?

Nothing like that, the girl said. A strand of golden hair slipped from behind her ear and fell across her cheek; she tucked it back in place. Are you a doctor?

Yes, Carol said. My names Carol Tracy.

You can call me Jane. Thats the name on my chart. Jane Doe. I guess its as good as any. It might even turn out to be a lot nicer than my real name. Maybe Im actually Zelda or Myrtle or something like that. She had a lovely smile. Youre the umpteenth doctor whos been in to see me. How many do I have, anyway?

Im not one of yours, Carol said. Im here because… well… it was my car you stepped in front of.

Oh. Hey, gee, Im awfully sorry. I hope there wasnt a lot of damage.

Surprised by the girls statement and by the genuine look of concern on her face, Carol laughed. For heavens sake, honey, dont worry about my car. its your health thats important, not the VW. And Im the one who should be apologizing. I feel terrible about this.

You shouldnt, the girl said. I still have all my teeth, and none of my bones are broken, and Dr. Hannaport says the boys will still be interested in me. She grinned self-consciously.

Hes certainly right about the boys, Carol said. Youre a very pretty girl.

The grin became a shy smile, and the girl looked down at the covers on her lap, blushing.

Carol said, I was hoping Id find you here with your folks.

The girl tried to maintain a cheerful facade, but when she looked up, fear and doubt showed through the mask. I guess they havent filed a missing-persons report yet. But its only a matter of time.

Have you remembered anything at all about your past?

Not yet. But I will. She straightened the collar of her hospital gown and smoothed the covers over her lap as she talked. Dr. Hannaport says everythingll probably come back to me if I just dont push too hard at remembering. He says Im lucky I dont have global amnesia. Thats when you even forget how to read and write. Im not that bad off! Heck, no. Boy, wouldnt that be something? What if I had to learn to read, write, add, subtract, multiply, divide, and spell all over again? What a bore! She finished smoothing her covers and looked up again. Anyway, Ill most likely have my memory back in a day or two.

Im sure you will, Carol said, though she wasnt sure at all. Is there anything you need?

No. They supply everything. Even tiny tubes of toothpaste.

What about books, magazines?

The girl sighed. I was bored out of my skull this afternoon. You think they might keep a pile of old magazines for the patients?

Probably. What do you like to read?

Everything. I love to read; I remember that much. But I cant remember the titles of any books or magazines. This amnesia sure is funny, isnt it?

Hilarious, Carol said. Sit tight. Ill be right back.

At the nurses station at the end of the hall, she explained who she was and arranged to rent a small television set for Jane Does room. An orderly promised to hook it up right away.

The chief RN on dutya stocky, gray-haired woman who wore her glasses on a chain around her necksaid, Shes such a sweet girl. Shes charmed everyone. Hasnt complained or uttered a cross word to a soul. There arent many teenagers with her composure.

Carol took the elevator down to the ground-floor lobby and went to the newsstand. She bought a Hershey bar, an Almond Joy, and six magazines that looked as if they would appeal to a young girl. By the time she got back to room 316, the orderly had just finished installing the TV.

You shouldnt have done all this, the girl said.

When my parents show up, Ill make sure they pay you back.

I wont accept a dime, Carol said.

But

No buts.

I dont need to be pampered. Im fine. Really. If you

Im not pampering you, honey. Just think of the magazines and the television as forms of therapy. In fact, they might be precisely the tools you need to break through this amnesia.

What do you mean?

Well, if you watch enough television, you might see a show you remember seeing before. That might spark a sort of chain reaction of memories.

You think so?

Its better than just sitting and staring at the walls or out the window. Nothing in this place is going to spark a memory because none of it is related to your past. But theres a chance the TV will do the trick.

The girl picked up the remote-control device that the orderly had given her, and she switched on the television set. A popular situation comedy was on.

Familiar? Carol asked.

The girl shook her head: no. Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes.

Hey, dont get upset, Carol said. It would be amazing if you remembered the first thing you saw. Its bound to take time.

She nodded and bit her lip, trying not to cry.

Carol moved close, took the girls hand; it was cool.

Will you come back tomorrow? Jane asked shakily.

Of course I will.

I mean, if its not out of your way.

Its no trouble at all.

Sometimes…

What?

The girl shuddered. Sometimes Im so afraid.

Dont be afraid, honey. Please dont. Itll all work out. Youll see. Youre going to be back on the track in no time, Carol said, wishing she could think of something more reassuring than those few hollow platitudes. But she knew her inadequate response was occasioned by her own nagging doubts.

The girl pulled a tissue out of the Kleenex dispenser that was built into the side of the tall metal nightstand. She blew her nose, used another tissue to daub at her eyes. She had slumped down in the bed; now she sat up straight, lifted her chin, squared her slender shoulders, and readjusted her covers. When she looked up at Carol, she was smiling again. Sorry, she said. I dont know what got into me. Being a crybaby isnt going to solve anything. Anyway, youre right. My folks will probably show up tomorrow, and everythingll work out for the best. Look, Dr. Tracy, if you come to see me tomorrow

I will .

If you do, promise not to bring me any more candy or magazines or anything. Okay? Theres no reason for you to spend your money like that. Youve already done too much for me. Besides, the best thing you could do is just come. I mean, its nice to know someone outside the hospital cares about me. Its nice to know I havent been lost or forgotten in here. Oh, sure, the nurses and the doctors are swell. They really are, and Im grateful. They care about me, but its sort of their job to care. You know? So thats not exactly the same thing, is it? She laughed nervously. Am I making sense?

I know exactly what youre feeling, Carol assured her. She was achingly aware of the girls profound loneliness, for she had been lonely and frightened when she was the same age, before Grace Mitowski had taken custody of her and had given her large measures of guidance and love.

She stayed with Jane until visiting hours were over. Before she left, she planted a motherly kiss on the girls forehead, and it seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do. A bond had formed between them in a surprisingly short time.

Outside, in the hospital parking lot, the sodium-vapor lights leached the true colors from the cars and made them all look yellowish.

The night was chilly. No rain had fallen during the afternoon or evening, but the air was heavy, damp. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a new storm appeared to be on the way.

She sat for a moment behind the wheel of the VW, staring up at the third-floor window of the girls room.

What a terrific kid, she said aloud.

She felt that someone quite special had come unexpectedly into her life.

Near midnight, a river-cold wind came out of the west and made the trees dance. The starless, moonless, utterly lightless night pressed close around the house and seemed to Grace to be a living thing; it snuffled at the doors and windows.

Rain began to fall.

She went to bed as the hall clock was striking twelve, and twenty minutes later she began to drift over the edge of sleep as if she were a leaf borne by cool currents toward a great waterfall. On the brink, with only darkness churning under her, she heard movement in the bedroom and instantly came awake again.

A series of stealthy sounds. A soft scrape. A rattle that died even as it began. A silken rustle.

She sat up, heart quickening, and opened the nightstand drawer. With one hand she felt blindly for the .22 pistol she kept in the drawer, and with the other hand she groped silently for the lamp switch. She touched the gun and lamp at the same moment.

With light, the source of the noise was clearly visible. Ari was crouched atop the highboy, staring down at her, as if he had been about to spring onto the bed.

What are you doing in here? You know the rules.

He blinked but didnt move. His muscles were bunched and taut; his fur was standing up on the back of his neck.

For sanitary reasons, she would allow him to climb neither onto the kitchen counters nor into her bed; generally, she kept the master bedroom door firmly shut, day and night, rather than tempt him. Already, housecleaning required extra hours each week because of him, for she was determined that the air should not contain even the slightest trace of cat odor; likewise, she was not about to subject her visitors to furniture covered with loose animal hairs. She loved Ari, and she thought him fine company, and for the most part she gave him the run of the house in spite of the extra work he caused her. But she was not prepared to live with cat hairs in her food or in her sheets.

She got out of bed, stepped into her slippers.

Ari watched.

Come down from there this instant, Grace said, looking up at him with her sternest expression.

His shining eyes were gas-flame blue.

Grace went to the bedroom door, opened it, stepped out of the way, and said, Shoo.

The cats muscles relaxed. He slumped in a furry puddle atop the highboy, as if his bones had melted. He yawned and began to lick one of his black paws.

Hey! she said.

Aristophanes raised his head languidly, peered down at her.

Out, she said gruffly. Now.

When he still didnt move, she started toward the highboy, and he was at last encouraged to obey. He jumped down and darted past her so fast she didnt have time to swat him. He went into the hall, and she closed the door.

In bed again, with the lights out, she remembered the way he had looked as he perched atop the highboy: facing her, aimed at her, shoulders drawn up, head held low, haunches tense, his fur electrified, his eyes bright and slightly demented. He had intended to jump onto the bed and scare the bejesus out of her; there was no doubt about that. But such schemes were a kittens games; Ari had not been playful in that fashion for the past three or four years, ever since he had attained a rather indolent maturity. What on earth had gotten into him?

That settles it, she told herself. Well pay a visit to the veterinarian first thing in the morning. Good Lord, I might have a schizophrenic cat on my hands!

Seeking rest, she let the night embrace her again. She allowed herself to be carried along by the riverlike sound of the soughing wind. Within a few minutes she was once more being borne toward the waterfall of sleep. She trembled on the edge of it, and a quiver of uneasiness passed through her, a chill that nearly broke the spell, but then she dropped down into darkness.

She dreamed that she was trekking across a vast underwater landscape of brilliantly colored coral and seaweed and strange, undulating plants. A cat lurked among the plants, a big one, much bigger than a tiger, but with the coloring of a Siamese. It was stalking her. She could see its saucer eyes peering at her through the murky sea, from among wavering stalks of marine vegetation. She could hear and feel its low purr transmitted by the water. She paused repeatedly during her suboceanic trek so that she could fill a series of yellow bowls with generous portions of Meow Mix in the hope of pacifying the cat, but she knew in her heart that the beast would not be content until it had sunk its claws into her. She moved steadily past towers of coral, past grottoes, across wide aquatic plains of shifting sand, waiting for the cat to snarl and lunge from concealment, waiting for it to rip open her face and gouge out her eyes.

Once, she woke and thought she heard Aristophanes scratching insistently on the other side of the closed bedroom door. But she was groggy and couldnt trust her senses; she wasnt able to wrench herself fully awake, and in a few seconds she sank down into the dream once more.

At one oclock in the morning, the third floor of the hospital was so quiet that Harriet Gilbey, the head nurse on the graveyard shift, felt as though she was deep underground, in some kind of military complex, tucked into the stony roots of a mountain, far from the real world and the background noises of real life. The only sounds were the whisper of the heating system and the occasional squeak of the nurses rubber-soled shoes on the highly polished tile floors.

Harrieta small, pretty, neatly uniformed black womanwas at the nurses station, around the corner from the bank of elevators, entering data on patients charts, when the tranquility of the third floor was abruptly shattered by a piercing scream. She moved out from behind the reception desk and hurried along the hall, following the shrill cry. It came from room 316. When Harriet pushed open the door, stepped into the room, and snapped on the overhead lights, the screaming stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

The girl they called Jane Doe was in bed, flat on her back, one arm raised and angled across her face as if she were warding off a blow, the other hand hooked on to one of the safety rails. She had kicked the sheets and the blanket into a tangled wad at the foot of the bed, and her hospital gown was nicked up over her hips. She tossed her head violently from side to side, gasping, pleading with an imaginary assailant:

No… no… no. Dont! Please dont kill me! No! With gentle hands, a gentle voice, and patient insistence, Harriet tried to quiet the girl. At first Jane resisted all ministrations. She had been given a sedative earlier. Now she was having trouble waking up. Gradually, however, she shook off the nightmare and calmed down.

Another nurse, Kay Hamilton, appeared at Harriets side. What happened? Mustve woke up half the floor.

Just a bad dream, Harriet said.

Jane blinked sleepily at them. She was trying to kill me.

Hush now, Harriet said. It was only a dream. No one here will hurt you.

A dream? Jane asked, her voice slurred. Oh. Yeah. Just a dream. Whew! What a dream.

The girls thin white gown and the tangled sheets were damp with perspiration. Harriet and Kay replaced them with fresh linens.

As soon as the bed had been changed, Jane succumbed to the lingering tug of the sedative. She turned onto her side and murmured happily in her sleep; she even smiled.

Looks like she switched to a better channel, Harriet said.

Poor kid. After what shes been through, the least she deserves is a good nights sleep.

They watched her for a minute, then left the room, turning off the lights and closing the door.

Alone, deep in sleep, transported into a different dream from the one that had elicited her screams, Jane sighed, smiled, giggled quietly.

The ax, she whispered in her sleep. The ax. Oh, the ax. Yes. Yes.

Her hands curled slightly, as if she were clutching a solid but invisible object.

The ax, she whispered, and the second of those two words reverberated softly through the dark room.

Thunk!

Carol ran through the huge living room, across the oriental carpet, banging her hip against the edge of the credenza.

Thunk! Thunk!

She dashed through the archway, into a long hall, headed toward the stairs that led to the second floor.

When she glanced behind her, she saw that the house had vanished in her wake and had been replaced by a pitch-black void in which something silvery flickered back and forth, back and forth.

Thunk!

Understanding came with a flash; she knew what the glimmering object was. An ax. The blade of an ax. Glinting as it swung from side to side.

Thunk… thunk-thunk…

Whimpering, she climbed the stairs toward the second floor.

Thunk… thunk…

At times the blade seemed to be biting into wood; the sound of it was dry, splintery. But at other times the sound had a subtly different quality, as if the blade were slicing brutally into a substance much softer than wood, into something wet and tender.

Into flesh?

Thunk!

Carol groaned in her sleep, turned restlessly, flinging off the sheets.

Then she was running across the high meadow.

The trees ahead. The void behind. And the ax. The ax.

6

FRIDAY morning, there was another break in the rain, but the day was dressed in fog. The light coming through the hospital window was wintry, bleak.

Jane had only a hazy recollection of the nurses changing her sheets and her sweat-soaked bed gown during the night. She vaguely recalled having a frightening dream, too, but she couldnt bring to mind a single detail of it.

She was still unable to remember her name or anything else about herself. She could cast her mind back as far as the accident yesterday morning, perhaps even to a point a minute or so on the other side of the accident, but beyond that there was only a blank wall where her past should have been.

During breakfast, she read an article in one of the magazines that Carol Tracy had bought for her. Although there were no visiting hours until this afternoon, Jane was already looking forward to seeing the woman again. Dr. Hannaport and the nurses were nice, every one of them, but none of them affected her as positively as Carol Tracy did. For reasons she could not understand, she felt more secure, more at ease, less frightened by her amnesia when she was with Dr. Tracy than when she was with the others. Maybe that was what people meant when they said a doctor had a good bedside manner.

Shortly after nine oclock, when Paul was on the freeway, headed downtown to deliver the new set of application papers to Alfred OBrians office, the Pontiac's engine cut out. It didnt sputter or cough; the pistons simply stopped firing while the car was hurtling along at nearly fifty miles an hour. As the Pontiac's speed plummeted, its power steering began to freeze up. Traffic whizzed past on both sides at sixty and sixty-five, faster than the speed limit, too fast for the misty weather. Paul maneuvered the car across two lanes, toward the right-hand shoulder of the road. Second by second, he expected to hear a short squeal of brakes and feel the sickening impact of another car against his, but amazingly, he was able to avoid a collision. Wrestling with the stiffening steering wheel, he brought the Pontiac to a full stop on the berm.

He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes until he had regained his composure. When at last he leaned forward and twisted the key in the ignition, the starter didnt make the slightest response; the battery had no juice to offer. He tried a few more times, then gave up.

A freeway exit was just ahead, and there was a service station less than a block from the off-ramp. Paul walked to it in ten minutes.

The station was busy, and the owner couldnt spare his young assistanta big, redheaded, open-faced kid named Corkyuntil the stream of customers subsided to a trickle shortly before ten oclock. Then Paul and Corky rode back to the crippled Pontiac in a tow truck.

They tried jump-starting the car, but the battery wouldnt hold a charge. The Pontiac had to be towed back to the station.

Corky intended to replace the battery and have the car running in half an hour. But it wasnt the battery after all, and the estimated time for completion of the repairs was extended again and again. Finally, Corky found a problem with the electrical system and fixed it.

Paul was stranded for three hours, always sure he would be on his way in just another twenty or thirty minutes. But it was one-thirty when he finally parked the revitalized Pontiac in front of the adoption agencys offices.

Alfred OBrian came out to the reception lounge to greet Paul. He was wearing a well-tailored brown suit, a neatly pressed, cream-colored shirt, a neatly arranged, beige display handkerchief in the breast pocket of his suit jacket, and a pair of neatly shined, brown wing-tip shoes. He accepted the application, but he wasnt optimistic about the possibility of making all the required verifications prior to the recommendations committees meeting next Wednesday morning.

Well try to do a rush job on your papers, he told Paul. I owe you that much at least! But in getting these verifications, we have to deal with people outside this office, and some of them wont get back to us right away or wont like being hurried. It always takes a minimum of three full business days to run a complete verification, sometimes four or five days, sometimes even longer, so I very much doubt that well be ready for this session of the recommendations committee, even though I want to be. Well probably have to submit your application at the second September meeting, at the end of the month. I feel terrible about that, Mr. Tracy. Im more sorry than I can say. I truly am. If we hadnt lost those papers in the turmoil yesterday

Dont worry about it, Paul said. The lightning wasnt your doing, and neither was the problem with my car. Carol and I have waited a long, long time to adopt a child. Another two weeks isnt much in the scheme of things.

When your papers are presented to the committee, youll be approved quickly, OBrian said. Ive never been more sure about a couple than I am about you. Thats what Im going to tell them.

I appreciate that, Paul said.

If we cant make Wednesdays meetingand I assure you well try our bestthen its only a minor, temporary setback. Nothing to be concerned about. Just a bit of bad luck.

Dr. Brad Templeton was a fine veterinarian. However, to Grace, he always looked out of place when he was ministering to a cat or dog. He was a big man who would have looked more at home treating horses and farm animals in a country practice, where his massive shoulders and muscular arms would be of more use. He stood six-five, weighed about two hundred and twenty pounds, and had a ruddy, rugged, but pleasing face. When be plucked Aristophanes out of the padded travel basket, the cat looked like a toy in his enormous hands.

He looks fit, Brad said, putting Ari on the stainless-steel table that stood in the middle of the sparkling clean surgery.

Hes never been one to tear up the furniture, not since he was just a kitten, Grace said. Hes never been a climber, either. But now, every time I turn around, hes perched on top of something, peering down at me.

Brad examined Ari, feeling for swollen glands and enlarged joints. The cat cooperated docilely, even when Brad used a rectal thermometer on him. Temperatures normal.

Somethings wrong, Grace insisted.

Aristophanes purred, tolled onto his back, asking for his belly to be rubbed.

Brad rubbed him and was rewarded with an even louder purr. Is he off his food?

No, Grace said. He stills eats well.

Vomiting?

No.

Diarrhea?

No. He hasnt shown any symptoms like those. Its just that hes… different. Hes not at all like he was. Every symptom I can point to is a symptom of a personality change, not an indication of physical deterioration. Like destroying the pillows. Leaving the mess on the armchair. The sudden interest hes taken in climbing. And hes gotten very sneaky lately, always creeping around, hiding from me, watching me when be thinks I dont see him.

All cats are a bit sneaky, Brad said, frowning. Thats the nature of the beast.

Ari didnt used to sneak, Grace said. Not like hes been doing the last couple of days. And hes not as friendly as he used to be. The last two days, he hasnt wanted to be petted or cuddled.

Still frowning, Brad lifted his gaze from the cat and met Graces eyes. But dear, look at him.

Ari was still on his back, getting his belly rubbed, and clearly relishing all the attention being directed at him. His tail swished back and forth across the steel table. He raised one paw and batted playfully at the doctors large, leathery hand.

Sighing, Grace said, I know what youre thinking. Im an old woman. Old women get funny ideas.

No, no, no. I wasnt thinking any such thing.

Old women become obsessively attached to their pets because sometimes their pets are the only company they have, their only real friends.

I am perfectly aware that doesnt apply to you, Grace. Not with all the friends youve got in this town. I merely

She smiled and patted his cheek. Dont protest too strongly, Brad. I know whats going through your mind. Some old women are so afraid of losing their pets that they think they see signs of illness where there are none. Your reaction is understandable. It doesnt offend me. It does frustrate me because I know something is wrong with Ari.

Brad looked down at the cat again, continued stroking its belly, and said, Have you changed his diet in any way?

No. He gets the same brand of cat food, at the same times of day, in the same quantities hes always gotten it.

Has the company changed the product recently?

How do you mean?

Well, does the package say new, improved, or richer flavor, or anything like that?

She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. I don't think so.

Sometimes, when they change a formula, they add a new preservative or a new artificial flavoring or coloring agent, and some pets have an allergic reaction to it.

But wouldnt that be a physical reaction? Like I said, this seems to be strictly a personality change.

Brad nodded. Im sure you know food additives can cause behavioral problems in some children. A lot of hyperactive kids calm down when theyre put on a diet free of the major additives. Animals can be affected by these things, too. From what youve told me, it sounds like Aristophanes is intermittently hyperactive and may be responding to a subtle change in the formulation of his cat food. Switch him to another brand, wait a week for his system to purge itself of whatever additives have offended it, and hell probably be the old Ari again.

If he isnt?

Then bring him in, leave him with me for a couple of days, and Ill give him a really thorough going over. But I strongly recommend that we try changing his diet first, before we go to all that trouble and expense.

You are humoring me, Grace thought. Just coddling an old lady.

Very well, she said. Ill try changing his food. But if hes still not himself a week from now, Ill want you to give him a complete battery of tests.

Of course.

Ill want an answer.

On the stainless-steel table, Aristophanes purred, happily twitched his long tail, and looked infuriatingly normal.

Later, at home, just inside the front door, when Grace slipped the latch on the padded travel basket and opened the lid, Aristophanes exploded out of confinement with a hiss and a snarl, his fun bristling, his ears laid back against his head, eyes wild. He clawed her hand and squealed as she thrust him away from her. He sprinted down the hall, disappeared into the kitchen, where the pet door gave him access to the rear yard.

Shocked, Grace stared at her hand. Aris claws had made three short furrows in the meaty edge of her palm. Blood welled up and began to trickle down her wrist.

Carols last appointment on Friday was at one oclock: a fifty-minute session with Kathy Lombino, a fifteen-year-old girl who was gradually recovering from anorexia nervosa. Five months ago, when she had first been brought to Carol, Kathy had weighed only seventy-five pounds, at least thirty pounds below her ideal weight. She had been teetering on the edge of starvation, repelled by the sight and even the thought of food, stubbornly refusing to eat more than an occasional soda cracker or slice of bread, often gagging on even those bland morsels. When she was put in front of a mirror and forced to confront the pathetic sight of her emaciated body, she still berated herself for being fat and could not be convinced that she was, in fact, frighteningly thin. Her prospects for survival had seemed slight. Now she weighed ninety pounds, up fifteen, still well below a healthy weight for a girl of her height and bone structure, but at least she was no longer in danger of dying. A loss of self-respect and self-confidence was nearly always the seed from which anorexia nervosa grew, and Kathy was beginning to like herself again, a sure sign that she was on her way back from the brink. She hadnt yet regained a normal appetite; she still experienced mild revulsion at the sight and taste of food; but her attitude was far better than it had been, for now she recognized the need for food, even though she didnt have any desire for it. The girl had a long way to go before she would be fully recovered, but the worst was past for her; in time she would learn to enjoy food again, and she would gain weight more rapidly than she had done thus far, stabilizing around a hundred and five or a hundred and ten pounds. Kathys progress had been immensely satisfying to Carol, and todays session only added to that satisfaction. As had become customary, she and the girl hugged each other at the end of the session, and Kathy held on tighter and longer than usual. When the girl left the office, she was smiling.

A few minutes later, at two oclock, Carol went to the hospital. In the gift shop off the lobby, she bought a deck of playing cards and a miniature checkerboard with nickle-sized checkers that all fit neatly into a vinyl carrying case.

Upstairs, in 316, the television was on, and Jane was reading a magazine. She looked up when Carol entered, and she said, You really came.

Said I would, didnt I?

Whatve you got?

Cards, checkers. I thought maybe theyd help you pass the time.

You promised you wouldnt buy me anything else.

Hey, did I say I was giving these to you? No way. You think Im a soft touch or something? Im lending them, kid. I expect them back. And whenever you return them, theyd better be in as good condition as they are now, or Ill take you all the way to the Supreme Court to get compensated for the damage.

Jane grinned. Boy, youre tough.

I eat nails for breakfast.

Dont they get stuck in your teeth?

I pluck em out with pliers.

Ever eat barbed wire?

Never for breakfast. I have it for lunch now and then.

They both laughed, and Carol said, So do you play checkers?

I dont know. I dont remember.

The girl shrugged.

Nothings come back yet? Carol asked.

Not a thing.

Dont worry. It will.

My folks havent shown up, either.

Well, youve only been missing for one day. Give them time to find you. Its too soon to start worrying about that.

They played three games of checkers. Jane remembered all of the rules, but she couldnt recall where or with whom she had played before.

The afternoon passed quickly, and Carol enjoyed every minute of it. Jane was charming, bright, and blessed with a good sense of humor. Whether the game was checkers, hearts, or five-hundred rummy, she played to win, but she never pouted when she lost. She was very good company.

The girls charm and pleasing personality made it highly unlikely that she would go unclaimed for long. Some teenagers are so self-centered, spaced out on drugs, bullheaded, and destructive that when one of them decides to run away from home, his decision often elicits only a sigh of relief from his mother and father. But when a good kid like Jane Doe disappears, a lot of people start sounding alarms.

There must be a family that loves her, Carol thought. Theyre probably crazy with worry right now. Sooner or later theyll turn up, crying and laughing with relief that their girl has been found alive. So why not sooner? Where are they?

The doorbell rang at precisely three-thirty. Paul answered it and found a pallid, gray-eyed man of about fifty. He wore gray slacks, a pale gray shirt, and a dark gray sweater.

Mr. Tracy?

Yes. Are you from Safe Homes?

Thats right, the gray man said. Names Bill Alsgood. I am Safe Homes. Started the company two years ago.

They shook hands, and Alsgood entered the foyer, looking with interest at the interior of the house. Lovely place. Youre lucky to get same-day service. Usually, Im scheduled three days in advance. But when you called this morning and said it was an emergency, Id just had a cancellation.

Youre a building inspector? Paul asked, closing the door.

Structural engineer, to be precise. What our company does is inspect the house before its sold, usually on behalf of the buyer, at his expense. We tell him if hes buying into a heartache of any sorta leaky roof, a cellar that floods, a crumbling foundation, faulty wiring, bad plumbing, that kind of thing. Were fully bonded, so even if we overlook something, our client is protected. Are you the buyer or the seller?

Neither, Paul said. My wife and I own the place, but we arent ready to sell it. Were having a problem with the house, and I cant pinpoint the cause of it. I thought you might be able to help.

Alsgood raised one gray eyebrow. May I suggest that what you need is a good handyman. Hed be considerably cheaper, and once hed found the trouble, he could fix it, too. We dont do any repair work, you know. We only inspect.

Im aware of that. Im pretty handy myself, but I havent figured out whats wrong or how to fix it. I think I need the kind of expert advice that no handyman can give me.

You do know we charge two hundred and fifty dollars for an inspection?

I know, Paul said. But this is an extremely annoying problem, and it might be causing serious structural damage.

What is it?

Paul told him about the hammering sounds that occasionally shook the house.

Thats peculiar as hell, Alsgood said. Ive never heard a complaint like it before. He thought for a moment, then said, Wheres your furnace?

In the cellar.

Maybe its a heating duct problem. Unlikely. But we can start down there and work our way up to the roof until weve found the cause.

For the next two hours, Alsgood looked into every cranny of the house, poked and probed and rapped and visually inspected every inch of the interior, then every inch of the roof, while Paul tagged along, assisting wherever he could. A light rain began to fall when they were still on the roof, and they were both soaked by the time they finished the job and climbed down. Alsgoods left foot slipped off the last rung of the ladder, just as he was about to step onto the waterlogged lawn, and he twisted his ankle painfully. All that risk and inconvenience was for nothing because Alsgood didnt find anything out of the ordinary.

At five-thirty, in the kitchen, they warmed up with coffee while Alsgood filled out his report. Wet and bedraggled, he looked even more pallid than when Paul had first seen him. The rain had transformed his gray clothesonce a variety of shadesinto a single, dull hue, so that he appeared to be wearing a drab uniform. Its basically a solid house, Mr. Tracy. The condition is really topnotch.

Then where the devil did that sound come from? And why was the whole house shaken by it?

I wish Id heard it.

I was sure itd start up at least once while you were here.

Alsgood sipped his coffee, but the warm brew added no color to his cheeks. Structurally, theres not a thing wrong with this house. Thats what my report will say, and Id stake my reputation on it.

Which puts me right back at square one, Paul said, folding his hands around his coffee cup.

Im sorry you spent all this money without getting an answer, Alsgood said. I really feel bad about that.

It isnt your fault. Im convinced you did a thorough job. In fact, if I ever buy another house, Ill definitely want you to inspect it first. At least I now know the trouble isnt structural, which rules out possibilities and narrows the field of inquiry.

Maybe you wont even hear it again. It might stop just as suddenly as it started.

Somehow, I suspect youre wrong about that, Paul said.

Later, at the front door, as Alsgood was leaving, he said, One thought has occurred to me, but I hesitate to mention it.

Why?

You might think its off the wall.

Mr. Alsgood, Im a desperate man. Im willing to consider anything, no matter how farfetched it might be.

Alsgood looked at the ceiling, then at the floor, then back along the hall that lay behind Paul, then down at his own feet. A ghost, he said quietly.

Paul stared at him, surprised.

Alsgood cleared his throat nervously, shifted his eyes to the floor again, then finally raised them and met Pauls gaze. Maybe you dont believe in ghosts.

Do you? Paul asked.

Yes. Ive been interested in the subject most of my life. I have a large collection of publications dealing with spiritualism of all sorts. Ive had some personal experiences in haunted houses, too.

Youve seen a ghost

I believe I have, yes, on four occasions. Ectoplasmic apparitions. Insubstantial, manlike shapes drifting in the air. Ive also twice witnessed poltergeist phenomena. As far as this house is concerned…

His voice trailed away, and he licked his lips nervously. If you find this boring or preposterous, I dont want to waste your time.

Quite frankly, Paul said, I cant picture myself calling an exorcist in to deal with this. But Im not entirely close-minded where ghosts are concerned. I find it hard to accept, but Im certainly willing to listen.

Reasonable enough, Alsgood said. For the first time since he had rung the doorbell more than two hours ago, color rose into his milky complexion, and his watery eyes brightened with a spark of enthusiasm. All right. Heres something to consider. From what youve told me, Id say there might be a poltergeist at work here. Of course, no objects have been hurled around by an unseen presence; theres been no breakage, and poltergeists dearly love to break things. But the shaking of the house, the clattering pots and pans, the little bottles clinking against one another in the spice rackthose are all indications of a poltergeist at work, one thats just beginning to test its powers. If it is a poltergeist, then you can expect worse to come. Oh, yes. Definitely. Furniture moving across the floor all by itself. Pictures flung off the walls, lamps knocked down and broken. Dishes flying around the room as if they were birds. His wan countenance flushed with excitement as he considered the supernatural destruction. Levitations of heavy objects like sofas and beds and refrigerators. Now mind you, there are some recorded cases of people being plagued by benign poltergeists that dont break much of anything, but the overwhelming number of them are malign, and thats what youll most likely have to deal withif indeed youve got one here at all. Having warmed to his subject, he finished in an almost breathless rush of words: In its most active form, even a benign poltergeist can completely disrupt a household, interfere with your sleep, and keep you so on edge that you dont know whether youre coming or going.

Startled by Alsgoods passionately delivered speech and by the odd new light in the mans eyes, Paul said, Well… uh… its really not that bad. Not nearly that bad. Just a hammering sound and

Its not that bad yet, Alsgood said somberly. But if you have a poltergeist here, the situation could deteriorate rapidly. If youve never seen one in action, Mr. Tracy, you simply cant understand what its like.

Paul was disconcerted by the change in the man. He felt as if he had opened the door to one of those wholesome-looking types who turned out to be pushing crackpot religious pamphlets and who proclaimed the imminence of Judgment Day in the same bubbly, upbeat tone of voice that Donny Osmond might use to introduce his cute little sister, Marie, to a panting audience of Osmond fans. There was a disquieting zeal in Alsgoods manner.

If it does turn out to be a poltergeist, Alsgood said, if things do get a lot worse, will you call me right away? Ive been fortunate enough to observe two poltergeists, as I said. Id like nothing better than to see a third going through its tricks. The opportunity doesnt arise very often.

I guess not, Paul said.

So youll call me?

I very much doubt theres a poltergeist involved here, Mr. Alsgood. If I keep looking long enough and hard enough, Ill find a perfectly logical explanation for whats been happening. But on the off-chance that it is a malign spirit, rest assured Ill give you a call the moment the first refrigerator or chiffonier levitates.

Alsgood wasnt able to see anything amusing about their conversation. He frowned when he detected levity in Pauls voice, and he said, I didnt really expect you to take me seriously.

Oh, please dont think Im not grateful for

No, no, Alsgood said, waving him to silence. I understand. No offense taken. The excitement had gone out of his watery eyes. Youve been raised to believe strictly in science. Youve been taught to put your faith only in things that can be seen and touched and measured. Thats the modern way. His shoulders slumped. The color in his face faded, and his skin became pale, grayish, and slack, as it had been a few minutes ago. Asking you to be open-minded about ghosts is as pointless as trying to convince a deep-sea creature that there are such things as birds. Its sad but true, and I have no reason to be angry about it.

He opened the front door, and the sound of the rain grew louder. Anyway, for your sake, I hope it isnt a poltergeist youve got here. I hope you find that logical explanation youre looking for. I really do, Mr. Tracy.

Before Paul could respond, Alsgood turned and walked out into the rain. He no longer seemed like a zealot; there was no trace of passion in him. He was just a thin, gray man, shuffling through the gray mist, head slightly bowed against the gray rain, illuminated by the gray light of the storm; he almost seemed like a ghost himself.

Paul closed the door, put his back against it, and looked around the hall, through the nearest archway, which opened onto the living room. Poltergeist? Not very damned likely.

He preferred Alsgoods other suggestion: that the hammering might simply stop as suddenly and inexplicably as it had started, without the cause ever being known.

He glanced at his watch. 6:06.

Carol had said she would remain at the hospital until eight oclock and would then come home for a late meal. That gave him an hour or so to work on his novel before he had to start cooking dinnerbroiled chicken breasts, steamed vegetables, and rice with bits of green pepper.

He went upstairs to his office and sat down at the typewriter. He picked up the last page he had written, intending to reread it a few times and get back into the mood and tone of the story he was telling.

THUNK! THUNK!

The house shook. The windows rattled.

He bolted up from his chair.

THUNK!

On his desk, the jar full of pens and pencils toppled over, cracked into several pieces, and spilled its contents onto the floor.

Silence.

He waited. One minute. Two minutes.

Nothing.

There was no sound except the snapping of the rain against the windows and the drumming of it on the roof.

Only three hammer blows this time. Harder than any that had come before. But only three. Almost as if someone were playing games with him, taunting him.

Shortly before midnight, in room 316, the girl laughed softly in her sleep.

Outside her window, lightning pulsed, and the night flickered, and the darkness seemed to gallop for a moment, as if it were a huge and eager beast.

The girl turned onto her stomach without waking, murmured into her pillows. The ax, she said with a wistful sigh. The ax….

On the stroke of midnight, just forty minutes after she had fallen asleep, Carol bolted up from her pillows, trembling violently. As she struggled out of the grip of her nightmare, she heard someone say, Its coming! Its coming! She stared wildly, blindly into the lightless room until she realized the panic-stricken voice had been her own.

Suddenly she could not tolerate the darkness one second longer. She fumbled desperately for the switch on the bedside lamp, found it, and sagged with relief.

The light didnt disturb Paul. He mumbled in his sleep but didnt wake.

Carol leaned back against the headboard and listened to her racing heart as it gradually slowed to a normal beat.

Her hands were icy. She put them under the covers and curled them into warming fists.

The nightmares have got to stop, she told herself. I cant go through this every night. I need my sleep.

Perhaps a vacation was called for. She had been working too hard for too long. The accumulated weariness was probably partly to blame for her bad dreams. She had also been under a great deal of unusual stress lately: the pending adoption, the near-tragic events in OBrians office on Wednesday, the accident just yesterday morning, the girls amnesia for which she felt responsible…. Living with too much tension could cause exceptionally vivid nightmares of the sort she was experiencing. A week in the mountains, away from everyday problems, seemed like the perfect medicine.

In addition to all the other sources of stress, that day was approaching, the birthday of the child she had put up for adoption. A week from tomorrow, the Saturday after next, would mark sixteen years since she had relinquished the baby. Already, eight days in advance of that anniversary, she was burdened by a heavy mantle of guilt. By the time next Saturday rolled around, she would most likely be thoroughly depressed, as usual. A week in the mountains, away from everyday problems, might be the perfect medicine for that ailment, too.

Last year, she and Paul had purchased a vacation cabin on an acre of timbered land in the mountains. It was a cozy placetwo bedrooms, one bath, a living room with a big stone fireplace, and a complete kitchena retreat that combined all the comforts of civilization with the clean air, marvelous scenery, and tranquility that could not be found in the city.

They had planned to get away to the cabin at least two weekends every month during the summer, but they had made the trip only three times in the past four months, less than half as often as they had hoped.

Paul had labored hard to meet a series of self-imposed deadlines on his novel, and she had taken on more patientsa couple of really troubled kids who simply could not be turned awayand for both herself and Paul, work had expanded to fill every spare moment. Perhaps they were the overachievers that Alfred OBrian had thought they might be.

But well change when we have a child, Carol told herself. Well make lots of time for leisure and for family outings because creating the best environment for our child is the job were looking forward to more than any other.

Now, sitting up in bed, the grisly nightmare still chillingly fresh in her mind, she decided to start changing her life from this moment on. They would take off a few days, maybe a whole week, and go to the mountains before the recommendations committee's meeting at the end of the month, so they would be rested and composed when at last they met the child who would be theirs. They couldnt take off this coming week, of course. She would need time to reschedule her appointments. Besides, she didnt want to leave town until Jane Does parents showed up and properly identified the girl; that might take a few more days. But they ought to be able to carve a large chunk of time out of the week after next, and she made up her mind to start nudging Paul about it first thing in the morning.

Having reached that decision, she felt better. The mere prospect of a vacation, even a brief one, relieved much of her tension.

She looked at Paul and said, I love you.

He continued to snore softly.

Smiling, she clicked off the light and settled under the covers again. For a couple of minutes she listened to the rain and to her husbands rhythmic breathing; then she drifted into a sound, satisfying sleep.

Rain fell throughout Saturday, rounding out a monotonously watery, sunless week. The day was cool, too, and the wind had teeth.

Carol visited Jane in the hospital on Saturday afternoon. They played cards and talked about some of the articles the girl had read in the magazines Carol had bought for her. Through every conversation, regardless of the subject, Carol probed continuously but subtly at the girls amnesia, prodded her memory without letting her see that she was being prodded.

But it was all wasted effort, for Janes past remained beyond her grasp.

At the end of the afternoon visiting hours, as Carol was heading toward the elevators on the third floor, she encountered Dr. Sam Hannaport in the corridor.

Havent the police come up with any leads at all? she asked.

He shrugged his burly shoulders. Not yet.

Its been over two days since the accident.

Which isnt all that long.

It seems like an eternity to that poor kid in there, Carol said, gesturing toward the door of 316.

I know, Hannaport said. And I feel just as bad about it as you do. But its still too soon to be pessimistic.

If I had a girl like her, and if my kid turned up missing for even one day, Id be pushing the police hard, and Id make damned sure the story was in all the papers, and Id be pounding on doors and making a nuisance of myself all over the city.

Hannaport nodded. I know you would. Ive seen how you operate, and I admire your style. And listen, I think your visits with the girl have an awful lot to do with keeping her spirits up. Its good of you to take all this time with her.

Well, Im not angling for a testimonial dinner, Carol said. I dont think Im doing any more than I have to do. I mean, Ive got a responsibility here.

A nurse came along, pushing a patient in a wheelchair. Carol and Hannaport stepped out of the way.

At least Jane seems to be in good physical shape, Carol said.

Like I told you on Wednesdaythere were no serious injuries. In fact, because she is in such good condition, she presents us with a problem. She doesnt really belong in a hospital. I just hope her parents show up before Im forced to discharge her.

Discharge her? But you cant do that if she has nowhere to go. She cant cope outside. For Gods sake, she doesnt even know who she is!

Naturally, Ill keep her here as long as I possibly can. But by late tonight or tomorrow morning, all of our beds are probably going to be full. Then, if the number of emergency admissions is greater than the number of discharges already scheduled, well have to look around for a few other patients who can be safely released. Janes bound to be one of them. If some guys brought in here with a cracked skull from an auto accident, or if an ambulance delivers a woman whos been stabbed by a jealous boyfriend, I cant justify turning away seriously injured people while Im keeping a perfectly healthy girl whose worst physical problem is a contusion on her left shoulder.

But her amnesia

Is something we cant treat anyway.

But she has nowhere to go, Carol said. What would happen to her?

In his calm, soft, reassuring voice, Hannaport said, Shell be okay. Really. Were not going to just abandon her. Well petition to have her declared a ward of the court until her parents show up. In the meantime, shell do just as well at some minimal-care facility as she would do here.

What facility are you talking about?

Just three blocks from here, theres a home for runaway and pregnant teenage girls, and its far cleaner and better managed than the average state institution.

The Polmar Home, Carol said. I know it.

Then you know its not a dungeon or a dump.

I still dont like moving her out of here, Carol said. Shes going to feel as if shes being shunted aside, forgotten, and left to rot. Shes on very shaky ground already. ThisII scare her half to death.

Frowning, Hannaport said, I dont like it much myself, but I truly dont have an option. If were short on bed space, the law says weve got to consider degrees of need and take in those patients who have the most to lose by being denied care or by having treatment delayed. Im in a bind.

I understand. Im not blaming you. Dammit, if someone would just come forward to claim her!

Someone might, any minute.

Carol shook her head. No. Ive got a feeling its not going to be that easy. Have you told Jane yet?

No. We wont make the petition to the court sooner than Monday morning, so I might as well wait until tomorrow to explain it to her. Maybe something'll happen between now and then to make it unnecessary. No use worrying her until we have to.

Carol was depressed, remembering her own days in a state-run institution, before Grace had come along to rescue her. She had been a tough kid, street-smart, but the experience had nevertheless scarred her. Jane was bright and spunky and strong and sweet, but she wasnt rough, not like Carol had been at her age. What would institutional living do to her if she had to endure it for more than a day or two? If she was simply dropped in among kids who were street-smart, among kids who had drug and behavioral problems, she would most likely be victimized, perhaps even violently. What she needed was a real home, love, guidanceOf course! Carol said. She grinned.

Hannaport looked at her questioningly.

Why cant she come with me? Carol asked.

What?

Look, Dr. Hannaport, if its all right with Paul, my husband, why couldnt you recommend to the court that I be awarded temporary custody of Jane until someone shows up who can identify her?

You really better think twice about that, Hannaport said. Taking her in, disrupting your lives

It wont be a disruption, Carol said. Itll be a pleasure. Shes a delightful kid.

Hannaport stared at her a long moment, searching her face and her eyes.

After all, Carol argued as persuasively as she could, the only kind of doctor who might be able to cure Janes amnesia is a psychiatrist. And in case youve forgotten, thats what I am. Id not only be able to provide a decent home for her; Id also be able to treat her rather intensively.

Finally, Hannaport smiled. I think its a grand and generous offer, Dr. Tracy.

Then youll make the recommendation to the court?

Yes. Of course, you never can be sure what a judge will do. But I think theres a pretty good chance hell see where the best interests of the girl lie.

A few minutes later, in the hospital lobby, Carol used a pay phone to call Paul. She recounted the conversation shed had with Dr. Hannaport, but before she got to the big question, Paul interrupted her. You want to make a place for Jane, he said.

Surprised, Carol said, Howd you guess?

He laughed. I know you, sugarface. When it comes to kids, youve got a heart the consistency of vanilla pudding.

She wont be in your way, Carol said quickly. She wont distract you from your writing. And now that OBrian wont be able to present our application for the adoption until the end of the month, theres no chance well have two kids to take care of. In fact maybe the delay at the agency was meant to beso wed have a place for Jane until her folks show up. Its only temporary, Paul. Really. And we

Okay, okay, he said. You dont have to sell me on it. I approve of the plan.

If youd like to come here and meet Jane first, thats

No, no. Im sure shes everything youve said she is. Dont forget, though, you were planning to go to the mountains in a week or so.

We might not even have Jane that long. And if we do, we can probably take her with us, so long as we let the court know where were going.

When do we have to appear in court?

I dont know. Probably Monday or Tuesday.

Ill be on my best behavior, Paul said.

Scrub behind your ears?

Okay. And Ill also wear shoes.

Grinning, Carol said, Dont pick your nose in front of the judge.

Not unless he picks his first.

She said, I love you, Dr. Tracy.

I love you, Dr. Tracy.

When she put down the receiver and turned away from the pay phone, she felt wonderful. Not even the gaudy decor of the visitors lounge could get on her nerves now.

That night, there was no hammering sound in the Tracy house, no evidence of the poltergeist that Mr. Alsgood had warned Paul about. There was no disturbance the following day, either, and none the day after that. The strange noise and the vibrations had ceased as inexplicably as they had begun.

Carol stopped having nightmares, too. She slept deeply, peacefully, without interruption. She quickly forgot about the flickering, silvery blade of the ax swinging back and forth in the strange void.

The weather improved, too. The clouds dissipated on Sunday. Monday was summery, blue.

Tuesday afternoon, while Paul and Carol were in court trying to obtain temporary custody of Jane Doe, Grace Mitowski was cleaning her kitchen. She had just finished dusting the top of the refrigerator when the telephone rang.

Hello.

No one answered her. Hello, she said again.

A thin, whispery, male voice said, Grace…

Yes?

His words were muffled, and there was an echo on the line, as if he were talking into a tin can.

I cant understand you, she said. Can you speak up?

He tried, but again the words were lost. They seemed to be coming from an enormous distance, across an unimaginably vast chasm.

We have a terrible connection, she said. Youll have to speak up.

Grace, he said, his voice only slightly louder. Gracie its almost too late. Youve got to… move fast. Youve got to stop it… from happening… again.

It was a dry, brittle voice; it cracked repeatedly, with a sound like dead autumn leaves underfoot. Its almost… too late… too late…

She recognized the voice, and she froze. Her hand tightened on the receiver, and she couldnt get her breath.

Gracie… it cant go on forever. Youve got to put an end to it. Protect her, Gracie. Protect her

The voice faded away.

There was only silence. But not the silence of an open phone line. There was no hissing. No electronic beeping in the background. This was perfect silence, utterly unmarred by even the slightest click or whistle of electronic circuitry. Vast silence. Endless.

She put the phone down.

She started to shake.

She went to the cupboard and got down the bottle of Scotch she kept for visitors. She poured herself a double shot and sat down at the kitchen table.

The liquor didnt warm her. Chills still shook her.

The voice on the phone had belonged to Leonard. Her husband. He had been dead for eighteen years.

PART TWO
Evil Walks Among Us…

Evil is no faceless stranger, living in a distant neighborhood.
Evil has a wholesome, hometown face, with many eyes and an open smile.
Evil walks among us, wearing a mask which looks like all our faces.

7

TUESDAY, after winning temporary custody of Jane Doe, Paul went home to work on his novel, and Carol took the girl shopping. Because Jane had no clothes except those shed been wearing when shed stepped in front of the Volkswagen last Thursday morning, she needed a lot of things, even for just a few days. She was embarrassed about spending Carols money, and at first she was reluctant to admit that she liked anything she saw or that anything fit her well enough to buy it.

At last Carol said, Honey, you need this stuff, so please just relax and let me buy it for you. Okay? In the long run, it wont be coming out of my pocket anyway. Ill most likely be reimbursed either by your parents, by the foster children program, or by some other county agency.

That argument worked. They quickly purchased a couple of pairs of jeans, a few blouses, underwear, a good pair of sneakers, socks, a sweater, and a windbreaker.

When they got home, Jane was impressed by the Tudor house with its leaded-glass windows, gabled roof, and stonework. She fell in love with the guest room in which she was to stay. It had a cove ceiling, a long window seat inset in a bay window, and a wall of mirrored closet doors. It was done in deep blue and pale beige, with Queen Anne furniture of lustrous cherrywood. Its really just a guest room? Jane asked, incredulous. You dont use it regularly? Boy, if this were my house, Id come in here all the time! Id just sit and read for a little while every dayread and sit there in the window and soak up the atmosphere.

Carol had always liked the room, but through Janes eyes she achieved a new perception and appreciation of it. As she watched the girl inspecting thingssliding open the closet doors, checking the view from each angle of the bay window, testing the firmness of the mattress on the queen-sized bedCarol realized that one advantage of having children was that their innocent, fresh reactions to everything could keep their parents young and open-minded, too.

That evening, Carol, Paul, and Jane prepared dinner together. The girl fit in comfortably and immediately, in spite of the fact that she was somewhat shy. There was a lot of laughter in the kitchen and at the dinner table.

After dinner, Jane started washing dishes while Carol and Paul cleared the table. When they were separated from the girl for a moment, alone in the dining room, Paul said quietly, Shes a terrific kid.

Didnt I tell you so?

Funny thing, though.

What?

Ever since I saw her this afternoon, outside the courtroom, Paul said, Ive had the feeling that Ive seen her somewhere before.

Where?

He shook his head. Ill be damned if I know. But theres something familiar about her face.

Throughout Tuesday afternoon, Grace expected the phone to ring again.

She dreaded having to answer it.

She tried to work off her nervous energy by cleaning the house. She scrubbed the kitchen floor, dusted the furniture in every room, and swept all the carpets.

But she couldnt stop thinking about the call: the paper-dry, echo-distorted voice that had sounded like Leonard; the odd things he had said; the eerie silence when he had finished speaking; the disquieting sense of vast distances, an unimaginable gulf of space and time.

It had to be a hoax. But who could be responsible for it? And why torment her with an imitation of Leonards voice, eighteen years after the man had died? What was the point of playing games like this now, after so much time had passed?

She tried to get her mind off the call by baking apple dumplings. Thick, crusty dumplingsserved with cinnamon, milk, and just a bit of sugarwere a suppertime favorite of hers, for she had been born and raised in Lancaster, the heart of the Pennsylvania Dutch country, where that dish was considered a meal in itself. But Tuesday evening, she had no appetite, not even for dumplings. She ate a few bites, but she couldnt even finish half of one dumpling, though she usually ate two whole ones in a single meal.

She was still picking disinterestedly at her food when the telephone rang.

Her head jerked up. She stared at the wall phone that was above the small, built-in desk beside the refrigerator.

It rang again. And again.

Trembling, she got up, went to the phone, and lifted the receiver.

Gracie…

The voice was faint but intelligible.

Gracie… its almost too late.

It was him. Leonard. Or someone who sounded exactly like Leonard had sounded.

She couldnt respond to him. Her throat clutched tight.

Gracie…

Her legs seemed to be melting under her. She pulled out the chair that was tucked into the kneehole of the desk, and she sat down quickly.

Gracie… stop it from happening again. It mustnt… go on forever… time after time… the blood… the murder…

She closed her eyes, forced herself to speak. Her voice was weak, quavery. She didnt even recognize it as her own. It was the voice of a strangera weary, frightened, frail old woman. Who is this?

The whispery, vibrative voice on the telephone said, Protect her, Oracle.

What do you want from me?

Protect her.

Why are you doing this?

Protect her.

Protect who? she demanded.

Willa. Protect Willa.

She was still frightened and confused, but she was beginning to be angry, too. I dont know anyone named Willa, dammit! Who is this?

Leonard.

No! Do you think Im a doddering, senile old fool? Leonards dead. Eighteen years! Youre not Leonard. What kind of game are you playing?

She wanted to hang up on him, and she knew that was the best thing to do with a crank like this, but she couldnt make herself put down the receiver. He sounded so much like Leonard that she was mesmerized by his voice.

He spoke again, much softer than before, but she could still hear him. Protect Willa.

I tell you, I dont know her. And if you keep calling me with this nonsense, Im going to tell the police that some sick practical joker is

Carol… Carol, the man said, his voice fading syllable by syllable. Willa… but you call her… Carol.

What the hell is going on here?

Beware…the…cat.

What?

The voice was so distant now that she had to strain to hear it. The… cat…

Aristophanes? What about him? Have you done something to him? Have you poisoned him? Is that whats been wrong with him lately

No response.

Are you there

Nothing.

What about the cat? she demanded.

No answer.

She listened to the pure, pure silence, and she began to tremble so violently that she had trouble holding the phone. Who are you? Why do you want to torment me like this? Why do you want to hurt Aristophanes?

Far, far away, the achingly familiar voice of her long-dead husband uttered a few final, barely audible words. Wish… I was there… for the… apple dumplings.

They had forgotten to buy pajamas for Jane. She went to bed in knee socks, panties, and one of Carols T-shirts, which was a bit large for her.

What happens tomorrow? she asked when she was tucked in, her head raised on a plump pillow.

Carol sat on the edge of the bed. I thought we might start a program of treatment designed to pry open your memory.

What kind of treatment?

Do you know what hypnotic regression therapy is?

Jane was suddenly frightened. Several times since the accident, she had made a conscious, concerted effort to remember who she was, but on each occasion, as she felt herself coming close to a disturbing revelation, she had become dizzy, disoriented, and panicky. When she pressed her mind back, back, back toward the truth, a psychological defense mechanism cut off her curiosity as abruptly as a stranglers garrote might have cut off her air supply. And every time, on the edge of unconsciousness, she saw a strange, silvery object swinging back and forth through blackness, an utterly indecipherable yet blood-chilling vision. She sensed there was something hideous in her past, something so terrible that she would be better off not remembering. She had just about made up her mind not to seek what had been lost, to accept her new life as a nameless orphan, even though it might be filled with hardships. But through hypnotic regression therapy, she could be forced to confront the specter in her past, whether she wanted to or not. That prospect filled her with dread.

Are you all right? Carol asked.

The girl blinked, licked her lips. Yeah. I was just thinking about what you said. Hypnotic regression. Does that mean youre going to put me in a trance and make me remember everything?

Well, it isnt that easy, honey. Theres no guarantee itll work. Ill hypnotize you and ask you to think back to the accident on Thursday morning; then Ill nudge you further and further into the past. If youre a good subject, you might remember who you are and where you come from. Hypnotic regression is a tool that comes in handy sometimes when Im trying to get a patient to relive a deeply hidden, severely regressed trauma. Ive never used the technique on an amnesia victim, but I know its applicable to a case like yours. Of course, it only works about half the time. And when it does work, it takes more than one or two sessions. It can be a tedious, frustrating process. Were not going to get much of anywhere tomorrow, and in fact your parents will probably show up before Ive been able to help you remember. But we might as well make a start. That is, if its all right with you.

She didnt want Carol to know that she was afraid to remember, so she said, Oh, sure! It sounds fascinating.

Ive got four patients scheduled for tomorrow, but I can work you in at eleven oclock. Youll have to spend a lot of time in the waiting room, before and after your session, so first thing in the morning, well find a book for you to take along. Do you like to read mystery stories?

I guess so.

Agatha Christie?

The names familiar, but I dont know whether Ive ever read any of her books.

You can try one tomorrow. If you were a big fan of mysteries, maybe Agatha Christie will open your memory for you. Any stimulus, any connection whatsoever with your past can act like a doorway. She leaned down, kissed Janes forehead. But dont worry about it now. Just get a good nights sleep, kiddo.

After Carol left the room, closing the door behind her, Jane didnt immediately switch off the light. She let her gaze travel slowly around the room and then slowly back again, her eyes resting on each point of beauty.

Please, God, she thought, let me stay here. Somehow, some way, let me stay in this house forever and ever. Dont make me go back where I came from, wherever that might be. This is where I want to live. This is where I want to die, its so pretty.

Finally, she reached out and snapped off the bedside lamp.

Darkness folded in like bat wings.

Using a piece of Masonite and four nails, Grace Mitowski fixed a temporary seal over the inside of the pet door.

Aristophanes stood in the center of the kitchen, his head cocked to one side, watching her with bright-eyed interest. Every, few seconds, he meowed in what seemed to be an inquisitive tone.

When the last nail was in place, Grace said, Okay, cat. For the time being, your license to roam has been suspended. There might be a man out there whos been feeding you small amounts of drugs or poison of some sort, and maybe thats been the cause of your bad behavior. Well just have to wait and see if you improve. Have you been flying high on drugs, you silly cat?

Aristophanes meowed questioningly.

Yes, Grace said. I know it sounds bizarre. But if its not some kook Ive got to deal with, then it really mustve been Leonard on the phone. And thats even more bizarre, dont you think?

The cat turned his head from one side to the other, as if he really were trying to make sense of what she was saying.

Grace stopped, held out her hand, and rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. Here, kitty. Here, kitty-kitty-kitty.

Aristophanes hissed, spat, turned, and ran.

For a change, they made love with the lights off.

Carols breath was hot against his neck. She pressed close, rocked and tensed and twisted and flexed in perfect harmony with him; her exquisite, pneumatic movements were as fluid as currents in a warm river. She arched her elegant back, lifted and subsided in tempo with his measured strokes. She was as pliant, as silken, and eventually as all-encompassing as the darkness.

Afterwards, they held hands and talked about inconsequential things, steadily growing drowsy. Carol fell asleep while Paul was talking. When she failed to respond to one of his questions, he gently disentangled his hand from hers.

He was tired, but he couldnt find sleep as quickly as she had found it. He kept thinking about the girl. He was certain he had seen her prior to their meeting outside the courtroom this morning. During dinner, her face had grown more and more familiar. It continued to haunt him. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldnt recall where else he had seen her.

As he lay in the dark bedroom, paging through his memory, he gradually became uneasy. He began to feelutterly without reasonthat his previous encounter with Jane had been strange, perhaps even unpleasant. Then he wondered if the girl might actually pose some sort of threat to Carol and himself.

But thats absurd, he thought. Doesnt make any sense at all. I must be even more tired than I thought.

Logic seems to be slipping out of my grasp. What possible threat could Jane pose? Shes such a nice kid. An exceptionally nice kid.

He sighed, rolled over, and thought about the plot of his first novel (the failed one), and that quickly put him to sleep.

At one oclock in the morning, Grace Mitowski was sitting up in bed, watching a late movie on the Sony portable. She was vaguely aware that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were engaged in witty repartee, but she didnt really hear anything they said. She had lost track of the films plot only minutes after she had turned it on.

She was thinking about Leonard, the husband she had lost to cancer eighteen years ago. He had been a good man, hard-working, generous, loving, a grand conversationalist. She had loved him very much.

But not everyone had loved Leonard. He had had his faults, of course. The worst thing about him had been his impatienceand the sharp tongue that his impatience had encouraged. He couldnt tolerate people who were lazy or apathetic or ignorant or foolish. Which includes two-thirds of the human race, he had often said when he was feeling especially curmudgeonly. Because he was an honest man with precious little diplomacy in his bones, he had told people exactly what he thought of them. As a result, he had led a life remarkably free of deception but rich in enemies.

She wondered if it had been one of those enemies who had called her, pretending to be Leonard. A sick man might get as much pleasure from tormenting Leonards widow as he would have gotten from tormenting Leonard himself. He might get a thrill from poisoning her cat and from harassing her with weird phone calls.

But after eighteen years? Who would have remembered Leonards voice so well as to be able to imitate it perfectly such a long time later? Surely she was the only person in the world who could still recognize that voice upon hearing it speak only a word or two. And why bring Carol into it? Leonard had died three years before Carol had entered Graces life; he had never known the girl. His enemies couldnt possibly have anything against Carol. What had the caller meant when hed referred to Carol as Willa? And, most disturbing of all, how did the caller know she had just made apple dumplings?

There was another explanation, though she was loath to consider it. Perhaps the caller hadnt been an old enemy of Leonards. Maybe the call actually had come from Leonard himself. From a dead man.

No. Impossible.

A lot of people believe in ghosts.

Not me.

She thought about the strange dreams shed had last week. She hadnt believed in dream prophecies then. Now she did. So why not ghosts, too?

No. She was a level-headed woman who had lived a stable, rational life, who had been trained in the sciences, who had always believed that science held all the answers. Now, at seventy years of age, if she made room for the existence of ghosts within her otherwise rational philosophy, she might be opening the floodgates on madness. If you truly believed in ghosts, what came next? Vampires? Did you have to start carrying a sharp wooden stake and a crucifix everywhere you went? Werewolves? Better buy a box of silver bullets! Evil elves who lived in the center of the earth and caused quakes and volcanoes? Sure! Why not?

Grace laughed bitterly.

She couldnt suddenly become a believer in ghosts, because acceptance of that superstition might require the acceptance of countless others. She was too old, too comfortable with herself, too accustomed to her familiar ways to reconsider her entire view of life. And she certainly wasnt going to contemplate such a sweeping reevaluation merely because she had received two bizarre phone calls.

That left only one thing to be decided: whether or not she should tell Carol that someone was harassing her and had used Carols name. She tried to hear how she would sound when she explained the telephone calls and when she outlined her theory about Aristophanes being drugged or poisoned. She couldnt hope to sound like the Grace Mitowski that everyone knew. Shed come off like an hysterical old woman who was seeing nonexistent conspirators behind every door and under every bed.

They might even think she was going senile.

Am I? she wondered. Did I imagine the telephone calls? No. Surely not.

She wasnt imagining Aristophaness changed personality, either. She looked at the claw marks on the palm of her hand; although they were healing, they were still red and puffy. Proof. Those marks were proof that something was wrong.

Im not senile, she told herself. Not even a little bit. But I sure dont want to have to convince Carol or Paul that Ive got all my marbles, once Ive told them that Im getting phone calls from Leonard. Better go easy for the time being. Wait. See what happens next. Anyway, I can figure this out on my own. I can handle it.

On the Sony, Bogart and Bacall grinned at each other.

When Jane woke up in the middle of the night, she discovered she had been sleepwalking. She was in the kitchen, but she couldnt recall getting out of bed and coming downstairs.

The kitchen was silent. The only sound was from the softly purring refrigerator. The only light was from the moon, but because the moon was full and because the kitchen had quite a few windows, there was enough light to see by.

Jane was standing at a counter near the sink. She had opened one of the drawers and had taken a butcher knife out of it.

She stared down at the knife, startled to find it in her hand.

Pale moonlight glinted on the cold blade.

She returned the knife to the drawer.

Closed the drawer.

She had been gripping the knife so tightly that her hand ached.

Why did I want a knife?

A chill skittered like a centipede along her spine.

Her bare arms and legs broke out in gooseflesh, and she was suddenly very aware that she was wearing only a T-shirt, panties, and knee socks.

The refrigerator motor shut off with a dry rattle that made her jump and turn.

Now the house was preternaturally silent. She could almost believe that she had gone deaf.

What was I doing with the knife?

She hugged herself to ward off the chills that kept wriggling through her.

Maybe she had dreamed about food and had come down here in her sleep to make a sandwich. Yes. That was probably what had happened. In fact she was a bit hungry. So she had gotten the knife out of the drawer in order to slice some roast beef for a sandwich. There was a butt end of a roast in the refrigerator. She had seen it earlier, when she had been helping Carol and Paul make dinner.

But now she didnt think she could eat a sandwich or anything else. Her bare legs were getting colder by the moment, and she felt immodestly exposed in just flimsy panties and a thin T-shirt. All she wanted now was to get back to bed, under the covers.

Climbing the steps in the darkness, she stayed close to the wall, where the treads were less likely to creak. She returned to her room without waking anyone.

Outside, a dog howled in the distance.

Jane burrowed deeper in her blankets.

For a while she had trouble getting to sleep because she felt guilty about prowling through the house while the Tracys slept. She felt sneaky. She felt as if she had been taking advantage of their hospitality.

Of course, that was silly. She hadnt been nosing around on purpose. She had been sleepwalking, and there was no way a person could control something like that.

Just sleepwalking.

8

THE focal point of Carol Tracys office was Mickey Mouse. One long wall of the room was fitted with shelves on which were displayed Mickey Mouse memorabilia. There were Mickey Mouse buttons, Mickey Mouse pins, a wristwatch, belt buckles, a Mickey Mouse phone, drinking glasses bearing the famous mouses countenance, a beer mug on which there was a likeness of Mickey dressed in lederhosen and a Tyrolean hat. But mostly there were statuettes of the cartoon star: Mickey standing beside a little red car; Mickey curled up in striped pajamas. sleeping; Mickey dancing a jig; Mickey with Minnie; Mickey with Goofy; Mickey holding barbells; Mickey with Pluto; Mickey and Donald Duck with their arms around each others shoulders, looking like the best of friends; Mickey riding a horse, with a cowboy hat raised in one white-gloved, four-fingered hand; Mickey dressed like a soldier, a sailor, a doctor; Mickey in swimming trunks, clutching a surfboard. There were wooden, metal, chalk, porcelain, plastic, glass, and clay statuettes of Mickey; some of them were a foot high, and some were no more than one inch tall, though most were in between. The only thing those hundreds of Mickeys had in common was the fact that every one of them was smiling broadly.

The collection was an icebreaker with patients of all ages. No one could resist Mickey Mouse.

Jane responded as scores of patients had done before her. She said oooh and aaah a lot, and she laughed happily. By the time she had finished admiring the collection and had sat down in one of the big leather armchairs, she was ready for the therapy session; her tension and apprehension had disappeared. Mickey had worked his usual magic.

Carol didnt have an analysts couch in her office.

She preferred to conduct sessions from a large wing chair, with the patient seated in an identical chair on the other side of the octagonal coffee table. The drapes were always kept tightly shut; soft, golden light was provided by shaded floor lamps. Except for the wall of Mickey Mouse images, the room had a nineteenth-century air.

They chatted about the collection for a couple of minutes, and then Carol said, Okay, honey. I think we ought to begin.

Worry lines appeared on the girls forehead. You really think this hypnosis is a good idea?

Yes. I think its the best tool we have for restoring your memory. Dont worry. Its a simple process. Just relax and flow with it. Okay?

Well… okay.

Carol got up and stepped around the coffee table, and Jane started to get up, too. No, you stay there, Carol said. She moved behind the wing chair and put her fingertips against the girls temples. Relax, honey. Lean back. Hands in your lap. Palms up, fingers slack. Thats fine. Now close your eyes. Are they closed?

Yes.

Good. Very good. Now I want you to think of a kite. A large, diamond-shaped kite. Picture it in your mind. Its an enormous, blue kite sailing high in the blue sky. Can you see it?

After a brief hesitation, the girl said, Yes.

Watch the kite, honey. See how gently it rises and falls on the currents of air. Rises, falls, up and down, up and down, side to side, sailing so gracefully, far above the earth, halfway between the earth and the clouds, far above your head, Carol said in a mellow, soothing, rhythmic voice as she stared down at the girls thick blond hair. While youre watching the kite, youll gradually become as light and as free as it is. Youll learn to soar up and up into the blue sky, just like the kite. With her fingertips, she lightly traced circles on the girls temples. All the tension is leaving you, all the worries and cares are floating away, away, until the only thought in your head is the kite, the sailing kite in the blue sky. A great weight has been removed from your skull, from your forehead and your temples. Already, you feel much lighter. She moved her hands down to the girls neck. The muscles in your neck are relaxing. Tension is dropping away. A great weight is dropping away. You are so much lighter now that you can almost feel yourself rising up toward the kite… almost… almost… She moved her hands down, touched the girls shoulders. Relax. Let the tension fall away. Like blocks of concrete. Making you lighter, lighter. A weight is falling off your chest, too. And now youre floating. Just a few inches off the ground, but you are floating.

Yes… floating… she said, her voice thick.

The kite is gliding far above, but you are slowly, slowly moving up to join it…

She went on like that for a minute, then returned to her own chair and sat down.

Jane was slumped in the other wing chair, head tilted to one side, eyes closed, face soft and slack, breathing softly.

You are in a very deep sleep, Carol told her. A very relaxed, very deep, deep sleep. Do you understand?

Yes, the girl murmured.

You will answer a few questions for me.

Okay.

You will remain in your deep sleep, and you will answer my questions until I tell you its time to wake up. Understood?

Yes.

Good. Very good. Now tell mewhat is your name?

The girl was silent.

What is your name, honey?

Jane.

Is that your real name?

No.

What is your real name?

Jane frowned. I… dont remember.

Where did you come from?

The hospital.

Before that.

Nowhere.

A bead of saliva glistened at the corner of the girls mouth. Languorously, she licked it away before it could drool down her chin.

Carol said, Honey, do you remember the Mickey Mouse watch you saw a few minutes ago?

Yes.

Well, Ive taken that watch from the shelf, Carol said, though she hadnt moved from her chair. And now Im turning the hands on it backwards, around and around the dial, always backwards. Can you see the hands moving backwards on that Mickey Mouse watch?

Yes.

Now something amazing is happening. As I turn those hands backwards and backwards, time itself begins to flow in reverse. It isnt a quarter past eleven any more. Its now eleven oclock. This is a magic watch. It governs the flow of time. And now its ten oclock in the morning… nine oclock… eight oclock…. Look around you. Where are you now?

The girl opened her eyes. They were fixed on a distant point. She said, Ummm… the kitchen. Yeah. The breakfast nook. Boy, the bacons nice and crisp.

Gradually, Carol moved her back in time, back through the days she had spent in the hospital, finally regressing to the accident last Thursday morning. The girl winced as she relived the moment of impact, and cried out, and Carol soothed her, and then they went back a few minutes further.

Youre standing on the sidewalk, Carol said.

Youre dressed only in a blouse and jeans. Its raining. Chilly.

The girl closed her eyes again. She shivered.

Whats your name? Carol asked. Silence.

Whats your name, honey?

I dont know.

Where have you just come from?

Nowhere.

You mean you have amnesia?

Yes.

Even before the accident?

Yes.

Although she was still very concerned about the girl, Carol was relieved to hear that she wasnt responsible for Janes condition. For a moment she felt like that blue kite, capable of soaring up and away.

Then she said, Okay. Youre about to step into the street. Do you just want to cross it, or do you intend to walk in front of a car?

I… dont… know.

How do you feel? Happy? Depressed? Indifferent?

Scared, the girl said in a small, shaky voice.

What are you scared of? Silence.

What are you scared of?

Its coming.

Whats coming?

Behind me!

Whats behind you?

The girl opened her eyes again. She was still staring at a distant point, but now there was stark terror in her eyes.

Whats behind you? Carol asked again.

Oh God, the girl said miserably.

What is it?

No, no. She shook her head. Her face was bloodless.

Carol leaned forward in her chair. Relax, honey. You will relax and be calm. Close your eyes. Calm… like the kite… far above everything… floating… warm.

The tension went out of Janes face.

All right, Carol said. Staying calm, always relaxed and calm, you will tell me what youre afraid of.

The girl said nothing.

Honey, what are you scared of? Whats behind you?

Something…

What?

Something…

Patiently, Carol said, Be specific.

I… dont know what it is… but its coming… and it scares me.

Okay. Lets go back a bit further. Using the image of the backwards-moving hands on the Mickey Mouse wristwatch, she regressed the girl another full day into the past. Now look around. Where are you?

Nowhere.

What do you see?

Nothing.

You must see something, honey.

Darkness.

Are you in a dark room?

No.

Are there walls in the darkness?

No.

Are you outdoors at night?

No.

She regressed the girl another day. Now what do you see?

Just the darkness.

There must be something else.

No.

Open your eyes, honey.

The girl obeyed. Her blue eyes were vacant, glassy. Nothing.

Carol frowned. Are you sitting or standing in that dark place?

I dont know.

What do you feel under you? A chair? A floor? A bed?

Nothing.

Reach down. Touch the floor.

There isnt a floor.

Uneasy about the direction the session was taking, Carol shifted in her chair and stared at the girl for a while, wondering what to try next.

After a few seconds, Janes eyes fluttered and went shut.

Finally, Carol said, All right. Im turning the hands of the watch counterclockwise again. Time is flowing in reverse. It will continue to flow backwards, hour by hour, day by day, faster and faster, until you stop me. I want you to stop me only when you come out of the darkness and can tell me where you are. Im turning the hands now. Backwards… backwards…

Ten seconds passed in silence. Twenty. Thirty.

After a full minute, Carol said, Where are you?

Nowhere yet.

Keep going. Backwards… back in time…

After another minute, Carol began to think something was wrong. She had the disquieting feeling that she was losing control of the situation and placing her patient in some kind of danger that could not be foreseen. But as she was about to call a halt to the regression and bring the girl forward again, Jane spoke at last.

The girl shot up out of the chair, onto her feet, flailing and screaming. Somebody help me! Mama! Aunt Rachael! For Gods sake, help me!

The voice wasnt Janes. It came from her mouth, through her tongue and lips, but it didnt sound at all like her. It wasnt merely distorted by panic. It was an entirely different voice from Janes. It had its own character, its own accent and tone.

Im going to die here Help! Get me out of here!

Carol was on her feet, too. Honey, stop it. Calm down.

Im on fire! Im on fire! the girl screamed, and she slapped at her clothes as if trying to put out the flames.

No! Carol said sharply. She stepped around the coffee table and managed to seize the girls arm, taking several glancing blows in the process.

Jane thrashed, tried to break loose.

Carol held on and began to talk softly but insistently to her, calming her down.

Jane stopped struggling, but she began to gasp and wheeze. Smoke, she said, gagging. So much smoke.

Carol talked her out of that, too, and gradually brought her down from the peak of hysteria.

At last Jane sank back into the wing chair. She was wan, and her forehead was strung with beads of sweat. Her blue eyes, staring into a distant place and time, looked haunted.

Carol knelt beside the chair and held the girls hand. Honey, can you hear me?

Yes.

Are you okay?

Im afraid

There is no fire.

There was. Everywhere, the girl said, still speaking with the unfamiliar voice.

There isnt any more. No fire anywhere.

If you say so.

I do. I say so. Now tell me your name.

Laura.

Do you remember your last name?

Laura Havenswood.

Carol flushed with triumph. Very good. Thats just fine. Wheres your home, Laura?

Shippensburg.

Shippensburg was a small town less than an hour from Harrisburg. It was a quiet, pleasant place that existed to serve a flourishing state college and a large number of surrounding farms.

Do you know the address where you live in Shippensburg? Carol asked.

Theres no street name. Its a farm. Just outside of town, off Walnut Bottom Road.

So you could take me there if you had to?

Oh, yes. Its a pretty place. There are a pair of stone gateposts by the verge of the county lane; they mark the entrance to our land. And theres a long drive flanked by maples, and there are big oaks around the house. Its cool and breezy in the summer with all those shade trees.

Whats your fathers first name?

Nicholas.

And his phone number?

The girl frowned. His what?

Whats the telephone number at your house?

The girl shook her head. I dont know what you mean.

Dont you have a telephone?

What is a telephone? the girl asked.

Carol stared at her, puzzled. It wasnt possible for a person under hypnosis to be coy or to make jokes of this sort. As she considered her next move, she saw that Laura was becoming agitated again. The girls brow furrowed, and her eyes widened. She started breathing hard again.

Laura, listen to me. You will be calm. You will relax and

The girl writhed uncontrollably in her chair.

Squealing and gasping, she slid off the chair, rolled onto the floor, bumping the coffee table and pushing it aside. She twisted and shuddered and wriggled as if she were having a severe epileptic fit, though she was not; she brushed frantically at herself, for again she seemed to believe she was on fire. She called for someone named Rachael and choked on nonexistent smoke.

Carol required almost a minute to talk her down, which was a serious loss of control; a hypnotist could usually calm a subject in only seconds. Apparently, Laura had lived through an extremely traumatic tire or had lost a loved one in a blaze. Carol wanted to pursue the matter and learn what was at the root of it, but this wasnt the right time. After taking so long to quiet her patient, she knew the session should be ended quickly.

When Laura was seated in the wing chair again, Carol crouched beside her and instructed her to remember everything that had happened and everything that had been said during the session. Then she led the girl forward through time to the present and brought her out of the trance.

The girl wiped at the moist corner of one eye, shook her head, cleared her threat. She looked at Carol and said, I guess it didnt work, huh? She sounded like Jane again; the Laura voice was gone.

But why the hell had her voice changed in the first place? Carol wondered.

You dont remember what happened? Carol asked.

Whats to remember? All that talk about a blue kite? I could see what you were trying to do, how you were trying to lull me into a trance, so I guess thats why it didnt work.

But it did work, Carol assured her. And you should be able to recall all of it.

The girl looked skeptical. All of what? What happened? What did you find out?

Carol stared at her. Laura.

The girl didnt even blink. She merely looked perplexed.

Your name is Laura.

Who said

You did.

Laura? No. I dont think so.

Laura Havenswood, Carol said.

The girl frowned. It doesnt ring any bells at all.

Surprised, Carol said, You told me you live in Shippensburg.

Wheres that?

About an hour from here.

I never heard of it.

You live on a farm. There are stone gateposts to mark the entrance to your fathers property, and theres a long driveway flanked by maple trees. Thats what you told me, and Im sure itll turn out to be just like you said. Its virtually impossible to answer questions incorrectly or deceptively while youre hypnotized. Besides, you dont have any reason to deceive me. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain if we break through this memory block.

Maybe I am Laura Havenswood, the girl, said. Maybe what I told you in the trance was true. But I cant remember it, and when you tell me who I am, it doesnt mean a thing to me. Boy, I thought if I could just remember my name, then everything would fall into place. But its still a blank. Laura, Shippensburg, a farmI cant connect with any of it.

Carol was still crouched beside the girls chair. She rose and flexed her stiff legs. Ive never encountered anything quite like this. And so far as I know, a reaction like yours hasnt ever been reported in any of the psychology journals. Whenever a patient is susceptible to hypnosis, and whenever a patient can be regressed to a moment of trauma, theres always a profound effect. Yet you werent touched at all by it. Very odd. If you remembered while you were under hypnosis, you ought to be able to remember now. And just hearing your name ought to open doors for you.

But it doesnt.

Strange…

The girl looked up from the wing chair. What now?

Carol thought for a moment, then said, I suppose we ought to have the authorities check out the Hayenswdod identity.

She went to her desk, picked up the phone, and called the Harrisburg police.

The police operator referred her to a detective named Lincoln Werth, who was in charge of a number of conventional missing-persons files as well as the Jane Doe case. He listened to Carols story with interest, promised to check it out right away, and said he would call her back the instant he obtained confirmation of the Havenswood identity.

Four hours later, at 3:55, after Carols last appointment for the day, as she and the girl were about to leave the office and go home, Lincoln Werth rang back as promised. Carol took the call at her desk, and the girl perched on the edge of the desk, watching, clearly a bit tense.

Dr. Tracy, Werth said, Ive been back and forth on the phone all afternoon with the police in Shippensburg and with the county sheriffs office up there. Im afraid I have to report its all been a wild-goose chase.

There must be some mistake.

Nope. We cant find anyone in Shippensburg or the surrounding county with the name Havenswood. Theres no telephone listed for anyone of that name, and

Maybe they just dont have a phone.

Of course, we considered that possibility, Werth said. We didnt jump to conclusions, believe me. For instance, when we checked with the power company, we discovered they dont have a customer named Havenswood anywhere in Cumberland County, but that didnt discourage us either. We figured these people were looking for might be Amish. Lots of Amish in that neck of the woods. If they were Amish, of course, they wouldnt have electricity in their house. So next we went to the property-tax rolls at the county offices up there. What we found was that nobody named Havenswood owns a house, let alone a farm, in that whole area.

They could be tenants, Carol said.

Could be. But what I really think they are is nonexistent. The girl mustve been lying.

Why would she?

I dont know. Maybe the whole amnesia thing is a hoax. Maybe shes just an ordinary runaway.

No. Definitely not. Carol looked up at Laurano, her name was still Janelooked into those clear, bottomless blue eyes. To Werth, she said, Besides, it just isnt possible to lie that well or that blatantly when youre hypnotized.

Although Jane could hear only half of the conversation, she had begun to perceive that the Havenswood name wasnt going to check out. Her face clouded. She got up and went to the display shelves to study the statuettes of Mickey Mouse.

There is something damned odd about the whole thing, Lincoln Werth said.

Odd? Carol asked.

Well, when I passed along the description of the farm that the girl gavethose stone gateposts, the long driveway with the maplesand when I said it was off Walnut Bottom Road, the Cumberland County sheriff and the various Shippensburg policemen I talked to all recognized the place right off the bat. It actually does exist.

Well, then

But nobody named Havenswood lives there, Detective Werth said. The Ohlmeyer family owns that spread. Really well known around those parts. Highly thought of, too. Oren Ohlmeyer, his wife, and their two sons. Never had a daughter, so Im told. Before Oren owned the farm, it belonged to his daddy, who bought it seventy years ago. One of the sheriffs men went out there and asked the Ohlmeyers if theyd ever heard of a girl named Laura Havenswood or anything even similar to that. They hadnt. Didnt know anyone fitting our Jane Does description, either.

Yet the farm is there, just like she told us it was.

Yeah, Werth said. Funny, isnt it?

In the Volkswagen, on the way home from the office, as they drove along the sun-splashed autumn streets, the girl said, Do you think I was faking the trance?

Heavens, no! You were very deeply under. And Im quite sure you arent a good enough actress to fake that business about the fire.

Fire?

I guess you dont remember that, either. Carol told her about Lauras screaming fit, the desperate cries for help. Your terror was genuine. It came from experience. Id bet anything on that.

I dont remember any of it. You mean I really was in a fire once?

Could be. Ahead, a traffic light turned red. Carol stopped the car and looked at Jane. You dont have any physical scars, so if you were in a fire, you escaped unharmed. Of course, it might be that you lost someone in a fire, someone you loved very much, and maybe you werent actually in a fire yourself. If thats the case, then when you were hypnotized, you might have confused your fear for that person with fear for your own life. Am I making myself clear?

I think I get what you mean. So maybe the firethe shock of itis responsible for my amnesia. And maybe my parents havent shown up to claim me because… theyre dead, burned to death.

Carol took the girls hand. Dont worry about it now, honey. I may be all wrong. I probably am. But I think its a possibility you ought to be prepared for.

The girl bit her lip, nodded. The idea scares me a little. But I dont exactly feel sad. I mean, I dont remember my folks at all, so losing them would almost be like losing strangers.

Behind them, the driver of a green Datsun blew his horn.

The light had changed. Carol let go of the girls hand and touched the accelerator. Well probe into the fire during tomorrows session.

You still think I am Laura Havenswood?

Well, for the time being, well keep calling you Jane. But I dont see why youd come up with the name Laura if it wasnt yours..

The identity didnt check out, the girl reminded her.

Carol shook her head. Thats not exactly true. We havent proved or disproved the Havenswood identity. All we know for sure is that you never lived in Shippensburg. But you must have been there at least once because the farm exists; youve seen it, if only in passing. Apparently, even under hypnosis, even regressed beyond the onset of your amnesia, your memories are tangled. I dont know how thats possible or why. Ive never encountered anything quite like it. But well work hard at untangling them for you. The problem might lie in the questions I asked and the way I asked them. Well just have to wait and see.

They rode in silence for a moment, and then the girl said, I half hope we dont get things untangled too quickly. Ever since you told me about your cabin in the mountains, Ive really been looking forward to going up there.

Oh, youll get to go. Dont worry about that. Were leaving on Friday, and even if tomorrows session goes well, we wont be able to untangle this Laura Havenswood thing that fast. I warned you, this could be a slow, complicated, frustrating process. Im surprised we made any progress at all today, and Ill be twice as surprised if we make even half as much headway tomorrow.

I guess youll be stuck with me for a while.

Carol sighed and pretended weariness. Looks that way. Oh, youre such a terrible, terrible, terrible burden. Youre just too much to bear. She took one hand off the steering wheel long enough to clutch her heart in a melodramatic gesture that made Jane giggle. Too much! Oh, oh!

You know what? the girl asked.

What?

I like you, too.

They looked at each other and grinned.

At the next red light, Jane said, Ive got a feeling about the mountains.

Whats that?

I have this strong feeling that its going to be a lot of fun up there. Really exciting. Something special. A real adventure. Her blue eyes were even brighter than usual.

After dinner, Paul suggested they play Scrabble. He set up the board on the game table in the family room, while Carol explained the rules to Jane, who couldnt remember whether or not she had ever played it before.

After winning the starting lottery, Jane went first with a twenty-two-point word that took advantage of a double-count square and the automatic double score for the first word of the game.

BLADE

Not a bad start, Paul said. He hoped the girl would win, because she got such a kick out of little things like that. The smallest compliment, the most modest triumph delighted her. But he wasnt going to throw the game just to please her; she would have to earn it, by God. He was incapable of giving the match away to anyone; regardless of the kind of game he was playing, he always put as much effort and commitment into it as he put into his work. He didnt indulge in leisure activities; he attacked them. To Jane, he said, I have a hunch youre the kind of kid who says shes never played poker beforeand quickly proceeds to win every pot in the game.

Can you bet on Scrabble? Jane asked.

You can, but we wont, Paul said.

Scared?

Terrified. Youd wind up with the house.

Id let you stay.

How decent of you.

For very low rent.

Ah, this child truly has a heart of gold!

While he bantered with Jane, Carol studied her own group of letters. Hey, she said, Ive got a word that ties right in with Janes. She added LOOD to the B in BLADE, forming BLOOD.

Judging from your words, Paul said, I guess you two intend to play a cutthroat game.

Carol and Jane groaned dutifully at his bad joke and refilled their letter trays from the stock in the lid of the game box.

To Pauls surprise, when he looked at his own seven letters, he saw that he had a word with which to continue the morbid theme that had been established. He added EATH to the D at the end of BLOOD, creating DEATH.

Weird, Carol said.

Heres something weirder still, Jane said, taking her second turn by adding OMB to the T in DEATH.

BLADE
L
O
O
DEATH
   O
   M
   B

Paul stared at the board. He was suddenly uneasy.

What were the odds that the first four words in a game would be so closely related in theme? Ten thousand to one? No. It had to be much higher than that. A hundred thousand to one? A million to one?

Carol looked up from her unusual letters. You arent going to believe this. She added three letters to the board.

   BLADE
KILL
   O
   O
   DEATH
      O
      M
      B

Kill? Paul said. Oh, come on. Enoughs enough. Take it away and make another word.

I cant, Carol said. Thats all I have. The rest of my letters are useless.

But you could have put lik above the e in blade, Paul said. You could have spelled like instead of kill.

Sure, I could have done that, but Id have gotten fewer points if I had. You see? Theres no square with a double-letter score up there.

As he listened to Carols explanation, Paul felt strange. Bitterly cold inside. Hollow. As if he were balancing on a tightrope and knew he was going to fall and fall and fall…

He was gripped by déjŕ vu, by such a strikingly powerful awareness of having lived through this scene before that, for a moment, his heart seemed to stop beating. Yet nothing like this had ever happened in any other Scrabble game hed ever played. So why was he so certain he had witnessed this very thing on a previous occasion? Even as he asked himself that question, he realized what the answer was. The seizure of déjŕ vu wasnt in reference to the words on the Scrabble board; not directly anyway. The thing that was so frighteningly familiar to him was the unusual, soul-shaking feeling that the coincidental appearance of those words aroused in him; the iciness that came from within rather than from without; the awful hollowness deep in his guts; the sickening sensation of teetering on a high wire, with only infinite darkness below. He had felt exactly the same way in the attic last week, when the mysterious hammering sound had seemed to issue out of the thin air in front of his face, when each thunk! had sounded as if it were coming from a sledge and anvil in another dimension of time and space. That was how he felt now, at the Scrabble board: as if he were confronted with something extraordinary, unnatural, perhaps even supernatural.

To Carol, he said, Listen, why dont you just take those last three letters off the board, put them back in the box, choose three brand-new letters, and make some other word besides kill.

He could see that his suggestion startled her.

She said, Why should I do that?

Paul frowned. Blade, blood, death, tomb, killwhat kind of words are they for a nice, friendly, peaceable game of Scrabble?

She stared at him for a moment, and her piercing eyes made him a bit uncomfortable. Its only coincidence, she said, clearly puzzled by his tenseness.

I know its only coincidence, he said, though he didnt know anything of the sort. He was simply unable to explain rationally the eerie feeling that the words on the board were the work of some force far stronger than mere coincidence, something worse. It still gives me the creeps, he said lamely. He turned to Jane, seeking an ally. Doesnt it give you the creeps?

Yeah. It does. A little, the girl agreed. But its also kind of fascinating. I wonder how long we can keep going with words that fit this pattern.

I wonder, too, Carol said. Playfully, she slapped Pauls shoulder. You know what your trouble is, babe? You dont have any scientific curiosity. Now come on. Its your turn.

After putting DEATH on the board, he hadnt replenished his supply of letter tiles. He drew four of the small wooden squares from the lid of the game box, put them on the rack in front of him.

And froze.

Oh God.

He was on that tightrope again, teetering over a great abyss.

Well? Carol asked.

Coincidence. It had to be just coincidence.

Well?

He looked up at her.

What have you got? she asked.

Numb, he shifted his eyes to the girl.

She was hunched over the table, as eager as Carol to hear his response, anxious to see if the macabre pattern would continue.

Paul lowered his eyes to the row of letters on the wooden rack. The word was still there. Impossible. But it was there anyway, possible or not.

Paul?

He moved so quickly and unexpectedly that Carol and Jane jumped. He scooped up the letters on his rack and nearly flung them back into the lid of the box. He swept the five offensive words off the board before anyone could protest, and he returned those nineteen tiles to the box with all the others.

Paul, for heavens sake!

Well start a new game, he said. Maybe those words didnt bother you, but they bothered me. Im here to relax. If I want to hear about blood and death and killing, I can switch on the news.

Carol said, What word did you have?

I dont know, he lied. I didnt work with the letters to see. Come on. Lets start all over.

You did have a word, she said.

No.

It looked to me like you did, Jane said.

Open up, Carol said.

All right, all right. I had a word. It was obscene. Not something a gentleman like me would use in a refined game of Scrabble, with ladies present.

Janes eyes sparkled mischievously. Really? Tell us. Dont be stuffy.

Stuffy? Have you no manners, young lady?

None!

Have you no modesty?

Nope.

Are you just a common broad?

Common, she said, nodding rapidly. Common to the core. So tell us what word you had.

Shame, shame, shame, he said. Gradually, he cajoled them into dropping their inquiry. They started a new game. This time all the words were ordinary, and they did not come in any unsettling, related order.

Later, in bed, he made love to Carol. He wasnt particularly horny. He just wanted to be as close to her as he could get.

Afterwards, when the murmured love talk finally faded into a companionable silence, she said, What was your word?

Hmmmm? he said, pretending not to know what she meant.

Your obscene word in the Scrabble game. Dont try to tell me youve forgotten what it was.

Nothing important.

She laughed. After everything we just did in this bed, surely you dont think I need to be sheltered!

I didnt have an obscene word. Which was the truth. I didnt really have any word at all. Which was a lie. Its just that…I thought those first five words on the board were bad for Jane.

Bad for her?

Yes. I mean, you told me its quite possible she lost one or both of her parents in a fire. She might be on the brink of learning about or remembering a terrible tragedy in her recent past. Tonight she just needed to relax, to laugh a bit. How could the game have been fun for her if the words on the board started to remind her that her parents might be dead?

Carol turned on her side, raised herself up a bit, leaned over him, her bare breasts grazing his chest, and stared into his eyes. is that really the only reason you were so upset?

Dont you think I was right? Did I overreact?

Maybe you did. Maybe you didnt. It was Creepy. She kissed his nose. You know why I love you so much?

Because Im such a great lover?

You are, but thats not why I love you.

Because I have tight buns?

Not that.

Because I keep my fingernails so neat and clean?

Not that.

I give up.

Youre so damned sensitive, so caring about other people. How typical of my Paul to worry about the Scrabble game being fun for Jane. Thats why I love you.

I thought it was my hazel eyes.

Nah.

My classic profile.

Are you kidding?

Or the way my third toe on my left foot lays half under the second toe.

Oh, Id forgotten about that. Hmmmmmmmm. Youre right. Thats why I love you. Not because youre sensitive. Its your toes that drive me wild.

Their teasing led to cuddling, and the cuddling led to kissing, and the kissing led to passion again. She reached her peak only a few seconds before he spurted deep within her, and when they finally parted for the night, he felt pleasantly wrung out.

Nevertheless, she was asleep before he was. He stared at the dark ceiling of the dark bedroom and thought about the Scrabble game.

BLADE, BLOOD, DEATH, TOMB, KILL…

He thought about the word he had hidden from Carol and Jane, the word that had compelled him to end the game and start another. After adding EATH to the D in BLOOD, hed been left with just three letter tiles on his rack: X, U, and C. The X and the U had played no part in what was to follow. But when he had drawn four new letters, they had gone disconcertingly well with the C. First hed picked up an A, then an R. And he had known what was going to happen. He hadnt wanted to continue; hed considered throwing all the tiles back into the box at that moment, for he dreaded seeing the word that he knew the last two letters would spell. But he hadnt ended it there. He had been too curious to stop when he should have stopped. He had drawn a third tile, which had been an O, and then a fourth, L.

C…A…R…O…L…

BLADE, BLOOD, DEATH, TOMB, KILL, CAROL.

Of course, even if he was able to fit it in, he couldnt put CAROL on the board, for it was a proper name, and the rules didnt allow the use of proper names. But that was a moot point. The important thing was that her name had been spelled out so neatly, so boldly on his rack of letters that it was uncanny. He had drawn the letters in their proper order, for Gods sake! What were the odds against that?

It seemed to be an omen. A warning that something was going to happen to Carol. Just as Grace Mitowskis two nightmares had turned out to be prophetic.

He thought about the other strange events that had transpired recently: the unnaturally violent lightning strikes at Alfred OBrians office; the hammering sound that had shaken the house; the intruder on the rear lawn during the thunderstorm. He sensed that all of it was tied together. But for Christs sake, how?

BLADE, BLOOD.

DEATH, TOMB.

KILL, CAROL.

If the series of words on the Scrabble tiles had constituted a prophetic warning, what was he supposed to do about it? The omen, if it was an omen, was too vague to have any value. There was nothing specific to guard against. He couldnt protect Carol until he knew from which direction the danger was coming. A car wreck? A plane crash. A mugger? Cancer? It could be anything. He could see nothing to be gained by telling Carol that her name had turned up on his rack of Scrabble tiles; there was nothing she could do, either, nothing except worry about it.

He didnt want to worry her.

Instead, lying in the darkness, feeling icy even under the covers, he worried for her.

At two oclock in the morning, Grace was still reading in the study. There wasnt any point in going to bed for at least another hour or two. The events of the last week had turned her into an insomniac.

The day just past had been relatively uneventful.

Aristophanes was still behaving oddlyhiding from her, sneaking about, watching her when he thought she didnt know he was therebut he hadnt torn up any more pillows or furniture, and he had used his litter box as he was supposed to do, which were encouraging signs. She hadnt received any more telephone calls from the man who had pretended to be Leonard, and for that she was grateful. Yes, it had been pretty much an ordinary day.

And yet…

She was still tense and unable to sleep because she sensed that she was in the eye of the hurricane. She sensed that the peace and quiet in her house were deceptive, that thunder and lightning raged on all sides of her, just beyond the range of her hearing and just out of sight. She expected to be plunged back into the storm at any moment, and that expectation made it impossible for her to relax.

She heard a furtive sound and glanced up from the novel she was reading.

Aristophanes appeared at the open study door, peering in from the hallway. Only his elegant Siamese head was visible as he craned it cautiously around the doorframe.

Their eyes met.

For an instant, Grace felt that she was not looking into the eyes of a dumb animal. They seemed to contain intelligence. Wisdom. Experience. More than mere animal intent and purpose.

Aristophanes hissed.

His eyes were cold. Twin balls of crystal-clear, blue-green ice.

What do you want, cat?

He broke the staring contest. He turned away from her with haughty indifference, padded past the doorway, and went softly down the hall, pretending that he hadnt been spying on her, even though they both knew he had been doing exactly that.

Spying? she thought. Am I crazy? Who would a cat be spying for? Catsylvania? Great Kitten? Purrsia?

She could think of other puns, but none of them brought a smile to her lips.

Instead, she sat with the book on her lap, wondering about her sanity.

9

THURSDAY AFTERNOON.

The office drapes were tightly closed as usual. The light from the two floor lamps was golden, diffuse. Mickey Mouse was still smiling broadly in all his many incarnations.

Carol and Jane sat in the wing chairs.

The girl slipped into a trance with only a little assistance from Carol. Most patients were more susceptible to hypnosis the second time than they had been the first, and Jane was no exception.

Again using the imaginary wristwatch, Carol turned the hands of time backwards and regressed Jane into the past. This time the girl didnt need two minutes to get beyond her amnesia. In only twenty or thirty seconds, she reached a point at which memories existed for her.

She twitched and suddenly sat up ramrod-straight in her chair. Her eyes popped open like the eyes on a doll; she was looking through Carol. Her face was twisted with terror.

Laura? Carol asked.

Both of the girls hands flew up to her throat. She clutched herself, gasping, gagging, grimacing in pain. She appeared to be reliving the same traumatic experience that had panicked her during yesterdays sessions, but today she did not scream.

You cant feel the fire, Carol told her. There is no pain, honey. Relax. Be calm. You cant smell the smoke, either. It doesnt bother you at all. Breathe easily, normally. Be calm and relax.

The girl didnt obey. She quivered and broke out in a sweat. She retched repeatedly, dryly, violently, yet almost silently.

Afraid that she had lost control again, Carol redoubled her efforts to soothe her patient, without success.

Jane began to gesture wildly, her hands cutting and stabbing and tugging .and hammering at the air.

Abruptly, Carol realized the girl was trying to talk, but for some reason had lost her voice.

Tears welled up and slid down Janes face. She was moving her mouth without the slightest result, desperately trying to force out words that refused to come. In addition to the terror in her eyes, there was now frustration.

Carol quickly fetched a notebook and a felt-tipped pen from her desk. She put the notebook on Janes lap and pressed the pen into her hand.

Write it for me, honey.

The girl squeezed the pen so hard that her knuckles were white and nearly as sharp as the knuckles on a skeletons fleshless hand. She looked down at the notebook. She stopped retching, but she continued to quiver.

Carol crouched beside the wing chair, where she could see the notebook. What is it you want to say?

Her hand shaking like that of a palsied old woman, Jane hurriedly scrawled two words that were barely legible: Help me.

Why do you need help?

Again: Help me.

Why cant you speak?

Head.

Be more specific.

My head.

What about your head?

The girls hand began to form a letter, then jumped down one line and made another false start, jumped to a third lineas if she couldnt figure out how to express what she wanted to say. At last, in a frenzy, she started slashing at the paper with the felt-tipped pen, making a meaningless crosshatching of black lines.

Stop it! Carol said. You will relax, dammit. Be calm.

Jane stopped slashing at the paper. She was silent, staring down at the notebook on her lap.

Carol tore off the smeared page and threw it on the floor. Okay. Now youre going to answer my questions calmly and as fully as you can. What is your name?

Millie.

Carol stared at the handwritten name, wondering what had happened to Laura Havenswood. Millie? Are you sure thats your name? Millicent Parker.

Where is Laura?

Whos Laura?

Carol stared at the girls drawn face. The perspiration was beginning to dry on her porcelain-smooth skin. Her blue eyes were blank, unfocused. Her mouth was slack.

Carol abruptly flashed a hand past the girls face. Jane didnt flinch. She wasnt faking the trance.

Where do you live, Millicent?

Harrisburg.

Right here in town. Whats your address?

Front Street.

Along the river? Do you know the number? The girl wrote it down.

Whats your fathers name?

Randolph Parker.

Whats your mothers name?

The pen made a meaningless squiggle on the notebook page.

Whats your mothers name? Carol repeated.

The girl surrendered to a new series of spasmic tremors. She retched soundlessly and put her hands to her throat once more. The felt-tipped pen made a black mark on the underside of her chin.

Apparently, the mere mention of her mother frightened her. That was territory that would have to be explored, though not right now.

Carol talked her down, calmed her, and asked a new question. How old are you, Millie?

Tomorrows my birthday.

Is it really? How old will you be?

I wont make it.

What wont you make?

Sixteen.

Are you fifteen now?

Yes.

And you think you wont live to be sixteen? Is that it?

Wont live.

Why not?

The sheen of sweat had nearly evaporated from the girls face, but again perspiration popped out along her hairline.

Why wont you live to see your birthday? Carol persisted.

As before, the girl used the felt-tipped pen to slash angrily at the notebook.

Stop that, Carol said firmly. Relax and be calm and answer my question. She tore the ruined page out of the book and tossed it aside, then said, Why wont you live to see your sixteenth birthday, Millie?

Head.

So were back to this, Carol thought. She said, What about your head? Whats wrong with it?

Cut off.

Carol stared at those two words for a moment, then looked up at the girls face.

Millie-Jane was struggling to remain calm, as Carol had told her she must. But her eyes jiggled nervously, and there was horror in them. Her lips were utterly colorless, tremulous. Beneath the rivulets of sweat that coursed down her forehead, her skin was waxy and mealy white.

She continued to scribble frantically in the note-book, but all she wrote was the same thing over and over again: Cut cut off, cut off cut off… She was bearing down on the page with such great pressure that the head of the felt-tipped pen was squashed into shapeless mush.

My God, Carol thought, this is like a live report from the bottom of Hell.

Laura Havenswood. Millicent Parker. One girl screaming in pain as fire consumed her, the other a victim of decapitation. What did either of those girls have to do with Jane Doe? She couldnt be both of them. Perhaps she wasnt either of them. Were they people she had known? Or were they only figments of her imagination?

What in Christs name is happening here? Carol wondered.

She put her own hand over the girls writing hand and stilled the squeaking pen. Speaking gently, rhythmically, she told Millie-Jane that everything was all right, that she was perfectly safe, and that she must relax.

The girls eyes stopped jiggling. She sagged back in her chair.

All right, Carol said. I think thats enough for today, honey.

Employing the imaginary wristwatch, she brought the girl forward in time.

For a few seconds everything went well, but then, without warning, the girl erupted from her chair, knocking the notebook off her lap and flinging the pen across the room. Her pale face flushed red, and her placid expression gave way to a look of pure rage.

Carol rose from beside the girls chair and stepped in front of her. Honey, whats wrong?

The girls eyes were wild. She began to shout with such force that she sprayed Carol with spittle. Shit! The bitch did it! The rotten, goddamn bitch!

The voice wasnt Janes.

It wasnt Lauras either.

It was a new voice, a third one, with its own special character, and Carol had a hunch it didnt belong to Millicent Parker, the mute. She suspected that an entirely new identity had surfaced.

The girl stood very stiff and straight, her hands fisted at her sides, staring off into infinity. Her face was distorted by anger. The stinking bitch did it! She did it to me again!

The girl continued to shout at the top of her voice, and half of the words she blurted out were obscene. Carol tried to soothe her, but this time it wasnt easy. For at least a minute the girl continued to wail and curse. At last, however, at Carols urging, she got control of herself. She stopped shouting, but there was still anger in her face.

Holding the girl by the shoulders, face to face with her, Carol said, Whats your name?

Linda.

Whats your last name?

Bektermann.

It was yet another identity, as Carol had thought. She had the girl spell the name.

Then: Where do you live, Linda?

Second Street.

In Harrisburg?

Yes.

Carol asked for the exact address, and the girl responded. It was only a few blocks from the Front Street address that Millicent Parker had provided.

Whats your fathers name, Linda?

Herbert Bektermann.

Whats your mothers name?

That question had the same effect on Linda as it had had on Millie. She rapidly became agitated and began to shout again. The bitch! Oh, God, what she did to me. The slimy, rotten bitch! I hate her. I hate her!

Chilled by the combination of fury and agony in the girls tortured voice, Carol quickly quieted her.

Then: How old are you, Linda?

Tomorrows my birthday.

Carol frowned. Am I talking to Millicent now?

Whos Millicent?

Is this still Linda Im talking to?

Yes.

And your birthday is tomorrow?

Yes.

How old will you be?

I wont make it.

Carol blinked. You mean you wont live to see your birthday?

Thats right.

Is it your sixteenth birthday?

Yes.

Youre fifteen now?

Yes.

Why are you worried about dying?

Because I know I will.

How do you know?

Because I already am.

Youre already dying?

Dead.

Youre already dead?

I will be.

Please be specific. Are you telling me that youre already dead? Or are you saying that youre merely afraid youre going to die sometime soon?

Yes.

Which is it?

Both.

Carol felt as if she were in the middle of a tea party at the Mad Hatters house.

How do you think youre going to die, Linda?

Shell kill me.

Who?

The bitch.

Your mother?

The girl doubled over and clutched at her side, as if she had been struck. She screamed, turned, staggered two steps, and fell with a crash. On the floor she still clutched her side, and she kicked her legs, writhed. She was obviously in unendurable pain. It was only imaginary pain, of course, but to the girl it was indistinguishable from the real thing.

Frightened, Carol knelt beside her, held her hand, and urged her to be calm. When the girl eventually relaxed, Carol quickly brought her all the way back to the present and out of the trance.

Jane blinked, stared up at Carol, and put one hand on the floor beside her, as if testing the truth of what her eyes told her. Wow, what am I doing down here?

Carol helped her to her feet. I suppose you dont remember?

No. Did I tell you anything more about myself?

No. I dont think so. You told me you were a girl named Millicent Parker, and then you told me you were a girl named Linda Bektermann, but obviously you cant be both of them and Laura, too. So I suspect that you arent any of them.

I dont think so, either, Jane said. Those two new names dont mean anything more to me than Laura Havenswood did. But who are those people? Where did I get their names, and why did I tell you I was any of them?

Ill be damned if I know, Carol said. But sooner or later, well figure it out. Well get to the bottom of all this, kiddo. I promise you that.

But what in Gods name will we find at the bottom, down there in the dark? Carol wondered. Will it be something well wish wed left buried forever?

Thursday afternoon, Grace Mitowski worked in the rose garden behind her house. The day was warm and clear, and she felt the need for some exercise. Besides, in the garden she wouldnt be able to hear the telephone ringing and wouldnt be tempted to answer it. Which was fine, because she wasnt psychologically prepared to answer the phone just yet; she hadnt decided how to deal with the hoaxer the next time he called and pretended that he was her long-dead husband.

Because of last weeks torrential rains, the roses were past their prime. The last flowers of the season should have been at the peak of their beauty right now, but many of the big blooms had lost a fifth or even a fourth of their petals under the lashing of the wind-whipped rain. Nevertheless, the garden was still a colorful, cheery sight.

She had let Aristophanes out for some exercise.

She kept an eye on him, intending to call him back the moment he headed off the property. She was determined to keep him away from whoever had poisoned or drugged him. But he didnt seem to be in a rambling mood; he stayed nearby, creeping among the roses, stirring up a moth or two and chasing them with catlike single-mindedness.

Grace was on her hands and knees in front of a row of intermingled yellow and crimson and orange flowers, hand-spading the earth with a trowel, when someone said, You have a magnificent garden.

Startled, she looked up and saw a thin, jaundice-skinned man in a rumpled blue suit that hadnt been in fashion for many years. His shirt and tie were hopelessly out of style, too. He looked as if he had stepped out of a photograph taken in the 1940s. He had thinning hair the color of summer dust, and his eyes were an unusual shade of soft brown, almost beige. His face was composed entirely of narrow features and sharp angles that gave him a look halfway between that of a hawk and that of a parsimonious moneylender in a Charles Dickens novel. He appeared to be in his early or middle fifties.

Grace glanced at the gate in the white board fence that separated her property from the street. The gate was standing wide open. Evidently, the man had been strolling by, had seen the roses through a gap in the poplar-tree hedge that stood on the outside of the fence, and had decided to come in and have a closer look.

His smile was warm, and there was kindness in his eyes, and he seemed not to be intruding, even though he was. You must have two dozen varieties of roses here.

Three dozen, she said.

Truly magnificent, he said, nodding approval.

His voice wasnt thin and sharp like the rest of him. It was deep, mellow, friendly, and would have seemed more fitting if it had issued from a brawny, hearty fellow half again this mans size. You take care of the entire garden yourself?

Grace sat back on her heels, still holding the trowel in one gloved hand. Sure. I enjoy it. And somehow… it just wouldnt be my garden if I hired someone to help me with it.

Exactly! the stranger said. Yes, I can understand how you feel.

Are you new in the neighborhood? Grace asked.

No, no. Used to live just a block from here, but that was a long, long time ago. He took a deep breath and smiled again. Ah, the wonderful aroma of roses! Nothing else smells half so pretty. Yes, youve got a superb garden. Really superb.

Thank you.

He snapped his fingers as a thought occurred to him. I ought to write something about this. It might make a first-rate human-interest piece. This fantasy-land tucked away in an ordinary backyard. Yes, Im sure it would be just the thing. A nice change of pace for me.

Are you a writer?

Reporter, he said, still taking deep breaths and savoring the aroma of the blooms.

Are you with a local paper?

The Morning News. Names Palmer Wainwright

Grace Mitowski.

I hoped you might recognize my byline, Wainwright said, grinning.

Sorry. I dont read the Morning News. I take the Patriot-News from the delivery boy every morning.

Ah, well, he said, shrugging, thats a good paper, too. But of course, if you dont read the Morning News, you never saw my story about the Bektermann case.

As Grace realized that Wainwright intended to hang around awhile, she got off her haunches, stood up, and flexed her rapidly stiffening legs. The Bektermann case? That sounds familiar.

All the papers reported it, of course. But I did a five-part series. Good stuff, even if I do say so myself. I got a Pulitzer nomination for it. Did you know that? An honest-to-God Pulitzer nomination.

Really? Why, thats something, Grace said, not sure if she should take him seriously but not wanting to offend him. That is really something. Imagine. A Pulitzer nomination.

It seemed to her that the conversation had suddenly taken an odd turn. It wasnt casual any longer. She sensed that Wainwright had come into the yard not to admire her roses and not to have a friendly chat, but to tell her, a complete stranger, about his Pulitzer nomination.

Didnt win, Wainwright said. But the way I look at it, a nomination is almost as good as the prize itself. I mean, out of the tens of thousands of newspaper articles thatre published in a year, only a handful are up for the prize.

Refresh my memory, if you will, Grace said.

What was the Bektermann case about?

He laughed good-naturedly and shook his head. Wasnt about what I thought it was about. Thats for damned sure. I wrote it up as a tangled, Freudian puzzle. You knowthe iron-willed father, with perhaps an unnatural attraction for his own daughter, the mother with a drinking problem, the poor girl caught in the middle. The victimized young girl subjected to hideous psychological pressures beyond her understanding, beyond her tolerance, until at last she simplysnapped. Thats how I saw it. Thats how I wrote it up. I thought I was a brilliant detective, digging to the deepest roots of the Bektermann tragedy. But all I ever saw was the window-dressing. The real story was far stranger than anything I ever imagined. Hell, it was too strange for any serious reporter to risk handling it. No reputable paper would have printed it as news. If had known the truth, and if! had somehow gotten it published, Id have destroyed my career.

What the devils going on? Grace wondered. He seems obsessed with telling me about this in detail, compelled to tell me, even though hes never even seen me before. Is this life imitating artColeridges poem reset in a rose garden? Am I the partygoer and Wainwright the Ancient Mariner?

As she looked into Wainwrights beige eyes, she suddenly realized how alone she was, even here in the yard. Her property was ringed by trees, sheltered, private.

Was it a murder case? she asked.

Was and is, Wainwright said. It didnt end with the Bektermanns. Its still going on. This damned, endless pursuit. Its still going on, and its got to be stopped this time around. Thats why Im here. Ive come to tell you that your Carol is in the middle of it. Caught in the middle. Youve got to help her. Get her out of the girls way.

Grace gaped at him, reluctant to believe that she had heard what she knew she had heard.

There are certain forces, dark and powerful forces, Wainwright said calmly, that want to see Shrieking angrily, Aristophanes sprang at Wainwright with berserk passion. He landed on the mans chest and scrambled onto his face.

Grace screamed and jumped back in fright.

Wainwright staggered to one side, grabbed the cat with both hands, and tried unsuccessfully to wrench it off his face.

Ari! Grace cried. Stop it!

Aristophanes had his claws in the mans neck and was biting his cheek.

Wainwright wasnt screaming as he ought to have been. He was eerily silent as he wrestled with the cat, even though the creature seemed determined to tear off his face.

Grace moved toward Wainwright, wanting to help, not knowing what to do.

The cat was squealing. It bit off a gobbet of flesh from Wainwrights cheek.

Oh Jesus, no!

Grace moved in quickly, raising the trowel, but hesitated. She was afraid of hitting the man instead of the cat.

Wainwright suddenly turned away from her and stumbled through the rose bushes, past white and yellow blooms, the cat still clinging to him. He walked into a waist-high hedge, fell through it, onto the lawn On the other side, out of sight.

Grace hurried to the end of the hedgerow, stepped around it, heart hammering, and discovered that Wainwright had vanished. Only the cat was there, and it bolted past her, sprinted across the garden, up the back porch steps, and into the house through the half-open rear door.

Where was Wainwright? Had he crawled away, dazed, wounded? Had he passed out in some sheltered corner of the garden, bleeding to death?

The yard contained half a dozen shrubs large and dense enough to conceal the body of a man Wainwrights size. She looked around all of them, but she could find no trace of the reporter.

She looked toward the garden gate that led to the street. No. He couldnt have gone that far without drawing her attention.

Frightened, confused, Grace blinked at the sun-dappled garden, trying to understand.

The Harrisburg telephone book contained neither a listing for Mr. Randolph Parker nor one for Herbert Bektermann. Carol was perplexed but not surprised.

After she saw her final patient of the day, she and Jane drove to the address on Front Street where Millicent Parker had claimed to live. It was a huge, impressive Victorian mansion, but it hadnt been anyone's home for a long time. The front lawn had been paved over for a parking lot. There was a small, tasteful sign by the entrance drive:

MAUGHAM & CRICHTON, INC.
A MEDICAL CORPORATION

Many years ago, this portion of Front Street had been one of the most elegant neighborhoods in Pennsylvanias capital city. During the past couple of decades, however, many of the riverfront boulevards grand old houses had been razed to make room for sterile, modern office buildings. A few of the rambling houses had been preserved, at least after a fashionthe exteriors beautifully restored, the interiors gutted and converted to various commercial uses. Farther north, there was still a section of Front Street that was a desirable residential area, but not here, not where Millicent Parker had sent them.

Maugham & Crichton was a group medical practice that included seven physicians: two general internists and five specialists. Carol had a chat with the receptionist, a henna-haired woman named Polly, who told her that none of the doctors was named Parker. Likewise, no one of that name was employed as a nurse or as a member of the clerical staff. Furthermore, Maugham & Crichton had been at their current address for nearly seventeen years.

It had occurred to Carol that Jane might once have been a patient of one of Maugham & Crichtons physicians, and that her subconscious mind had made use of the firms address to flesh out the Millicent Parker identity. But Polly, who had worked for Maugham & Crichton ever since theyd opened their doors, was sure she had never seen the girl. However, intrigued by Janes amnesia and sympathetic by nature, Polly agreed to check the files to see if Maugham & Crichton had ever treated anyone named Laura Havenswood, Millicent Parker, or Linda Bektermann. It was a fruitless search; none of those names appeared in the patient records.

Grace stepped through the gate, into the street, and looked both ways. There was no sign of Palmer Wainwright.

She returned to her own backyard, closed and latched the gate, and walked toward the house.

Wainwright was sitting on the porch steps, waiting for her.

She stopped fifteen feet from him, amazed, confused.

He got up from the steps.

Your face, she said numbly.

His face was unscarred.

He smiled as if nothing had happened and took two steps toward her. Grace

The cat, she said. I saw your cheek… your neck… its claws tore out…

Listen, he said, taking another step toward her, there are certain forces, dark and powerful forces, that want to see this played out the wrong way. Dark forces that thrive on tragedy. They want to see it end in senseless violence and blood. That mustnt be allowed to happen, Grace. Not again. Youve got to keep Carol out of the girls way, for her sake and for the sake of the girl, too.

Grace gaped at him. Who the hell are you?

Who are you? Wainwright asked, raising one eyebrow quizzically. That is the important question right now. You arent only who you think you are. You arent only Grace Mitowski.

Hes mad, she thought. Or Im mad. Or we both are. Stark, raving mad.

She said, Youre the one on the phone. Youre the creep who imitates Leonards voice.

No, he said. I am

No wonder Ari attacked you. Youre the one whos been giving him drugs or poison or something like that. Youre the one, and he knew.

But what about the facial wounds, the gouged neck? she asked herself. How in the name of God did those injuries heal so quickly?

How?

She pushed those thoughts out of her mind, refused to think about such things. She must have been mistaken. She must have imagined that Ari had actually hurt the man.

Yeah, she said, youre the one whos behind all of these weird things thatve been happening. Get off my property, you son of a bitch.

Grace, there are forces aligned… He looked no different now from the way he had looked when hed first spoken to her, several minutes ago. He hadnt looked crazed then; he didnt look crazed now. He didnt look dangerous, and yet he continued to babble about dark forces. … good and evil, right and wrong. Youre on the right side, Grace. But the catah, the cats a different story. At all times, you must be wary of the cat.

Get out of my way, she said.

He took a step toward her.

She slashed at him with the gardening trowel, missing his face by just an inch or two. She slashed again and again and again, cutting only empty air, not really wanting to cut anything else unless she had no choice, just hoping to keep him at bay until she could slip around him, for he was between her and the house. And then she was around him; she turned and ran for the kitchen door, painfully aware that her legs were old and arthritic. She went only a few steps before she realized she shouldnt have turned her back on the lunatic, and she wheeled to confront him, gasping, certain that he was leaping toward her, perhaps with a knife in his handBut he was gone.

Vanished. Again.

He hadnt had time to reach any of the shrubs that were large enough to conceal a man, not during the split second her back had been turned. Even if he had been a much younger man than he was, in the very best condition, a trained runnereven then he couldnt have gone more than halfway to the gate in such a short time.

So where was he?

Where was he?

From the offices of Maugham & Crichton on Front Street, Carol and Jane drove a few blocks to the Second Street address that was supposed to be the home of Linda Bektermann. It was in a good neighborhood; a lovely French country house, at least fifty years old, in fine condition. No one was at home, but the name on the mailbox was Nicholson, not Bektermann.

They rang the bell at the house next door and talked to a neighbor, Jean Gunther, who confirmed that the French country place was owned and occupied by the Nicholson family.

My husband and I have lived here for six years,

Mrs. Gunther said, and the Nicholsons were next door when we moved in. I think I once heard them say theyd lived in that house since 1965.

The name Bektermann meant nothing to Jean Gunther.

In the car again, on the way home, Jane said, Im really a lot of trouble for you.

Nonsense, Carol said. I kind of enjoy playing detective. Besides, if I can help you break through your memory block, if I can uncover the truth behind all the sleight-of-hand tricks that your subconscious is playing, then Ill be able to write about this case for any psychology journal I choose. Itll definitely make my name in the profession. I might even wind up with a book out of it. So you see, because of you, kiddo, I could become rich and famous some day.

When youre rich and famous, will you still talk to me? the girl teased.

Certainly. Of course, youll have to make an appointment a week in advance.

They grinned at each other.

Using the kitchen phone, Grace called the offices of the Morning News.

The switchboard operator at the newspaper didnt have an extension number listed for Palmer Wainwright. She said, So far as I know, he dont even work here. And Im sure hes no reporter. Maybe one of the new copy editors or somebody like that.

Could you connect me with the managing editors office? Grace asked.

That would be Mr. Quincy, the operator said. She buzzed the proper extension.

Quincy wasnt in his office, and his secretary didnt know whether or not the paper employed a man named Palmer Wainwright. Im new here, she said apologetically. Ive only been Mr. Quincys secretary since Monday, so I dont know everybody yet. If youll leave your name and number, Ill have Mr. Quincy return your call.

Grace gave her the number and said, Tell him Dr. Grace Mitowski wishes to speak with him and that Ill only need a few minutes of his time. She seldom used the honorific in front of her name, but it came in handy in cases like this, for a doctors phone calls were always returned.

Is this an emergency, Dr. Mitowski? I dont think that Mr. Quincys going to be back until tomorrow morning.

Thatll be good enough, she said. Have him call me first thing, no matter how early he gets in.

After she hung up, she went to the kitchen and stared out at the rose garden.

How could Wainwright vanish like that?

For the third evening in a row, Paul and Carol and Jane prepared dinner together. The girl was fitting in better day by day.

If she stays with us just another week, Paul thought, itll seem like shes always been here.

The salad consisted of hearts of palm and iceberg lettuce. That was followed by eggplant Parmigiana with spaghetti on the side.

As they were starting dessertsmall dishes of richly flavored spumoniPaul said, Any chance we could postpone the trip to the mountains for two days?

Why? Carol asked

Im a bit behind in my writing schedule, and Im at a very critical point in the book, he said. Ive written two-thirds of the toughest scene in the story, and I hate to leave it unfinished just to go on vacation. I wont enjoy myself. If we left Sunday instead of tomorrow, that would give me time to polish off the end of the chapter. And wed still have eight days at the cabin.

Dont look at me, Jane said. Im just excess baggage. Ill go wherever you take me, whenever you take me.

Carol shook her head. Just last week, when Mr. OBrian said we were compulsive overachievers, we made up our minds to change our ways, didnt we? Weve got to learn to make time for leisure and not let our work encroach on that.

Youre right, Paul said. But just this once

He broke off in midsentence because he saw that Carol was determined. She was rarely intractable, but when she did decide not to compromise on. an issue, she was about as movable as Gibraltar. He sighed. Okay. You win. Well leave tomorrow morning. Ill just bring along the typewriter and the manuscript. I can finish the scene up at the cabin and

Nothing doing, Carol said, emphasizing each word by tapping her spoon against her ice cream dish.

If you bring it along, you wont stop when youve reached the end of the scene youre working on. Youll keep going. You know you will. Having the typewriter within easy reach will just be too much of a temptation. You wont be able to resist it. The whole vacation will go down the drain.

But I just cant put that scene on hold for ten days, he said pleadingly. By the time I get back to it, the tone and the spontaneity will be lost.

Carol ate a spoonful of spumoni and said, All right. Heres what well do. Jane and I will leave for the mountains first thing in the morning, just as we planned. You stay here, finish your scene, and then drive up to join us whenever youre ready.

He frowned. Im not sure thats a good idea.

Why not?

Well, is it really wise for the two of you to go up there alone? I mean, the summer season is over. Theme arent going to be many campers in the woods now, and most of the other cabins will be deserted.

For heavens sake, Carol said, theres no Abominable Snowman lurking around in those mountains, Paul. Were in Pennsylvania, not Tibet. She smiled. Its nice to know youre so concerned about us, darling. But well be perfectly safe.

Later, after Jane had gone to bed, Paul made one last attempt to change Carols mind, although he knew the effort would be wasted.

He leaned against the frame of the closet door and watched as Carol selected clothes for the suitcases.

Listen, be straight with me, okay?

Arent I always? Straight about what?

The girl. Is there any chance shes dangerous?

Carol turned from the clothes rack and stared at him, obviously surprised by his question. Jane? Dangerous? Well, a girl as pretty as she is will probably break a lot of hearts over the years. And if cuteness could kill, shed leave the streets littered with bodies behind her.

He refused to be amused. I dont want you to be flippant about this. I think its important. I want you to give it careful thought.

I dont need to give it a lot of thought, Paul. Shes lost her memory, sure. But shes a stable, mentally healthy kid. In fact, it takes an amazingly stable personality to handle amnesia the way shes handled it. I dont know that Id do half as well if I were in her shoes right now. Id either be a nervous wreck or sunk neck-deep in depression. Shes resilient, flexible. Resilient and flexible people arent dangerous.

Never?

Hardly ever. Its the rigid ones who crack.

But after whats happened in your therapy sessions with her, isnt it reasonable to wonder about what she might be capable of doing? he asked.

Shes a tortured girl. I believe shes been through a truly terrifying experience, something so awful that she refuses to relive it, even under hypnosis. She obfuscates, misdirects, and holds back vital information, but that doesnt mean shes the least bit dangerous. Just scared. It seems evident to me that she was the victim of either physical or psychological violence at some time in her life. The victim, Paul, not the perpetrator.

She carried a few pairs of jeans to the suitcases that were open on the bed.

Paul followed her. Are you going to continue her therapy while youre at the cabin?

Yes. I think its best to keep chipping away at the Wall of confusion shes thrown up.

No fair.

Huh?

Thats work, he said. Im not allowed to take my work up to the cabin, but youre going to work. Thats a double standard, Dr. Tracy.

Double standard, my ass, Dr. Tracy. Ill need only half an hour a day for Janes therapy. Thats a lot different than lugging an IBM Selectric into the piny woods and pounding on the keys ten hours a day. Dont you realize that all the squirrels and deer and bunny rabbits would complain about the noise?

Later still, when they were in bed and the lights were out, he said, Hell, Im letting this book take possession of me. Why cant I let the scene lie unfinished for ten days? I might even do a better job with it if I take the time to think about it. Ill come along with you and Jane tomorrow, and I wont bring the typewriter. Okay? I wont even bring a pencil.

No, Carol said.

No?

When you do get to the mountains, I want you to be able to put the book completely out of your mind. I want us to take long walks in the forest. I want us to go boating on the lake and do some fishing and read a couple of books and act like bums who never even heard the word work. if you dont finish that scene before you go, youll just brood about it during the entire vacation. You wont have a moment's real peace, which means I wont have a moment's peace, either. And dont tell me Im wrong. I know you better than I know myself, buster: You stay here, write the end of that scene, and then join us on Sunday.

She kissed him goodnight, fluffed her pillows, and settled down to sleep.

He lay in the dark, thinking about the words in yesterdays Scrabble game.

   BLADE
KILL
   O
   O
   DEATH
      O
      M
      B

And the one word he had refused to reveal:

CAROL…

He still didnt think anything would be gained by telling her what the last of those six words had been. What could she do about it other than worry? Nothing. She could do nothing, and he could do nothing. Except wait and see. A threatif one actually arosecould come from any of ten thousand or a hundred thousand sources. It could come anytime, anywhere. At home or in the mountains. One place was as safeor as dangerousas the other.

Anyway, maybe the appearance of those six words had been merely coincidence. An incredible but meaningless coincidence.

He stared into the darkness, trying hard to convince himself that there were no such things as spirit messages, omens, and clairvoyant prophecies. Only a week ago, he wouldnt have needed convincing.

Blood.

Get it off, scrub it off, every sticky drop of it, wash it off, quickly, quickly, down the drain, every incriminating drop of it, off, before someone finds out, before someone sees and knows whats been done, wash it off, off…

The girl woke in the bathroom, in a fluorescent glare. She had been sleepwalking again.

She was surprised to find that she was nude. Her knee socks, panties, and T-shirt were scattered on the floor around her.

She was standing in front of the sink, scrubbing herself with a wet washcloth. When she looked at her reflection in the mirror, she was briefly paralyzed by what she saw.

Her face was smeared with blood.

Her arms were spattered with blood.

Her sweetly uptilted, bare breasts glistened with blood.

And she knew instantly that it wasnt her own. She had not been slashed or stabbed. She was the one who had done the slashing, the stabbing.

Oh God.

She stared at her gruesome reflection, morbidly fascinated by the sight of her blood-moistened lips.

What have I done?

She slowly lowered her gaze along her crimsoned neck, looked down at the reflection of her right nipple, on which hung a very fat, carmine droplet of gore.

The gleaming pearl of blood quivered for an instant on the tip of her erect nipple; then it succumbed to gravity and fell away from her.

She pulled her gaze from the mirror, lowered her head to see where the droplet had struck the floor.

There was no blood.

When she looked directly at herself, rather than at her reflection, she discovered that her body was not covered with blood after all. She touched her bare breasts. They were damp because she had been scrubbing them with the washcloth, but the dampness was nothing more than water. Her arms werent spattered with blood, either.

She squeezed the washcloth. Clear water dripped from it; the cloth bore no grisly stains.

Confused, she raised her eyes to the mirror once more and saw the blood, as before.

She held out her hand. In reality it was not bloody, but in the mirror it was sheathed in a glove of gore.

A vision, she thought. A weird illusion. Thats all. I didnt hurt anyone. I didnt spill anyones blood.

As she struggled to understand what was happening. her mirror image faded, and the glass in front of her turned black. It seemed to have been transformed into a window that looked out onto another dimension, for it reflected nothing that was in the bathroom.

This is a dream, she thought. Im really snug in bed, where I belong. Im only dreaming that Im in the bathroom I can put a stop to this just by waking up.

On the other hand, if it was a dream, would she be able to feel the cold ceramic floor beneath her bare feet as vividly as she could fuel it now? If it was really only a dream, would she be aware of the cold water on her bare breasts?

She shivered.

In the lightless void on the other side of the mirror, something flickered far off in the darkness.

Wake up!

Something silvery. It flashed again and again, back and forth, the image growing steadily larger.

For Gods sake, wake up!

She wanted to run. Couldnt.

She wanted to scream. Didnt.

In seconds the flickering object filled the mirror, pushing back the darkness out of which it had come, and then somehow it burst out of the mirror without shattering the glass, exploded out of the void and into the bathroom with one final, murderous swing, and she saw that it was an ax, bearing down on her face, the steel blade gleaming like the finest silver under the fluorescent lights. As the wickedly sharp edge of the ax swept inexorably toward her head, her knees buckled, and she fainted.

Near dawn, Jane woke again.

She was in bed. She was nude.

She threw the covers back, sat up, and saw her T-shirt, panties, and knee socks on the floor beside the bed. She dressed quickly.

The house was silent. The Tracys werent up yet.

Jane hurried quietly down the hallway to the guest bathroom, hesitated on the threshold, then stepped inside and snapped on the lights.

There was no blood, and the mirror above the sink was only an ordinary mirror, reflecting her worried face but contributing no bizarre images of its own.

Okay, she thought, maybe I was sleepwalking. And maybe I was actually here without any clothes on, trying to scrub nonexistent blood off my body. But the rest of it was just part of the nightmare. It didnt happen. It couldnt. Impossible. The mirror couldnt really change like that.

She stared into her own blue eyes. She wasnt sure what she saw in them.

Who am I? she asked softly.

All week, Graces sleepwhat little she had managed to get between bouts of insomniahad been dreamless. But tonight she thrashed for hours in the sheets, trying to fight her way out of a nightmare that seemed to last an eternity.

In the dream, a house was on fire. A big, beautifully ornamented Victorian house. She was standing outside the blazing structure, pounding on a pair of slant-set cellar doors and calling a name over and over again. Laura! Laura! She knew that Laura was trapped in the cellar of the burning house and that these doors were the only way out, but the doors were latched on the inside. She hammered on the wood with her bare hands until each blow sent a cruel bolt of pain the length of her arms, through her shoulders, and up the back of her neck. She wished desperately that she had an ax or a pry-bar or some other tool with which she could smash through the cellar doors, but she had nothing other than her fists, so she pounded and pounded until her flesh bruised and split and bled, and she kept on pounding even then, all the while screaming for Laura. Windows exploded on the second floor, showering glass down over her, but she didnt turn away from the slant-set cellar doors; she didnt run. She continued to slam her bloodied fists into the wood, praying that the girl would answer at any moment. She ignored the sparks that showered down on her and threatened to set her gingham dress afire. She wept, and she coughed when the wind blew the acrid smoke in her direction, and she cursed the wood that so easily resisted her fierce but ineffectual attack.

The nightmare had no climax, no peak of terror. It simply went on all night long at a continuously breathless pace until, a few minutes after dawn, Grace finally wrenched herself out of the hot, clutching arms of sleep and woke with a wordless cry, flailing at the mattress.

She sat up on the edge of the bed and held her throbbing head in her hands.

Her mouth was filled with the taste of ashes and bile.

The dream had been so vivid that she had even felt the high-necked, long-sleeved, blue and white gingham dress binding at her shoulders and across her bust as she had hammered on the cellar doors. Now, wide awake, she could still feel the dress binding her, even though she was wearing a loose nightgown, and even though she had never worn such a dress in her entire life.

Worse, she could smell the house burning.

The smoke odor lingered so long after she had awakened that she became convinced that her own house was ablaze. Quickly, she pulled on a robe, stepped into her slippers, and went from one room to another, searching for the fire.

There was no fire.

Yet for almost an hour, the stench of burning wood and tar stayed with her.

10

FRIDAY morning at nine oclock, Paul sat down at his writing desk, picked up the phone, and called Lincoln Werth, the police detective in charge of the Jane Doe case. He told Werth that Carol was taking the girl out of town for a few days of rest and recreation.

Might as well, Werth said. We dont have any leads, and I sure dont think this is going to break wide open anytime soon. We keep expanding the search area, of course. At first we just put the kids photo and description out to authorities in the surrounding counties. When that didnt do us any good, we put it on the wire to police agencies all over the State. Yesterday morning we took another step and wired the same data to seven neighboring states. But Ill tell you something, just between you and me. Even if we expand the search area all the way to Hong Kong, I got a feeling we aint never going to find anyone who knows the kid. I just have a hunch. Were going to keep coming up empty-handed.

After talking to Werth, Paul went down to the garage, where Carol and Jane were putting their gear in the trunk of the Volkswagen. To spare the girl grief, Paul didnt pass along Werths pessimistic assessment of the situation. He said its all right to leave town for a few days. The court didnt restrict you to Harrisburg. I told him where the cabin is, so if anyone turns up to claim our girl here, the Harrisburg police will contact the county sheriff out that way, and he or one of his deputies will drop by the cabin and let you know youve got to come back.

Carol kissed him goodbye. Jane kissed him, too; hers was a shy, chaste kiss, lightly planted on his cheek, and when she got into the car, she was blushing brightly.

He stood in front of the house and watched them drive away until the red Volkswagen Rabbit was out of sight.

After almost a week of blue skies, clouds had drifted in again. They were flat, slate gray. They matched Pauls mood.

When the kitchen phone rang, Grace steeled herself for the sound of Leonards voice. She sat down in the chair at the small built-in desk, reached up, put her hand on the receiver that hung on the wall, let it ring once more, then picked it up. To her relief, it was Ross Quincy, the managing editor of the Morning

News, returning the call shed made late yesterday afternoon.

You were inquiring about one of our reporters, Dr. Mitowski?

Yes. Palmer Wainwright.

Quincy was silent.

He does work for you, doesnt he? Grace asked.

Uh… Palmer Wainwnght has been an employee of the Morning News, yes.

I believe he nearly won a Pulitzer Prize.

Yes. But of course… that was quite a while back.

Oh?

Well, if you know about the Pulitzer nomination, you must know it was for the series he did on the Bektermann murders.

Yes.

Which was back in 1943.

That long ago?

Uh… Dr. Mitowski, exactly what is it you wanted to know about Palmer Wainwright?

Id like to talk with him, she said. Weve met, and we have some unfinished business that Im rather anxious to take care of. Its a… personal matter.

Quincy hesitated. Then: Are you a long-lost relative?

Of Mr. Wainwrights? Oh, no.

A long-lost friend?

No. Not that either.

Well, then, I guess I dont have to be delicate about this. Dr. Mitowski, Im afraid that Palmer Wainwright is dead.

Dead! she said, astounded.

Well, surely you realized there was that possibility. He was never a well man, downright sickly. And youve obviously been out of touch with him for a long time.

Not all that long, she said.

Must be at least thirty-five years, Quincy said. He died back in 1946.

The air at Graces back seemed suddenly colder than it had been an instant ago, as if a dead man had expelled his icy breath against the nape of her neck.

Thirty-one years, she said numbly. You must be wrong.

Not a chance. I was just a green kid back then, a copyboy. Palmer Wainwright was one of my heroes. I took it pretty hard when he went.

Are we talking about the same man? Grace asked. He was quite thin, with sharp features, pale brown eyes, and a rather sallow complexion. His voice was several notes deeper than youd expect from just looking at him.

That was Palmer, all right.

About fifty-five?

He was thirty-six when he died, but he did look twenty years older, Quincy said. It was that string of illnesses, one thing right after another, with cancer at the end. It just wore him down, aged him fast. He was a fighter, but he just couldnt hold on any longer.

Thirty-one years in the grave? she thought. But I saw him yesterday. We had a strange conversation in the rose garden. What do you say to that, Mr. Quincy?

Dr. Mitowski? Are you still there?

Yes. Sorry. Listen, Mr. Quincy, I hate to take your valuable time, but this is really important. I believe the Bektermann case had a lot to do with the personal business I wanted to discuss with Mr. Wainwright. But I dont really know anything about those murders. Would you mind telling me what it was all about?

Family tragedy, Quincy said. The Bektermanns daughter went berserk the day before her sixteenth birthday. Her mind just snapped. Apparently, she got it in her head that her mother intended to kill her before she turned sixteen, which was not true, of course. But she thought it was true, and she went after her mother with an ax. Her father and a visiting cousin got in the way, and she killed them. Her mother actually managed to wrench the ax out of the girls hands. But that didnt stop the kid. She just picked up a fireplace poker and kept coming. When the mother, Mrs. Bektermann, was backed into a corner and was about to have her skull cracked open with the poker, she didnt have any choice but to swing the ax at her daughter. She hit the girl once, in the side. A pretty deep cut. The kid died in the hospital the next day. Mrs. Bektermann only killed in self-defense, and no charges were brought against her, but she felt so guilty about killing her own child that she had a complete breakdown and eventually wound up in an institution.

And thats the story that won Mr. Wainwright his Pulitzer nomination?

Yeah. In the hands of a lot of reporters, the piece would have been nothing but sensationalistic garbage. But Palmer was good. He wrote a sensitive, well-researched study of a family with serious emotional, interpersonal problems. The father was a domineering man who set extremely high standards for his daughter and very likely had an unnatural attraction to her. The mother was always competing with the father for the girls heart, mind, and loyalty, and when she saw she was losing that battle, she turned to drink. There were extraordinary psychological pressures brought to bear on the daughter, and Palmer made the reader feel and understand those pressures.

She thanked Ross Quincy for his time and consideration. She hung up the phone.

For a while she just sat there, staring at the softly humming refrigerator, trying to make sense of what she had been told. If Wainwright had died in 1946, whom had she talked to in the garden yesterday?

And what did the Bektermann murders have to do with her? With Carol?

She thought of what Wainwright had told her: This damned, endless pursuit. Its still going on, and its got to be stopped this time around. Ive come to tell you that your Carol is in the middle of it.

Youve got to help her. Get her out of the girls way.

She felt she was on the verge of understanding what he had meant. And she was scared.

Even though a number of impossible things had transpired within the past twenty-four hours, she no longer questioned either her sanity or her perceptions.

She was sane, perfectly sane, and in command of all her faculties. Senility was not even a remote possibility any longer. She sensed that the explanation for these events was far more frightening, more soul-shattering even than the prospect of senility, which had once terrified her.

She recalled something else that Palmer Wainwright had said yesterday in the garden: You arent only who you think you are. You arent only Grace Mitowski.

She knew the solution to the puzzle was within her grasp. She sensed a dark knowledge within her, long-forgotten memories waiting to be tapped. She was afraid to tap them, but she knew she must do precisely that, for Carols sake, and perhaps for her own sake as well.

Suddenly, the air in the kitchen, though still quite clear, reeked of wood and tar smoke. Grace could hear the crackle of fire, although there were no flames here, now, in this place and time.

Her heart pounded frantically, and her mouth turned dry and sour.

She closed her eyes and could see the burning house as vividly as she had seen it in the dream. She could see the cellar doors, and she could hear herself screaming, calling Laura.

She knew it hadnt been only a dream. It had been a memory, lost for ages, surfacing now, reminding her that, indeed, she was not only Grace Mitowski.

She opened her eyes.

The kitchen was hot, stifling.

She felt herself being pulled along by forces she could not comprehend, and she thought: Is this what I want? Do I really want to flow with this and discover the truth and turn my little world upside down? Can I handle it?

The stench of nonexistent smoke grew stronger.

The roar of nonexistent flames grew louder.

I guess theres no turning back now, she thought.

She held her hands up in front of her face and stared at them, amazed. Her flesh had been miraculously disfigured by stigmata. Her hands were bruised, abraded, bloody. There were splinters of wood embedded in her palms, splinters from the cellar doors on which she had pounded such a long, long time ago.

At ten oclock, when the phone rang, Paul had been at his desk, writing, for almost an hour. The work had just begun to flow smoothly. He snatched up the receiver and said, a bit impatiently, Yes?

An unfamiliar female voice said, Could I speak to Dr. Tracy, please?

Speaking.

Oh. Uh… no… the Dr. Tracy Im looking for is a woman.

Its my wife you want, he said. Shes out of town for a few days. Can I take a message?

Yes, please. Would you tell her that Polly called from Maugham & Crichton?

He jotted the name down on a note pad. And whats this in reference to?

Dr. Tracy was here yesterday afternoon with a young girl whos suffering from amnesia…

Yes, Paul said, suddenly more interested than he had been. I know the case.

Dr. Tracy was asking if wed ever heard of anyone named Millicent Parker.

Thats right. She told me about it last evening. It was another dead end, I gather.

It seemed to be a dead end yesterday, Polly said, but now it turns out that one of our doctors is familiar with the name. Dr. Maugham himself, in fact.

Listen, rather than waiting for my wife to call you back, why dont you just tell me what youve come up with, and I can pass the information along to her.

Well, sure, why not? See, Dr. Maugham is the senior partner in the practice. He bought this property eighteen years ago and personally oversaw the restoration of the outside and the renovation of the interior. Hes a history bug, so it was natural for him to want to know the history of the building he purchased. He says this place was built in 1902 by a man named Randolph Parker. Parker had a daughter named Millicent.

1902?

Thats right.

Interesting.

You havent heard the best part, Polly said, the eagerness of a gossip-monger in her voice. Seems that back in 1905, the night before Millies sixteenth birthday party, Mrs. Parker was in the kitchen, decorating a big cake for the girl. Millie snuck in behind her and stabbed her in the back four times.

Unthinking, Paul snapped the pencil hed been holding ever since hed written Pollys name on the note pad. One broken piece popped out of his hand, spun across the top of the desk, and fell to the floor.

She stabbed her own mother? he asked, hoping that he had not heard correctly.

Isnt that something?

Kill her? he asked numbly.

No. Dr. Maugham says that according to the newspaper accounts at that time, the girl used a short bladed knife. It didnt sink in far enough to do really major damage. No vital organs or blood vessels were affected. Louise Parkerthat was the mothers flamemanaged to grab a meat cleaver from a kitchen rack. She tried to hold the girl off with that. But I guess Millie must have been completely off her rocker, cause she charged straight at Mrs. Parker again, and Mrs. Parker had to use that cleaver.

Jesus.

Yeah, Polly said, obviously enjoying his shocked reaction. Dr. Maugham says she put that cleaver right into her daughters throat. Pretty much cut the girls head clear off. Isnt that a terrible thing? But what else could she do? Just let the kid go on jabbing that knife into her?

Stunned, Paul thought about yesterdays hypnotic regression therapy session, which Carol had recounted for him in some detail. He remembered the part about how Jane had claimed to be Millicent Parker and had insisted on writing out her answers to questions and had written that she was unable to talk because her head had been cut off.

Are you still there? Polly asked.

Oh. Uh… sorry. Is there more to the story?

More? Polly asked. Wasnt that enough?

Yes, he said. Youre absolutely right. That was enough. More than enough.

I dont know if this information is of any help to Dr. Tracy.

Im sure it will be.

I dont see how it could have anything to do with the girl she brought in here with her yesterday.

Neither do I, Paul said.

I mean, that girl cant be Millicent Parker. Millicent Parker has been dead for seventy-six years.

In the study, Grace stood at her desk, looking down at the open dictionary.

REINCARNATION (re-in-kár-nashen), n. 1. the doctrine that the soul, upon death of the body, comes back to earth in another body or form. 2. rebirth of the soul in a new body. 3. a new incarnation or embodiment, as of a person.

Bunk? Nonsense? Superstition? Bullshit?

At one time, not long ago, those were all the words she would have used to write her own irreverent definition of reincarnation. But not now. Not any longer.

She closed her eyes, and with only the slightest effort, she was able to bring back the image of the burning house. She wasnt just envisioning it; she was there, hammering with her fists on the cellar door. She was not Grace Mitowski now; she was Rachael Adams, Lauras aunt.

The fire scene was not the only part of Rachaels life that she could recall with perfect clarity. She knew the womans most intimate thoughts, her hopes and dreams and hates and fears, shared her most closely held secrets, for those thoughts and hopes and dreams and fears and secrets had been her own.

She opened her eyes and needed a moment to refocus them on the present-day world.

REINCARNATION

She closed the dictionary.

God help me, she thought, do I really believe it? Can it be true that Ive lived before? And that Carols lived before? And the girl theyre calling Jane Doe?

If it was trueif she had been permitted to recall her previous existence as Rachael Adams in order to save Carols life in this incarnationthen she was wasting valuable time.

She picked up the phone to call the Tracys, wondering how in Gods name she was going to make them believe her.

There was no dial tone.

She jiggled the receiver-cradle buttons.

Nothing.

She put the receiver down and followed the cord around the side of the desk to the wall, to see if it had come unplugged. It wasnt unplugged; it was chewed.

Bitten in two.

Aristophanes.

She remembered other things that Palmer Wainwright had said in the garden: There are certain forces, dark and powerful forces, that want to see this played out the wrong way. Dark forces that thrive on tragedy. They want to see it end in senseless violence and blood. … There are forces aligned. … good and evil, right and wrong. Youre on the right side, Grace. But the catah, the cats a different story. At all times, you must be wary of the cat.

She also remembered when the series of paranormal events had begun, and she realized that the cat had been an integral part of it all, from the very start. Wednesday of last week. When she had suddenly awakened from her afternoon nap that daycatapulted out of a nightmare about Carolthere had been an incredibly brilliant and violent barrage of Lightening beyond the study windows. She had staggered to the nearest window, and while she had stood there on unsteady, arthritic legs, half-awake and half-asleep, shed had the eerie feeling that something monstrous had followed her up from the world of her nightmare, something demonic with a hungry grin on its face. For a few seconds that feeling had been so strong, so real, that she had been afraid to turn around and look into the shadowy room behind her. But then she had dismissed that weird thought as nothing more than the cold residue of the nightmare. Now, of course, she knew she shouldnt have dismissed it so quickly. Something strange had been in the room with hera spirit; a presence; call it what you will. It had been there. And now it was in the cat.

She left the study and hurried down the hall.

In the kitchen, she found that phone cord also chewed apart.

There was no sign of Aristophanes.

Nevertheless, Grace knew he was nearby, perhaps even close enough to be watching her. She sensed hisor itspresence.

She listened. The house was too silent.

She wanted to cross the few feet of open floor to the kitchen door, open it boldly, and walk away from the house. But she strongly suspected that any attempt to leave would trigger an immediate and vicious attack.

She thought about the cats claws, teeth, fangs. It wasnt merely a house pet, not just an amusing Siamese with a cute, furry face. It was actually a tough little killing machine, too; its feral impulses lay beneath a thin veneer of domestication. It was both respected and dreaded by mice and birds and squirrels. But could it kill a grown woman?

Yes, she thought uneasily. Yes, Aristophanes could kill me if he caught me by surprise and if he went for either my throat or my eyes.

The best thing she could do was stay within the house and not antagonize the cat until she had armed herself and could feel confident of winning any battle.

The only other telephone was in the second-floor bedroom. Wary, she went upstairs, even though she knew the third extension would be out of order, too.

It was.

But there was something in the bedroom that made the journey up the stairs worthwhile. The gun. She pulled open the top drawer of her nightstand and took out the loaded pistol she kept there. She had a hunch she would need it.

A hiss. A rustle.

Behind her.

Before she could swing around and confront her adversary, he was on her. He vaulted from the floor to the bed, sprang from the bed to her back, landing with nearly enough force to knock her off balance. She tottered for a moment and almost fell forward into the bedside lamp.

Aristophanes hissed and spat and scrambled for purchase on her back.

Fortunately, she kept her feet under her. She spun around and shook herself, frantically attempting to throw him off before he could do any damage.

His claws were hooked in her clothes. Although she was wearing both a blouse and a sweater, she felt a couple of his razor-tipped nails puncturing her skinhot little points of pain. He wouldnt let go.

She drew her shoulders up and tucked her head down, pulling her chin in tight against her chest, protecting her neck as best she could. She swung one fist up behind her back, struck only air, tried again, and hit the cat with a blow that was too weak to have done any harm.

Nevertheless, Aristophanes squealed with rage and snapped at her neck. He was foiled by her hunched shoulders and by her thick hair, which got in his mouth and gagged him.

She had never wanted anything half so much as she wanted to kill the little bastard. He was no longer the familiar pet she had loved; he was a strange and hateful beast, and she harbored no ghost of affection for him.

She wished she could use the gun she was clutching in her right hand, but there was no way she could shoot him without shooting herself, too.

She struck at him repeatedly with her left hand, her arthritic shoulder protesting sharply, painfully when she twisted her arm up and backwards at such an unnatural angle.

At least for a moment, the cat abandoned its relentless but thus far ineffective attack on her neck. It slashed its claws across her flailing fist, slicing open the skin on her knuckles.

Her fingers were instantly slick with blood. They stung so badly that her eyes started to water.

Either the sight or the odor of the blood encouraged the cat. It shrieked with savage glee.

Grace began to think the unthinkablethat she was going to lose this fight.

No!

She struggled against the grip of fear that threatened to incapacitate her, tried to clear her panic-befuddled mind, and suddenly had an idea that she thought might save her life. She stumbled toward the nearest stretch of open wall, to the left of the dresser. The cat clung tenaciously to her back, insistently pressing its snout against the base of her skull, hissing and snarling. It was determined to force its way to her sheltered neck and rip open her jugular vein.

When Grace reached the wall, she turned her back to it, then fell against it with all her weight, slamming the cat into the plaster behind her, pinning it hard between her body and the wall, hoping to break its spine. The jolt brought a flash of pain through her shoulders and drove the animals claws deeper into her back muscles. The cats scream was nearly shrill enough to shatter fine crystal, and it sounded almost like the wail of a human infant. But its grip on her didnt weaken. Grace pushed away from the wall, then slammed into it a second time, and the cat wailed as before, but still held fast. She thrust herself off the wall, intending to make a third attempt to crush her adversary, but before she could fall back on him, the cat let go of her. He dropped to the floor, rolled, sprang to his feet, and scurried away from her, favoring his right foreleg.

Good. She had hurt him.

She sagged against the wall, raised the .22 pistol that was stilt in her right hand, and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing.

She had forgotten to switch off the safeties.

The cat hurried through the open door and disappeared into the upstairs hall.

Grace went to the door, closed it, leaned wearily against it. Gasping.

Her left hand was scratched and bleeding, and her back bore half a dozen claw punctures, but she had won the first round. The cat was limping; he was injured, perhaps as badly as she was, and he was the one who had retreated.

No celebration, though. Not yet.

Not until she had gotten out of the house alive. And not until she was certain that Carol was safe, too.

After the unsettling telephone conversation hed had with the receptionist at Maugham & Crichton, Paul didnt know what the hell to do.

He couldnt write. That was for sure. He couldnt get his mind off Carol long enough to advance the plot of his novel by so much as even one sentence.

He wanted to call Lincoln Werth, at police headquarters, and arrange to have a sheriffs deputy waiting at the cabin when Carol and Jane arrived up there. He wanted them brought home. But he could imagine the conversation he would have with Detective Werth, and the thought of it daunted him:

You want a deputy to meet them at the cabin?

Thats right.

Why?

I think my wifes in danger.

What kind of danger?

I think the girl, Jane Doe, might be violent. Maybe even homicidal.

Why do you think that?

Because under hypnosis she claimed to be Millie Parker.

Whos that?