Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWENTY

I didnt depict them at scratch, which wasnt surp go it seemed that half of Castle waver and roll was on the t throw common as that sultry Saturday afternoon edged on toward so faring. The air was b pay off with hazy midsummer clear-cut, and in it kids swarmed over the playground equipment, a number of old(a) men in bright red vests s invariablyal(prenominal) sort of club, I assumed played chess, and a group of untested people lay on the grass listening to a teenager in a headband playing the guitar and singing hotshot I think ofed from an old Ian and Sylvia record, a cheery tune that wentElla Speed was havin her lovin fun, can Martin shot Ella with a Colt forty- unrivaled . . . I saw no joggers, and no dogs chasing Frisbees. It was incisively too goddam hot.I was numbering to waitress at the bandshell, where an eight-man combo c al superstared The Castle rockers was set up (I had an idea In the Mood was or so as close as they got to rock and roll), when a sm wholl y person hit me from behind, grabbing me incisively above the knees and near dumping me on the grass.Gotcha the small person cried gleefully.Kyra Devore Mattie called, sounding both amused and irritated. Youll disaster him downI morose, dropped the grease-spotted McDonalds bag I had been carrying, and lifted the kid up. It matte up natural, and it felt wonderful. You dont real(a)ize the weight of a healthy child until you hold one, nor do you fully comprehend the life that runs through them same(p) a bright wire. I didnt get choked up (Dont go all corny on me, mike, Siddy would some prison terms rustling when we were kids at the movies and I got wet-eyed at a sad part), exactly I position of Jo, yes. And the child she had been carrying when she fell down in that ill-judged parking lot, yes to that, too.Ki was squealing and laughing, her ordnance show upsp conduct and her sensory hair hanging down in two amusing clumps accented by Raggedy Ann and Andy barrettes.Dont ta ckle your own quarter clog I yelled, grinning, and to my delight she yelled it right back at me Dont taggle yer own quartermack Dont taggle yer own quartermackI set her on her feet, both of us laughing. Ki took a step backward, tripped herself, and sat down on the grass, laughing harder than ever. I had a mean fancy, and so, brief save oh so clear if only the old lizard could see how much he was missed. How sad we were at his passing.Mattie walked over, and tonight she give eared as Id half-imagined her when I offset met her like one of those lovely children of privilege you see at the guide on carery club, either goofing with their friends or sitting seriously at dinner with their p bents. She was in a uninfected sleeveless dress and low heels, her hair falling loose roughly her shoulders, a touch of lipstick on her mouth. Her eyes had a brilliance in them that hadnt been at that place forwards. When she hugged me I could smell her sweetness and feel the press of her f irm wee breasts.I kissed her cheek she kissed me high up on the jaw, making a smack in my ear that I felt all the centering down my back. Say amours are going to be better nowadays, she whispered, electrostatic holding me.Lots better now, I tell, and she hugged me again, tight. thus she stepped past You better thrust brought plenty food, grownup boy, because we plenty hungry womens. Right, Kyra?I taggled my own quartermack, Ki utter, therefore leaned back on her elbows, giggling deliciously at the bright and hazy sky.Come on, I tell, and grabbed her by the middle I toted her that way to a nearby picnic table, Ki kicking her legs and waving her arms and laughing I set her down on the bench she slid off it and beneath the table, boneless as an eel and still laughing.All right, Kyra Elizabeth, Mattie express. Sit up and channelise the other side well be make upd girl, expert girl, she verbalize, clambering up beside me. Thats the other side to me, MikeIm sure, I utter . Inside the bag there were Big Macs and fries for Mattie and me. For Ki there was a colorful box upon which Ronald McDonald and his unindicted co-conspirators capered.Mattie, I got a cheerful Meal Mike got me a Happy Meal They pee toysWell see what yours is.Kyra opened the box, poked around, so smiled It lit up her whole face She brought out something that I at first thought was a big dust-ball For one horrible second I was back in my dream, the one of Jo beneath the bed with the book over her face Give me that, she had snarled Its my dust- vomit upcher. And something else, too some other association, perhaps from some other dream I couldnt get hold of it.Mike? Mattie postulateed. Curiosity in her voice, and maybe borderline concern.Its a doggy Ki said I won a doggy in my Happy MealYes of course A dog. A dinky stuffed dog. And it was gray, not black . . . although why Id care rough the color either way I didnt be intimate.Thats a pretty good prize, I said, taking it. It w as soft, which was good, and it was gray, which was better Being gray made it all right, someway Crazy only true I strained it back to her and smiled.Whats his predict? Ki asked, jumping the minuscule dog back and forth across her Happy Meal box. What doggys name, Mike?And, without cerebration, I said, Strick unload.I thought shed look puzzled, retributive now she didnt. She looked delighted. laid low(p) she said, bouncing the dog back and forth in ever-higher leaps over the box. Stricken Stricken My dog StrickenWhos this guy Strickland? Mattie asked, smiling a inadequate. She had begun to unwrap her hamburger.A character in a book I read once, I said, watching Ki play with the little puffball dog. No one real.My grampa died, she said five minutes later.We were still at the picnic table and the food was mostly gone. Strickland the stuffed puffball had been set to guard the remaining french fries. I had been s preemptning the ebb and flow of people, wondering who was here from the TR observing our rendezvous and simply burning to carry the news back home. I saw no one I knew, but that didnt mean a whole tot, considering how ache Id been away from this part of the world.Mattie put down her burger and looked at Ki with some anxiety, but I thought the kid was okay she had been giving news, not expressing grief.I bang he did, I said.Grampa was atrociously old. Ki pinched a couple of french fries between her pudgy little fingers. They rose to her mouth, then gloop, all gone. Hes with Lord deliverer now. We had all intimately Lord Jesus in VBS.Yes, Ki, I thought, right now Grampys probably teaching Lord Jesus how to use Pixel Easel and asking if there might be a whore handy.Lord Jesus walked on water and in any case changed the wine into macaroni.Yes, something like that, I said. Its sad when people die, isnt it?It would be sad if Mattie died, and it would be sad if you died, but Grampy was old. She said it as though I hadnt quite grasped this conc ept the first time. In heaven hell get all fixed up.Thats a good way to look at it, hon, I said.Mattie did maintenance on Kis drooping barrettes, functional carefully and with a motley of absent love. I thought she glowed in the summer light, her skin in smooth, tanned contrast to the ex singuine dress she had probably bought at one of the discount stores, and I understood that I loved her. Maybe that was all right.I miss the neat nana, though, Ki said, and this time she did look sad. She picked up the stuffed dog, tried to feed him a french fry, then put him down again. Her small, pretty face looked pensive now, and I could see a whisper of her grandfather in it. It was far back but it was there, perceptible, another ghost. Mom says white nana went back to California with Grampys early remains.Earthly remains, Ki-bird, Mattie said. That means his body.Will white nana come back and see me, Mike?I dont get it on.We had a game. It was all rhymes. She looked more pensive than ever .Your mom told me about that game, I said.She wont be back, Ki said, reply her own question. One very large tear rolled down her right cheek. She picked up Stricken, stood him on his back legs for a second, then put him back on guard-duty. Mattie slipped an arm around her, but Ki didnt seem to notice. White nana didnt really like me. She was just pretending to like me. That was her job.Mattie and I exchanged a glance.What makes you say that? I asked.Dont know, Ki said. Over by where the kid was playing the guitar, a juggler in whiteface had started up, puddleing with half a dozen swart balls. Kyra brightened a little. Mommy-bommy, may I go watch that funny white man?Are you do eating?Yeah, Im full.Thank Mike.Dont taggle yer own quartermack, she said, then laughed free meated to show she was just pulling my leg. Thanks, Mike.Not a problem, I said, and then, because that sounded a little old-fashioned Kickin.You can go as far as that tree, but no farther, Mattie said. And you kn ow why.So you can see me. I will.She grabbed Strickland and started to run off, then stopped and looked over her shoulder at me. I dissemble it was the fridgeafator people, she said, then corrected herself very carefully and seriously. The ree fridge-a-rator people. My heart took a hard double beat in my chest.It was the refrigerator people what, Ki? I asked.That said white nana didnt really like me. Then she ran off toward the juggler, oblivious to the hop up.Mattie watched her go, then turned back to me. I filmnt talked to some(prenominal)body about Kis fridgeafator people. Neither has she, until now. Not that there are any real people, but the permitters seem to move around by themselves. Its like a Ouija board.Do they spell things?For a massive time she said nothing. Then she nodded. Not always, but sometimes. Another pause. Most times, in truth. Ki calls it mail from the people in the refrigerator. She smiled, but her eyes were a little scared. Are they particular magnet ic letters, do you think? Or have we got a poltergeist working the lakefront?I dont know. Im sorry I brought them, if theyre a problem.Dont be silly. You gave them to her, and youre a tremendously big deal to her right now. She talks about you all the time. She was much more interested in picking out something pretty to wear for you tonight than she was in her grandfathers death. I was supposed to wear something pretty, too, Kyra insisted. Shes not that way about people, usually she takes them when theyre there and leaves them when theyre gone. Thats not such a bad way for a little girl to grow up, I sometimes think.You both dressed pretty, I said. That much Im sure of.Thanks. She looked fondly at Ki, who stood by the tree watching the juggler. He had put his rubber balls aside and moved on to Indian clubs. Then she looked back at me. Are we done eating?I nodded, and Mattie began to pick up the trash and stuff it back into the take-out bag. I helped, and when our fingers touched, s he gripped my hand and squeezed. Thank you, she said. For everything youve done. Thank you so damn much.I squeezed back, then let go.You know, she said, its crossed my mind that Kyras touching the letters around herself. Mentally.Telekinesis?I guess thats the technical term. Only Ki cant spell much more than dog and cat.Whats showing up on the fridge?Names, mostly. Once it was yours. Once it was your wifes.Jo?The whole thing JOANNA. And NANA. Rogette, I presume. JARED shows up sometimes, and BRIDGET. Once there was KITO. She spelled it.Kito, I said, and thought Kyra, Kia, Kito. What is this? A boys name, do you think?I know it is. Its Swahili, and means precious child. I looked it up in my baby-name book. She glanced toward her own precious child as we walked across the grass to the nearest trash barrel. whatsoever others that you can remember?She thought. REG has showed up a couple of times. And once there was CARLA. You come across that Ki cant even read these names as a rule, dont you? She has to ask me what they say.Has it occurred to you that Kyra might be copying them out of a book or a magazine? That shes learning to write using the magnetic letters on the fridge instead of paper and pencil?I suppose thats possible . . . She didnt look as if she relyd it, though. Not surprising. I didnt believe it myself.I mean, youve neer actually seen the letters moving around by themselves on the front of the fridge, have you? I hoped I sounded as unconcerned asking this question as I call fored to.She laughed a bit nervously. divinity fudge, noAnything else?Sometimes the fridgeafator people leave messages like HI and BYE and GOOD GIRL. There was one yesterday that I wrote down to show you. Kyra asked me to. Its really weird.What is it?Id rather show you, but I left hand it in the glove compartment of the Scout. Remind me when we go.Yes. I would.This is some spooky shit, se?or, she said. Like the writing in the flour that time.I thought about telling her I h ad my own fridgeafator people, then didnt. She had enough to worry about without that . . . or so I told myself.We stood side-by-side on the grass, watching Ki watch the juggler. Did you call John? I asked.You bet.His reaction?She turned to me, laughing with her eyes. He actually sang a verse of Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead.Wrong sex, right sentiment.She nodded, her eyes going back to Kyra. I thought again how beautiful she looked, her body boil down in the white dress, her features clean and perfectly made.Was he pissed at me inviting myself to lunch? I asked.Nope, he loved the idea of having a party.A party. He loved the idea. I began to feel rather small.He even suggested we invite your lawyer from last Friday. Mr. Bissonette? Plus the private detective John hired on Mr. Bissonettes recommendation. Is that okay with you?Fine. How about you, Mattie? Doing okay?Doing okay, she agreed, turning to me. I did have several more calls than usual today. Im suddenly quite popular.Uh-oh.Mo st were hangups, but one military man took time enough to call me a cunt, and there was a lady with a very strong Yankee accent who said, Theah, you bitch, youve killed him. Aaa you satisfied? She hung up before I could tell her yes, very satisfied, thanks. But Mattie didnt look satisfied she looked un euphoric and guilty, as if she had literally wished him dead.Im sorry.Its okay. Really. Kyra and I have been alone for a long time, and Ive been scared for most of it. direct Ive made a couple of friends. If a few anonymous phone calls are the price I have to even up, Ill pay it.She was very close, looking up at me, and I couldnt stop myself. I put the blame on summer, her perfume, and four eld without a woman. In that order, i slipped my arms around her waist, and remember perfectly the texture of her dress beneath my hands the slight pucker at the back where the zipper hid in its sleeve. I remember the sensation of the cloth moving against the bare skin beneath. Then I was kissi ng her, very gently but very thoroughly anything cost doing is worth doing right and she was kissing me back in exactly the same spirit, her mouth curious but not terror-stricken. Her lips were warm and smooth and held some airheaded sweet taste. Peaches, I think.We stopped at the same time and pulled back a little from each other. Her hands were still on my shoulders. Mine were on the sides of her waist, just above her hips. Her face was composed enough, but her eyes were more brilliant than ever, and there were slants of color in her cheeks, rising along the cheekbones.Oh boy, she said. I really treasured that. Ever since Ki tackled you and you picked her up Ive treasured it.John wouldnt think much of us kissing in public, I said. My voice wasnt quite even, and my heart was racing. Seven seconds, one kiss, and every system in my body was red-lining. In fact, John wouldnt think much of us kissing at all. He fancies you, you know.I know, but I fancy you. She turned to check o n Ki, who was still standing obediently by the tree, watching the juggler. Who might be watching us? Someone who had come over from the TR on a hot summer evening to get ice cream at postmarks Tas-T-Freeze and enjoy a little music and society on the common? Someone who traded for fresh vegetables and fresh gossip at the Lakeview General? A regular at the All-Purpose store? This was insanity, and it stayed insanity no matter how you cut it. I dropped my hands from her waist.Mattie, they could put our run across next to indiscreet in the dictionary.She took her hands off my shoulders and stepped back a pace, but her brilliant eyes never left mine. I know that. Im young but not entirely stupid.I didnt mean She held up a hand to stop me. Ki goes to bed around nine she cant seem to sleep until its mostly dark. I stay up later. Come and visit me, if you want to. You can park around back. She smiled a little. It was a sweet smile it was also incredibly sexy. Once the moons down, thats an area of discretion.Mattie, youre young enough to be my daughter.Maybe, but Im not. And sometimes people can be too discreet for their own good.My body knew so emphatically what it precious. If we had been in her trailer at that moment it would have been no contest. It was almost no contest anyway. Then something recurred to me, something Id thought about Devores ancestors and my own the generations didnt match up. Wasnt the same thing true here? And I dont believe that people automatically have a right to what they want, no matter how badly they want it. Not every thirst should be slaked. Some things are just wrong I guess thats what Im trying to say. But I wasnt sure this was one of them, and I wanted her, all right. So much. I unplowed thinking about how her dress had slid when I put my arms around her waist, the warm feel of her skin just beneath. And no, she wasnt my daughter.You said your thanks, I told her in a dry voice. And thats enough. Really.You think this is gratitu de? She voiced a low, tense laugh. Youre forty, Mike, not eighty. Youre not Harrison Ford, but youre a good-looking man. Talented and interesting, too. And I like you such an awful lot. I want you to be with me. Do you want me to say please? Fine. Please be with me.Yes, this was about more than gratitude I suppose Id known that even when I was using the word. Id known she was wearing white shorts and a halter top when she called on the phone the day I went back to work. Had she also known what I was wearing? Had she dreamed she was in bed with me, the two of us screwing our brains out while the party lights shone and Sara Tidwell played her version of the white nana rhyming game, all that crazy Manderley-sanderley-canderley stuff?. Had Mattie dreamed of telling me to do what she wanted?And there were the fridgeafator people. They were another kind of sharing, an even spookier kind. I hadnt quite had affection enough to tell Mattie about mine, but she might know anyway. Down low in her mind. Down below in her mind, where the blue-collar guys moved around in the zone. Her guys and my guys, all part of the same strange labor union. And maybe it wasnt an issue of morality per se at all. Some thing about it about us just felt dangerous.And oh so attractive.I privation time to think, I said.This isnt about what you think. What do you feel for me?So much it scares me.Before I could say anything else, my ears caught a familiar series of chord-changes. I turned toward the kid with the guitar. He had been working through a repertoire of early Dylan, but now he swung into something chuggy and up-tempo, something that made you want to grin and pat your hands together.Do you want to go fishinhere in my fishin hole?Said do you want to fish some, honey,here in my fishin hole?You want to fish in my pond, baby,you better have a big long pole.Fishin Blues. Written by Sara Tidwell, before performed by Sara and the Red-Top Boys, covered by everyone from Ma Rainey to the Lov in Spoonful. The raunchy ones had been her specialty, double-entendre so thin you could read a newspaper through it . . . although reading hadnt been Saras main interest, judging by her lyrics.Before the kid could go on to the next verse, something about how you got to wiggle when you wobble and get that big one way down deep, The Castle Rockers ran off a brass flourish that said Shut up, everybody, were comin atcha. The kid quit playing his guitar the juggler began catching his Indian clubs and dropping them swiftly onto the grass in a line. The Rockers launched themselves into an extremely evil Sousa march, music to commit serial murders by, and Kyra came running back to us.The jugsters done. Will you tell me the story, Mike? Hansel and Panzel?Its Hansel and Gretel, I said, and Ill be happy to. But lets go where its a little quieter, okay? The band is giving me a headache.Music hurt your headie?A little bit.Well go by Matties car, then.Good thought.Kyra ran ahead to stake out a be nch on the edge of the common. Mattie gave me a long warm look, then her hand. I took it. Our fingers folded together as if they had been doing it for years. I thought, Id like it to be slow, both of us hardly moving at all. At first, anyway. And would I bring my nicest, longest pole? I think you could count on that. And then, afterward, wed talk. Maybe until we could see the furniture in the first early light. When youre in bed with someone you love, particularly for the first time, five oclock seems almost holy.You need a vacation from your own thoughts, Mattie said. I bet most writers do from time to time.Thats probably true.I wish we were home, she said, and I couldnt tell if her fierceness was real or pretend. Id kiss you until this whole conversation became irrelevant. And if there were second thoughts, at least youd be having them in my bed.I turned my face into the red light of the westering sun. Here or there, at this hour Ki would still be up.True, she said, sounding uncha racteristically glum. True.Kyra reached a bench near the sign reading townspeople COMMON PARKING and climbed up on it, holding the little stuffed dog from Mickey Ds in one hand. I tried to pull my hand away as we approached her and Mattie held it firm. Its all right, Mike. At VBS they hold hands with their friends everywhere they go. Its big people who make it into a big deal.She stopped, looked at me.I want you to know something. Maybe it wont matter to you, but it does to me. There wasnt anyone before Lance and no one after. If you come to me, youll be my second. Im not going to talk with you about this again, either. express please is all right, but I wont beg.I dont Theres a pot with tomato plants in it by the trailer steps. Ill leave a key under it. Dont think. plainly come.Not tonight, Mattie. I cant.You can, she replied.Hurry up, slowpokes Kyra cried, bouncing on the bench.Hes the slow one Mattie called back, and poked me in the ribs. Then, in a much lower voice You are, t oo. She unwound her hand from mine and ran toward her daughter, her brown legs scissoring below the hem of the white dress.In my version of Hansel and Gretel the witch was named Depravia. Kyra stared at me with huge eyes when I got to the part where Depravia asks Hansel to poke out his finger so she can see how plump hes getting.Is it too scary? I asked.Ki shook her head emphatically. I glanced at Mattie to make sure. She nodded and waved a hand for me to go on, so I finished the story. Depravia went into the oven and Gretel set in motion her secret stash of winning lottery tickets. The kids bought a Jet Ski and lived happily ever after on the eastern side of Dark Score Lake. By then The Castle Rockers were slaughtering Gershwin and sunset was nigh. I carried Kyra to Scoutie and strapped her in. I remembered the first time Id helped put the kid into her car-seat, and the inadvertent press of Matties breast.I hope there isnt a bad dream for you in that story, I said. Until I heard i t flood tide out of my own mouth, I hadnt realized how fundamentally awful that one is.I wont have bad dreams, Kyra said matter-of-factly. The fridgeafator people will keep them away. Then, carefully, reminding herself Ree-fridge-a-rator. She turned to Mattie. Show him the crosspatch, Mommy-bommy.Crossword. But thanks, I wouldve forgotten. She hitch open the glove compartment and took out a folded sheet of paper. It was on the fridge this morning. I copied it down because Ki said youd know what it meant. She said you do crossword puzzles. Well, she said crosspatches, but I got the idea.Had I told Kyra that I did crosswords? Almost certainly not. Did it surprise me that she knew? Not at all. I took the sheet of paper, unfolded it, and looked at what was printed theredgowninety2Is it a crosspatch puzzle, Mike? Kyra asked.I guess so a very uncomplicated one. But if it means something, I dont know what it is. May I keep this?Yes, Mattie said.I walked her around to the drivers side o f the Scout, reaching for her hand again as we went. Just give me a little time. I know thats supposed to be the girls line, but Take the time, she said. Just dont take too much.I didnt want to take any, which was just the problem. The sex would be great, I knew that. But after?There might be an after, though. I knew it and she did, too. With Mattie, after was a real possibility. The idea was a little scary, a little wonderful.I kissed the corner of her mouth. She laughed and grabbed me by the earlobe. You can do better, she said, then looked at Ki, who was sitting in her car-seat and gazing at us interestedly. But Ill let you off this time.Kiss Ki Kyra called, holding out her arms, so I went around and kissed Ki. Driving home, wearing my dark glasses to cut the glare of the setting sun, it occurred to me that maybe I could be Kyra Devores father. That seemed almost as attractive to me as going to bed with her mother, which was a measure of how deep I was in. And going deeper, mayb e.Deeper still.Sara Laughs seemed very empty after having Mattie in my arms a sleeping head without dreams. I checked the letters on the fridge, saw nothing there but the normal scatter, and got a beer. I went out on the deck to drink it while I watched the last of the sunset. I tried to think about the refrigerator people and crosspatches that had appeared on both refrigerators go down nineteen on Lane Forty-two and go down ninety-two on Wasp Hill Road. Different vectors from the land to the lake? Different spots on The Street? Shit, who knew?I tried to think about John Storrow and how unhappy he was apt to be if he found out there was to quote Sara Laughs, who got to the line long before John Mellencamp another mule kicking in Mattie Devores stall. But mostly what I thought about was holding her for the first time, kissing her for the first time. No human instinct is more powerful than the sex-drive when it is fully aroused, and its awakening images are emotional tattoos that n ever leave us. For me, it was feeling the soft bare skin of her waist just beneath her dress. The slippery feel of the fabric . . .I turned abruptly and speed through the house to the north wing, almost running and shedding clothes as I went. I turned the shower on to full snappy and stood under it for five minutes, shivering. When I got out I felt a little more like an actual human being and a little less like a twitching bundle of nerve endings. And as I toweled dry, something else recurred to me. At some point I had thought of Jos brother Frank, had thought that if anyone besides myself would be able to feel Jos presence in Sara Laughs, it would be him. I hadnt gotten around to inviting him down yet, and now wasnt sure I wanted to. I had come to feel oddly possessive, almost jealous, about what was happening here. And yet if Jo had been writing something on the quiet, Frank might know. Of course she hadnt confided in him about the pregnancy, but I looked at my watch. Quarter pa st nine. In the trailer near the intersection of Wasp Hill Road and Route 68, Kyra was probably already unconscious . . . and her mother might already have put her extra key under the pot near the steps. I thought of her in the white dress, the dandy of her hips just below my hands and the smell of her perfume, then pushed the images away. I couldnt spend the whole night taking cold showers. Quarter past nine was still early enough to call Frank Arlen.He picked up on the second ring, sounding both happy to hear from me and as if hed gotten three or four cans further into the six-pack than I had so far done. We passed the usual pleasantries back and forth most of my own almost entirely fictional, I was deject to find and he mentioned that a famous neighbor of mine had kicked the bucket, according to the news. Had I met him? Yes, I said, remembering how Max Devore had run his wheelchair at me. Yes, Id met him. Frank wanted to know what he was like. That was hard to say, I told hi m. Poor old guy was stuck in a wheelchair and suffering from emphysema.Pretty frail, huh? Frank asked sympathetically.Yeah, I said. Listen, Frank, I called about Jo. I was out in her studio looking around, and I found my typewriter. Since then Ive kind of gotten the idea she was writing something. It might have started as a little piece about our house, then widened. The place is named after Sara Tidwell, you know. The blues singer.A long pause. Then Frank said, I know. His voice sounded heavy, grave.What else do you know, Frank?That she was scared. I think she found out something that scared her. I think that mostly because That was when the light finally broke. I probably should have known from Matties description, would have known if I hadnt been so upset. You were down here with her, werent you? In July of 1994. You went to the softball game, then you went back up The Street to the house.How do you know that? he almost barked.Someone saw you. A friend of mine. I was trying not to sound mad and not succeeding. I was mad, but it was a relieved anger, the kind you feel when your kid comes dragging into the house with a shamefaced grin just as youre getting ready to call the cops.I almost told you a day or two before we buried her. We were in that pub, do you remember?Jacks Pub, right after Frank had beaten the funeral director down on the price of Jos coffin. Sure I remembered. I even remembered the look in his eyes when Id told him Jo had been pregnant when she died.He must have felt the silence reel out, because he came back sounding anxious. Mike, I hope you didnt get any What? Wrong ideas? I thought maybe she was having an affair, hows that for a wrong idea? You can call that ignoble if you want, but I had my reasons. There was a lot she wasnt telling me. What did she tell you?Next to nothing.Did you know she quit all her boards and committees? Quit and never said a word to me?No. I didnt think he was lying. Why would he, at this late date? Jesus, Mike , if Id known that What happened the day you came down here? allege me.I was at the printshop in Sanford. Jo called me from . . . I dont remember, I think a rest area on the turnpike.Between Derry and the TR?Yeah. She was on her way to Sara Laughs and wanted me to suit her there. She told me to park in the driveway if I got there first, not to go in the house . . . which I could have I know where you keep the stop key.Sure he did, in a Sucrets tin under the deck. I had shown him myself. Did she say why she didnt want you to go inside?Itll sound crazy.No it wont. debate me.She said the house was dangerous.For a moment the words just hung there. Then I asked, Did you get here first?Uh-huh.And waited outside?Yes.Did you see or spirit anything dangerous?There was a long pause. At last he said, There were lots of people out on the lake speedboaters, water-skiers, you know how it is but all the engine-noise and the laughter seemed to kind of . . . stop dead when it got near the ho use. Have you ever noticed that it seems quiet there even when its not?Of course I had Sara seemed to dwell in its own zone of silence. Did it feel dangerous, though?No, he said, almost reluctantly. Not to me, anyway. But it didnt feel exactly empty, either. I felt . . . fuck, I felt watched. I sat on one of those railroad-tie steps and waited for my sis. Finally she came. She parked behind my car and hugged me . . . but she never took her eyes off the house. I asked her what she was up to and she said she couldnt tell me, and that I couldnt tell you wed been there. She said something like, If he finds out on his own, then its meant to be. Ill have to tell him sooner or later, anyway. But I cant now, because I need his whole attention. I cant get that while hes working.I felt a flush crawl across my skin. She said that, huh?Yeah. Then she said she had to go in the house and do something. She wanted me to wait outside. She said if she called, I should come on the run. Otherwise I sh ould just stay where I was.She wanted someone there in case she got in trouble.Yeah, but it had to be someone who wouldnt ask a lot of questions she didnt want to answer. That was me. I guess that was always me.And?She went inside. I sat on the hood of my car, smoking cigarettes. I was still smoking then. And you know, I did start to feel something then that wasnt right. As if there might be someone in the house whod been waiting for her, someone who didnt like her. Maybe someone who wanted to hurt her. Probably I just picked that up from Jo the way her nerves seemed all strung up, the way she kept looking over my shoulder at the house even while she was bosom me but it seemed like something else. Like a . . . I dont know . . . Like a vibe.Yes he almost shouted. A vibration. But not a good vibration, like in the Beach Boys song. A bad vibration.What happened?I sat and waited. I only smoked two cigarettes so I dont guess it could have been longer than twenty minutes or half an hou r, but it seemed longer. I kept noticing how the sounds from the lake seemed to make it most of the way up the hill and then just kind of . . . quit. And how there didnt seem to be any birds, except far off in the distance.Once, she came out. I heard the deck door bang, and then her footsteps on the stairs over on that side. I called to her, asked if she was okay, and she said fine. She said for me to stay where I was. She sounded a little short of breath, as if she was carrying something or had been doing some chore.Did she go to her studio or down to the lake?I dont know. She was gone another fifteen minutes or so time enough for me to smoke another nooky and then she came back out the front door. She checked to make sure it was locked, and then she came up to me. She looked a lot better. Relieved. The way people look when they do some dirty job theyve been putting off, finally get it behind them. She suggested we walk down that path she called The Street to the resort thats do wn there Warringtons.Right, right. She said shed buy me a beer and a sandwich. Which she did, out at the end of this long floating dock.The Sunset Bar, where I had first glimpsed Rogette.Then you went to have a look at the softball game.That was Jos idea. She had three beers to my one, and she insisted. Said someone was going to hit a longshot homer into the trees, she just knew it.Now I had a clear picture of the part Mattie had seen and told me about. Whatever Jo had done, it had left her almost giddy with relief. She had ventured into the house, for one thing. Had dared the spirits in order to do her business and survived. Shed had three beers to celebrate and her discretion had slipped . . . not that she had behaved with any great stealth on her previous trips down to the TR. Frank remembered her saying if I found out on my own then it was meant to be que ser, ser. It wasnt the attitude of someone hiding an affair, and I realized now that all her behavior suggested a woman kee ping a short-term secret. She would have told me when I finished my stupid book, if she had lived. If.You watched the game for awhile, then went back to the house along The Street.Yes, he said.Did either of you go in?No. By the time we got there, her buzz had worn out off and I trusted her to drive. She was laughing while we were at the softball game, but she wasnt laughing by the time we got back to the house. She looked at it and said, Im done with her. Ill never go through that door again, Frank.My skin first chilled, then prickled.I asked her what was wrong, what shed found out. I knew she was writing something, shed told me that much She told everyone but me, I said . . . but without much bitterness. I knew who the man in the brown sportcoat had been, and any bitterness or anger anger at Jo, anger at myself paled before the relief of that. I hadnt realized how much that fellow had been on my mind until now.She must have had her reasons, Frank said. You know that, dont you? But she didnt tell you what they were.All I know is that it started whatever it was with her doing research for an article. It was a lark, Jo playing Nancy Drew. Im pretty sure that at first not telling you was just to keep it a surprise. She read books but mostly she talked to people listened to their stories of the old days and teased them into looking for old letters . . . diaries . . . she was good at that part of it, I think. Damned good. You dont know any of this?No, I said heavily. Jo hadnt been having an affair, but she could have had one, if shed wanted. She could have had an. affair with Tom Selleck and been written up in Inside View and I would have gone on tapping away at the keys of my Powerbook, blissfully unaware.Whatever she found out, Frank said, I think she just stumbled over it.And you never told me. Four years and you never told me any of it.That was the last time I was with her, Frank said, and now he didnt sound apologetic or embarrassed at all. And the last thing she asked of me was that I not tell you wed been to the lake house. She said shed tell you everything when she was ready, but then she died. After that I didnt think it mattered. Mike, she was my sister. She was my sister and I promised.All right. I understand. And I did just not enough. What had Jo discovered? That Normal Auster had drowned his infant son under a handpump? That back around the turn of the century an animal trap had been left in a place where a young Negro boy would be apt to come along and step into it? That another boy, perhaps the incestuous child of Son and Sara Tidwell, had been drowned by his mother in the lake, she maybe laughing that smoke-broken, lunatic laugh as she held him down? You gotta wiggle when you wobble, honey, and hold that young un way down deep.If you need me to apologize, Mike, consider it done.I dont. Frank, do you remember anything else she might have said that night? Anything at all?She said she knew how you found the house.She sai d what?She said that when it wanted you, it called you.At first I couldnt reply, because Frank Arlen had completely demolished one of the assumptions Id made about my married life one of the biggies, one of those that seem so basic you dont even think about questioning them. Gravity holds you down. Light allows you to see. The compass needle points north. Stuff like that.This assumption was that Jo was the one who had wanted to buy Sara Laughs back when we saw the first real money from my writing career, because Jo was the house person in our marriage, just as I was the car person. Jo was the one who had picked our apartments when apartments were all we could afford, Jo who hung a picture here and asked me to put up a shelf there. Jo was the one who had fallen in love with the Derry house and had finally worn down my resistance to the idea that it was too big, too busy, and too broken to take on. Jo had been the nest-builder.She said that when it wanted you, it called you.And it wa s probably true. No, I could do better than that, if I was willing to set aside the lazy thinking and selective remembering. It was certainly true. I was the one who had first broached the idea of a place in western Maine. I was the one who collected stacks of real-estate brochures and hauled them home. Id started buying regional magazines like Down East and always began at the back, where the real-estate ads were. It was I who had first seen a picture of Sara Laughs in a glossy handout called Maine Retreats, and it was I who had made the call first to the agent named in the ad, and then to Marie Hingerman after badgering Maries name out of the Realtor.Johanna had also been charmed by Sara Laughs I think anyone would have been charmed by it, seeing it for the first time in autumn cheer with the trees blazing all around it and drifts of colored leaves blowing up The Street but it was I who had actively sought the place out.Except that was more lazy thinking and selective rememberi ng. Wasnt it? Sara had sought me out.Then how could I not have known it until now? And how was I led here in the first place, full of unwitting happy ignorance?The answer to both questions was the same. It was also the answer to the question of how Jo could have discovered something distressing about the house, the lake, maybe the whole TR, and then gotten away with not telling me. Id been gone, thats all. Id been zoning, tranced out, writing one of my stupid little books. Id been hypnotized by the fantasies going on in my head, and a hypnotized man is easy to lead.Mike? Are you still there?Im here, Frank. But Ill be goddamned if I know what could have scared her so.She mentioned one other name I remember Royce Merrill. She said he was the one who remembered the most, because he was so old. And she said, I dont want Mike to talk to him. Im afraid that old man might let the cat out of the bag and tell him more than he should know. Any idea what she meant?Well . . . its been suggeste d that a splinter from the old family tree wound up here, but my mothers people are from Memphis. The Noonans are from Maine, but not from this part. Yet I no longer entirely believed this.Mike, you sound almost sick.Im okay. Better than I was, actually.And you understand why I didnt tell you any of this until now? I mean, if Id known the ideas you were getting . . . if Id had any clue . . . I think I understand. The ideas didnt belong in my head to begin with, but once that shit starts to creep in . . . When I got back to Sanford that night and it was over, I guess I thought it was just more of Jos Oh fuck, theres a shadow on the moon, nobody go out until tomorrow. She was always the superstitious one, you know knocking on wood, tossing a pinch of brininess over her shoulder if she spilled some, those four-leaf-clover earrings she used to have . . . Or the way she wouldnt wear a pullover if she put it on backward by mistake, I said. She claimed doing that would turn around your w hole day.Well? Doesnt it? Frank asked, and I could hear a little smile in his voice.All at once I remembered Jo completely, right down to the small gold flecks in her left eye, and wanted nobody else. Nobody else would do.She thought there was something bad about the house, Frank said. That much I do know.I drew a piece of paper to me and jotted Kia on it. Yes. And by then she may have suspected she was pregnant. She might have been afraid of . . . influences. There were influences here, all right. You think she got most of this from Royce Merrill?No, that was just a name she mentioned. She probably talked to dozens of people. Do you know a guy named Kloster? Gloster? Something like that?Skuster, I said. Below Kia my pencil was making a series of fat loops that might have been cursive letter ls or hair ribbons. Kenny Auster. Was that it?It sounds right. In any case, you know how she was once she really got going on a thing.Yes. Like a terrier after rats.Mike? Should I come up there? No. Now I was sure. Not Harold Oblowski, not Frank, either. There was a process going on in Sara, something as delicate and as organic as rising bread in a warm room. Frank might interrupt that process . . . or be hurt by it.No, I just wanted to get it cleared up. Besides, Im writing. Its hard for me to have people around when Im writing.Will you call if I can help?You bet, I said.I hung up the telephone, thumbed through the book, and found a listing for R. MERRILL on the Deep Bay Road. I called the number, listened to it ring a dozen times, then hung up. No newfangled state machine for Royce. I wondered idly where he was. Ninety-five seemed a little too old to go dancing at the Country Barn in Harrison, especially on a close night like this one.I looked at the paper with Kia written on it. Below the fat l-shapes I wrote Kyra, and remembered how, the first time Id heard Ki say her name, Id thought it was Kia she was saying. Below Kyra I wrote Kito, hesitated, then wrote Carla. I pu t these names in a box. Beside them I jotted Johanna, Bridget, and Jared. The fridgeafator people. folk music who wanted me to go down nineteen and go down ninety-two.Go down, Moses, you bound for the Promised Land, I told the empty house. I looked around. Just me and Bunter and the waggy clock . . . except it wasnt.When it wanted you, it called you.I got up to get another beer. The fruits and vegetables were in a circle again. In the middle, the letters now spelledlye stilleAs on some old tombstones God grant she lye stille. I looked at these letters for a long time. Then I remembered the IBM was still out on the deck. I brought it in, plonked it on the dining-room table, and began to work on my current stupid little book. Fifteen minutes and I was lost, only faintly aware of thunder someplace over the lake, only faintly aware of Bunters bell shivering from time to time. When I went back to the fridge an hour or so later for another beer and saw that the words in the circle now s aidony lye stilleI hardly noticed. At that moment I didnt care if they lay stille or danced the hucklebuck by the light of the silvery moon. John Shackleford had begun to remember his past, and the child whose only friend he, John, had been. Little neglected Ray Garraty.I wrote until midnight came. By then the thunder had faded away but the heat held on, as oppressive as a blanket. I turned off the IBM and went to bed . . . thinking, so far as I can remember, nothing at all not even about Mattie, lying in her own bed not so many miles away. The writing had burned off all thoughts of the real world, at least temporarily. I think that, in the end, thats what its for. Good or bad, it passes the time.