THE MASK
 
 
 
DEAN
KOONTZ
 
 
 
This book is dedicated to Willo 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. ãLenoreä
 
And much of Madness, and more of Sin, And Horror the soul of the plot.
÷Edgar Allan Poe, ãThe Conqueror Wormä
 
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 didnât 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 contents÷home-canned fruit and vegetables that had 
been stored here for the past nine months÷remained 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 
Lauraâs 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 Lauraâs 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 Rachaelâs 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 Mamaâs 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 wasnât 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 
wasnât 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 wasnât 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 Lauraâs mind the image of a glittering eye in a jack-oâ-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 wouldnât 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 couldnât 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. ãHelp!ä
No one answered.
ãSomebody help me! Iâm in the cellar!ä
Silence.
ãAunt Rachael! Mama! For Godâs sake, somebody help me!ä
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 didnât 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.
Iâm going to die here.
That thought jolted her out of her trance. She wasnât 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 wasnât 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 didnât 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 hadnât 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 couldnât 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 wasnât 
going to collapse÷ not 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. Lauraâs 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 couldnât 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.
Iâm 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.
ÎÎLaura . .
Above the incessant roar of the tire, she heard someone calling her name.
ãLaura. .
ãIâm down here.. . in the cellar!ä 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.
ãLaura..." . .
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.
ãLaura!ä It was Aunt Rachaelâs 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 couldnât see very much. She used Aunt Rachaelâs voice as a beacon 
and otherwise relied on instinct.
ãLaura!ä 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.
ãLaura, answer me. Baby, are you in there?ã
Rachael was hysterical, screaming so loudly and pounding on the outside doors 
with such persistence that she wouldnât have heard a response even if Laura had 
been capable of making one.
Where was Mama? Why wasnât Mama pounding on the door, too? Didnât 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 Rachaelâs
small fists. Laura groped blindly for the latch. She put her hand over the warm 
metal fixture÷and 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 couldnât 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 earth÷certainly 
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 
her÷ and 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 couldnât 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 come÷or back the way she thought she had come÷but 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 Rachaelâs voice echoed hauntingly: ãLaura... 
Laura. . .ã
Why wasnât Mama out there helping Rachael break down the cellar doors? Where in 
Godâs name was she? Throwing coal and lamp oil on the fire?
Wheezing, gasping, Laura pushed away from the furnace and tried to follow 
Rachaelâs 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 wasnât 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 OâBrianâs 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.
OâBrian 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.
Heâs such a neat little man, Carol thought as she watched OâBrian. When he sits 
very still like that, youâd 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 OâBrian 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 OâBrian intently, but when he sensed that Carol was looking at him, he 
turned and smiled. His smile was even nicer than OâBrianâs, and as usual, 
Carolâs 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 ãAbnormal Psychology and Modem American Fiction,ä 
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: Donât 
worry;
OâBrian 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. OâBrianâs approval. She knew 
she ought to be overflowing with confidence, for there really was no reason why 
OâBrian 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 years÷in which she had earned three degrees at 
three universities and had established herself in her profession÷she 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 need÷almost a physical need÷to 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 nature÷rather than her own 
foolishness÷had 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 hadnât 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 didnât 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 it÷not 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. OâBrian looked up from the application and smiled. His teeth were 
exceedingly white. ãThis looks really fine,ä he said, indicating the form he had 
just finished reading. ãIn fact, itâs splendid. Not everyone that applies to us 
has credentials like these.ä
ãItâs kind of you to say so,ä Paul told him.
OâBrian shook his head. ãNot at all. Itâs simply the truth. Very impressive.ä
Carol said, ãThank you.ä
Leaning back in his chair, folding his hands on his stomach, OâBrian said, ãI do 
have a couple of questions. Iâm sure theyâre 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.ä
Carol stiffened again.
OâBrian apparently noticed her reaction, for he quickly said, ãOh, itâs nothing 
terribly serious. Really, it isnât. Believe me÷I wonât be asking you half as 
many questions as I ask most couples who come to see us.ä
In spite of OâBrianâs 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.
OâBrian swiveled in his chair to face Paul. ãDr. Tracy, would you say youâre an 
overachiever?ä
Paul seemed surprised by the question. He blinked and said, ãIâm not sure what 
you mean.ä
ãYou are the chairman of the department of English at the college, arenât you?ä
ãYes. Iâm on sabbatical this semester, and the vice-chairman is handling most 
things for the time being. Otherwise, Iâve been in charge of the department for 
the past year and a half.ä
ãArenât you rather young to hold such a post?ä
ãSomewhat young,ä Paul admitted. ãBut thatâs no credit to me. You see, itâs 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.ä
ãYouâre being modest.ä
ãNo, Iâm really not,ä Paul said. ãItâs nothing much.ä
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 OâBrianâs 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 OâBrianâs office.
Still addressing Paul, OâBrian said, ãYouâre also an author.ä
ãYes.ä
ãYouâve written a very successful textbook for use in American literature 
courses. Youâve turned out a dozen monographs on a variety of subjects, and 
youâve done a local history of the county. And two childrenâs books, and a novel 

ãThe novel was about as successful as a horse trying to walk a tightrope,ä Paul 
said. ãThe New York Times critic said it was Îa perfect example of academic 
posturing, stuffed full of themes and symbols, utterly lacking in substance and 
narrative drive, infused with ivory-tower naivetŽ.ä
OâBrian smiled. ãDoes every writer memorize his bad reviews?ä
ãI suppose not. But I have that one engraved on my cerebral cortex because 
thereâs an uncomfortable amount of truth in it.ä
ãAre you writing another novel? Is that why youâve taken a sabbatical?ä
Paul was not surprised by the question. Clearly he now understood what OâBrian 
was digging for. ãYes, in fact I am writing a new novel. This one actually has a 
plot.ä He laughed with easy self-deprecation.
ãYouâre also involved in charity work.ä
ãNot much.ä
ãQuite a lot,ä OâBrian disagreed. ãThe Childrenâs Hospital Fund, the Community 
Chest, the student scholarship program at the college÷all of that in addition to 
your regular job and your writing. Yet you donât think youâre an overachiever?ä
ãNo, I really donât think I am. The charity work
amounts to just a couple of meetings a month. Itâs no big thing. Itâs the least 
I can do, considering my own good fortune.ä Paul edged forward on his chair.
ãMaybe youâre worried that I wonât have time to give to a child, but if thatâs 
whatâs troubling you, then you can put your mind at rest. Iâll make the time. 
This adoption is extremely important to us, Mr. OâBrian. We both want a child 
very badly, and if we are lucky enough to get one, we certainly wonât ever 
neglect it.ä
ãOh, Iâm sure you wonât,ä OâBrian said quickly, raising his hands placatingly. 
ãThat isnât at all what I meant to imply. Oh, certainly not. Iâm on your side in 
this matter. I mean that very sincerely.ä He swiveled to face Carol. ãDr. 
Tracy÷the other Dr. Tracy÷ what about you? Do you consider yourself an 
overachiever?ä
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 OâBrian would appreciate forthrightness more than 
modesty. ãYes. Iâd say Iâm an overachiever. Iâm involved in two of the three 
charities that Paul has his hand in. And I know Iâm a bit young to have 
established a psychiatric practice as successful as mine is. Iâm also a guest 
lecturer at the college on a fairly regular basis. And Iâm 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.ä OâBrian laughed. 
ãThree times a day, huh? Oh,
youâre most definitely an overachiever.ä
The warmth of his laughter reassured Carol, and with renewed confidence she 
said, ãI believe I understand what youâre concerned about. Youâre wondering if 
Paul and I might expect too much of our child.ä
ãExactly,ä OâBrian said. He noticed a speck of lint on his coat sleeve and 
plucked it off. ãParents who are overachievers tend to push their kids too hard, 
too fast, too soon.ä
Paul said, ãThatâs a problem that arises only when parents are unaware of the 
danger. Even if Carol and I are overachievers÷which Iâm not prepared to admit 
just yet÷we wouldnât 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.ä
ãOf course,ä Carol said.
OâBrian appeared to be pleased. ãI knew youâd say that÷or something very like 
it.ä
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.
ãIn my psychiatric practice, I deal with a wide variety of patients who have all 
kinds of problems,ä
Carol told OâBrian, ãbut I specialize in the mental disorders and emotional 
disturbances of children and adolescents. Sixty or seventy percent of my 
patients are seventeen or younger. Iâve treated several kids whoâve 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. Iâve seen the wounded ones, Mr. OâBrian, and Iâve 
nursed them as best I could, and because of those experiences, I couldnât 
possibly turn around and do to my children what Iâve seen some parents do to 
theirs. Not that I wonât make mistakes. Iâm sure I will. My full share of them. 
But the one that you mentioned wonât be among them.ä
ãThatâs valid,ä OâBrian said, nodding. ãValid and very well put. Iâm sure that 
when I tell the recommendations committee what youâve just said, theyâll be 
quite satisfied on this point.ä He spotted another tiny speck on his sleeve and 
removed it, frowning as if it were not merely lint, but offal. ãAnother question 
theyâre 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, wouldnât you be 
somewhat frustrated with a child of just average÷or possibly slightly below 
average÷ intelligence?ä
ãWell, even if we were capable of having a child of our own,ä Paul said, ãthere 
wouldnât be any guarantee that heâd be a prodigy or anything of that sort. But 
if he was. . . slow. . . weâd still love him. Of course we would. And the same 
goes for any child we might adopt.ä
To OâBrian, Carol said, ãI think youâve got too high an opinion of us. Neither 
of us is a genius, for heavenâs sake! Weâve gotten as far as we have primarily 
through hard work and perseverance, not be-
cause we were exceptionally bright. I wish it had come that easy, but it 
didnât.ä
ãBesides,ä Paul said, ãyou donât love a person merely because heâs intelligent. 
Itâs 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.ä
ãGood,ä OâBrian said. ãIâm glad to hear you feel that way. The committee will 
respond well to that answer, too.ä
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.
ãI think maybe one of those last two bolts of lightning caused some real damage 
when it touched down,ä Paul said.
OâBrian swung his chair around toward the center window, which was directly 
behind his desk. ãIt did sound as if it struck nearby.ä
Carol looked at each of the three windows, but she couldnât 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.
ãMore than one truck,ä OâBrian said.
The fire engines were right outside the office for a moment÷at least two trucks, 
perhaps three÷and then they passed, heading into the next block.
OâBrian 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.
ãMust be serious,ä Paul said. ãSounds as if at least two engine companies are 
responding.ä
ãI see smoke,ä OâBrian said.
Paul rose from his chair and moved toward the windows to get a better look.
Somethingâs wrong here.
That thought snapped into Carolâs 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 heavy÷hot, thick, as if it were not air at all 
but a bitter and poisonous gas of some kind. She tried to breathe, couldnât. 
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 OâBrian 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 that÷she didnât count them, couldnât 
count them÷one right after the other, with-
out 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 windows÷the 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 Carolâs memory: Paul and OâBrian 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); OâBrian throwing one arm 
up in front of his face in what appeared to be half a dozen disconnected 
movements; Paul turning toward OâBrian and reaching for him, both men like 
figures on a motion picture screen when the film slips and stutters in the 
projector; OâBrian 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 OâBrian out of the way; one leafy branch sweeping
across OâBrianâs head, ripping his glasses loose, tossing them into the air÷his 
face, Carol thought, his eyes!÷and then Paul and OâBrian falling to the floor, 
out of sight; the enormous limb of the shattered maple slamming down on top of 
OâBrianâs 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 couldnât 
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 
everywhere÷stationery, forms, small sheets from a note pad, bulletins, a 
newspaper÷all 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 
treeâs branches. She didnât think he was dead. He hadnât been directly in the 
path of the tree. OâBrian 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 didnât 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.
Somethingâs 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.
Somethingâs trying to stop us from adopting a baby.
No. That was ridiculous. The storm, the lightning÷they were nothing more than 
acts of nature. They hadnât been directed against Mr. OâBrian 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 couldnât 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.
Itâs 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. Whatâs 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 youâre 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: Somethingâs 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. OâBrian 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 wasnât sitting up in 
Heaven, aiming at Mr. OâBrian, 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. OâBrian from the depths of Hell? That was a looney idea. Jesus!
She wasnât 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...
Somethingâs trying to stop us from÷ She 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 couldnât permit herself to succumb 
to these disturbing, uncharacteristic, utterly superstitious fears.
Freaky weather÷that 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 ãLightning,ä you would most 
likely find an impressive list of other serial lightning strikes that would put 
this one to shame. Freaky weather. Thatâs what it was. Thatâs 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 wasnât 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. OâBrian. 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.
ÎPaul?ä 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 OâBrianâs head, and she 
shuddered. But Paul hadnât been touched. The tree had missed him. Hadnât it?
ãPaul !ã
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 Campbellâs 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 wasnât in her childhood any more÷neither the 
first nor the second, thank you÷and although she was old, she certainly wasnât 
used up or burnt out. Being in bed in the middle of the day made her feel lazy, 
and she couldnât 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 hadnât 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 high÷as it was today÷she 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.
÷Iâve got to tell Carol Tracy.
÷Tell her what?
÷Warn her.
÷Warn her about what?
÷Itâs coming. Oh, God...
÷Whatâs 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 couldnât possibly be as savage 
outside as it appeared to be.
ãGrace..." 
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.
Thereâs 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.
ÎGrace. .
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.
ãGrace. .
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 itself÷rather than the air÷sustained her.
Graceâs 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 riverâs 
banks. The clouds hung low over the city, trailing bedraggled beards of mist 
that obscured the upper floors of the tallest buildings.
When sheâd 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, youâre 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 youâll 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 it÷the 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 Graceâs 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 wasnât surprising that Carol should eventually have a role in 
one of Graceâs 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 sheâd had a child of her own, she couldnât 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 girlâs 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 Carolâs 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 Carolâs 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 hadnât 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 childâs 
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 Carolâs guilt.
Iâm a psychologist, after all, she thought. I should have anticipated it.
Perhaps when Carol and Paul adopted someone elseâs 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 couldnât bear the thought of losing Carol. Therefore, Carolâs 
appearance in a nightmare wasnât 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 sheâd 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, ãA Siamese cat 
is the very best thing on earth, and I am an exceedingly handsome example of the 
species, and donât you dare forget it.ä
Grace held one hand toward him, rapidly rubbing her thumb against her 
forefinger. ãKitty-kitty-kitty.ä
Aristophanes didnât move.
ãKitty-kitty-kitty. Come here, Ari. Come on, baby.ä
Aristophanes got up and went through the archway on his left, into the dark 
living room.
ãStubborn damn cat,ä 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.
ãKitty-kitty-kitty,ä she coaxed.
He stared unblinkingly.
ãKitty-kitty-kitty.ä
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.
ãOkay,ä Grace said. ãOkay, buster. Have it your way. Snub me if you want. But 
just see if thereâs any Meow Mix in your bowl tonight.ä
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 kitchenâs only window, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
In the backyard, the myriad roses÷red, pink, orange, white, yellow÷looked 
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.
ãCome to apologize?ä 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.
ãAri? Whatâs wrong, you silly cat?ä
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 didnât sip his whiskey; he gulped the 
stuff. It was an excellent bourbon, Jack Danielâs Black Label, thoughtfully 
provided by an attorney named Marvin Kwicker, who had offices down the hail from 
Alfred OâBrian and Who realized that a restorative was urgently needed. Pouring 
bourbon for Carol, Marvin had said, ãKwicker With liquor,ä which he had probably 
said ten thousand times before, but he still enjoyed his own joke. ãKwicker with 
liquor,ä he repeated when dispensing a double shot to Paul. Although Paul wasnât 
much of a drinker, he needed every drop that the attorney gave him. His hands 
were still shaking.
The reception lounge that served OâBrianâs 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 hadnât caught 
fire, to express surprise that the electric power had been restored so quickly, 
and to wait their turns for a peek at the nibble and ruin in OâBrianâs inner 
sanctum. The resultant roar of conversation did nothing to soothe Paulâs nerves.
Every thirty seconds or so, a bleached blonde with a shrill voice repeated the 
same words of amazement:
ãI canât believe nobody got killed in all that! I canât believe nobody got 
killed.ä Each time she spoke, regardless of where she was in the room, her voice 
carried over the din and made Paul wince. ãI canât believe nobody got killed.ä 
She sounded somewhat disappointed.
Alfred OâBrian 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 bossâs face, but OâBrian 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 didnât 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. ãReady to get out of here?ä
She nodded.
Over by the window, a young executive type raised his voice. ãHey! Hey, 
everybody! Better look sharp. The TV news people just drove up to the front 
door.ä
ãIf we get trapped by reporters,ä Carol said, ãweâll be here an hour or more.ä
They left without saying goodbye to OâBrian. 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 Carolâs 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 Paulâs 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 it÷the stone walk, the big oak doors framed by carriage 
lamps, the leaded-glass windows, the gabled roofline÷pleased 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 Carolâs red Volkswagen 
Rabbit.
In the house, they maintained their silence.
Paulâs 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 didnât 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 didnât speak. They didnât 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 didnât 
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 OâBrianâs office:
ãYes.ä And again, arching her slender, graceful body, tossing her head from side 
to side on the pillow: ãYes, yes!ä It was not merely an orgasm to which she was 
saying yes, for sheâd 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 Deathâs face, a not 
wholly rational but nevertheless satisfying denial of the grim specterâs very 
existence. Paul repeated the word as if chanting an incantation֊Yes, yes, 
yes!ä÷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 didnât really matter to him that he was not Burt 
Reynolds, just so long as Carol didnât 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 
ãa little bit pretty, no, not even pretty, just sort of cute, but kind of 
funny-looking cute.ä Her dark hair÷even now, when it was matted and curled by 
rain and sweat÷was 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 respect÷mentally, 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. 
ãI love you.ä
ãI love you,ä he said.
ãI thought you were dead.ä
ãWasnât.ä
ãAfter the lightning stopped, I called you, but you didnât answer for the 
longest time.ä
ãI was busy with a call to Chicago,ä he said, grinning.
ãSeriously.ä
ãOkay. It was San Francisco."
ãI was scared.ä
ãI couldnât answer you right away,ä he said soothingly. ãIn case youâve 
forgotten, OâBrian fell on top of me, Knocked the wind right out. He doesnât 
look so big, but heâs 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.ä
ãThat was a pretty brave thing you did.ä
ãMaking love m you? Think nothing of it.ä
Playfully, she slapped his face. ãYou know what I mean. You save OâBrianâs 
life.ä
ãNope.ä
ãYes, you did. He thought so, too.ä
ãFor Godâs sake, I didnât 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.ä
She shook her head. ãWrong. Not everyone thinks as fast as you do.ä
ãA fast thinker, huh? Yeah. Thatâs something Iâll admit to being. Iâm a fast 
thinker, but Iâm sure no hero. I wonât let you pin that label on me because then 
youâll expect me to live up to it. Can you just imagine what a hell on earth 
Supermanâs life would be if he ever married Lois Lane? Her expectations would be 
so high!ä
ãAnyway,ä Carol said, ãeven if you wonât admit it, OâBrian knows you saved his 
life, and thatâs the important thing.ä
ãIt is?ä
ãWell, I was pretty sure the adoption agency would approve us. But now thereâs 
not the slightest doubt about it.ä
ãThereâs always a slim chance÷ä
ãNo,ä she said, interrupting him. ãOâBrianâs not going to fail you after you 
saved his life. Not a chance.
Heâs going to wrap the recommendations committee around his finger.ä
Paul blinked, then slowly broke into a smile. ãIâll
be damned. I didnât think of that.ä
ãSo youâre a hero, Papa.ä
ãWell.. . maybe I am, Mama.ä
ãI think I prefer ÎMom.ä
ãAnd I prefer ÎDad.ä
ãWhat about ÎPopâ?ä
ãPop isnât a name. Itâs a sound a champagne cork makes.ä
ãAre you suggesting a celebration?ä she asked.
ãI thought weâd put on our robes, mosey down to the kitchen, and whip up an 
early dinner. If youâre hungry, that is.ä
ãFamished.ä
ãYou can make a mushroom salad,ä he said. ãIâll whip up my famous fettuccine 
Alfredo. Weâve got a bottle or two of Mummâs Extra Dry weâve been saving for a 
special occasion. Weâll open that, pile our plates high with fettuccine Alfredo 
and mushrooms, come back up here, and have dinner in bed.ä
ãAnd watch the TV news while we eat.ä
ãThen pass the evening reading thrillers and sipping champagne until we canât 
keep our eyes open.ä
ãSounds wonderfully, sinfully lazy,ä she said.
More evenings than not, he spent two hours proofreading and polishing his novel. 
And it was an unusual night when Carol didnât have some paperwork to catch up 
on.
As they dressed in robes and bedroom slippers,
Paul said, ãWeâve got to learn to take most evenings off. Weâll have to spend 
plenty of time with the kid. Weâll owe it to him.ä
ãOr her.ä
ãOr them,ä he said.
Her eyes shone. ãYou think theyâll let us adopt more than one?ä
ãOf course they will÷once weâve proven we can handle the first. After all,ä he 
said self-mockingly, ãam I not the hero who saved good old Al OâBrianâs life?ä
On their way to the kitchen, halfway down the stairs, she stopped and turned and 
hugged him. ÎWeâre really going to have a family.ä
ãSo it seems.ä
ãOh, Paul, I donât remember when Iâve ever been so happy. Tell me this feelingâs 
going to last forever.ä
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.
ãTell me nothing can go wrong,ä she said.
ãNothing can go wrong, and that feeling you have will last forever, and Iâm glad 
youâre so happy. There.
Howâs that?ä
She kissed his chin and the corners of his mouth, and he kissed her nose.
ãNow,ä he said, ãcan we please get some fettuccine before I start chewing my 
tongue?ä
ãSuch a romantic.ä
ãEven romantics get hungry.ä
As they reached the bottom of the steps, they were startled by a sudden, loud 
hammering sound. It was
steady but arrhythmic: Thwsk, thunk, thunk-thunkthunk, thunk-thunk...
Carol said, ãWhat the devilâs that?ä
ãItâs coming from outside.. . and above us.ä
They stood on the last step, looking up and back toward the second floor.
Thunk, thunk-thunk, thunk, thunk...
ãDamn,ä Paul said. ãIâll bet one of the shutters came loose in the wind.ä They 
listened for a moment, and then he sighed. ãIâll have to go out and fix it,ä
ãNow? In the rain?ä
ãIf I donât do anything, the wind might tear it clean off the house. Worse yet, 
it might just hang there and clatter all night. We wonât get any sleep, and 
neither will half the neighborhood.ä
She frowned. ãBut the lightning. . .Paul, after everything thatâs happened, I 
donât think you should risk climbing around on a ladder in the middle of a 
storm.ä
He didnât like the idea, either. The thought of being high on a ladder in the 
middle of a thunderstorm made his scalp prickle.
She said, ãI donât want you to go out there if÷ä
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, ãToo late. If it was a shutter, itâs been torn off.ä
ãI didnât hear it fall.ä
ãIt wouldnât make much noise if it dropped in the grass or the shrubbery.ä
ãSo you donât have to go out in the rain,ä she said, crossing the foyer toward 
the short hall that led to the kitchen.
He followed her. ãYeah, but now itâs a bigger repair job.
As they entered the kitchen, their footsteps echoing hollowly off the 
quarry-tile floor, she said, ãYou donât have to worry about it until tomorrow or 
the day after. Right now, all youâve got to worry about is the sauce for the 
fettuccine. Donât let it curdle.ä
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. ãHave I ever 
curdled the sauce for the fettuccine?ä
ãSeems to me the last time you made it, the stuff
was֊
ãNever!ä
ãYes,ä she said teasingly. ãYes, it definitely wasnât up to par the last time.ä 
She took a plastic bag of mushrooms from the big, stainless-steel refrigerator. 
ãAlthough 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.ä
ãWhat 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?ä
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
OâBrianâs 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 wasnât 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, ãPaul? Whatâs wrong?ä
ãSomeoneâs out on the lawn.ä
ãIn this rain? Who?ä
ãI donât know.ä
She joined him by the window. ãI donât see anybody.ä
ãSomeone ran from the oak to the lilac bush. He was hunched over and moving 
pretty fast.ä
ãWhatâs he look like?ä
ãI canât say. Iâm not even sure it was a man. Might have been a woman.ä
ãMaybe it was just a dog.ä
ãToo big.ä
ãCouldâve been Jasper.ä
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.
ãThey wouldnât let Jasper out in weather like this,ä Paul said. ãThey pamper 
that mutt.ä
Lightning pulsed softly again, and a violent gust of wind whipped the trees back 
and forth, and rain began to fall harder than before÷and in the middle of that 
maelstrom, something rushed out from the lilac bush.
ãThere!ä 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.
ãJust the dog,ä Carol said.
Paul frowned. ãI thought I saw... .
ãWhat?â
ãA face. A woman looking back. . . just for a second, just as she went through 
the gate.ä
ãNo,ä Carol said. ãIt was Jasper.ä
ãYou saw him?ä
ãClearly?ä
ãWell, no, not clearly. But I could see enough to tell that it was a dog the 
size of a small pony, and Jasperâs the only pooch around who fits that 
description.ä
ãI guess Jasperâs a lot smarter than he used to be.ä
Carol blinked. ãWhat do you mean?ä
ãWell, he had to unlatch the gate to get into the yard. He never used to be able 
to do that trick.ä
ãOh, of course he didnât. We must have left the gate open.ä
Paul shook his head. ãIâm sure it was closed when we drove up a while ago.ä
ãClosed, maybe÷but not latched. The wind pushed it open, and Jasper wandered 
in.ä
Paul stared out at the rain-slashed fog, which glowed dully with the last somber 
rays of the fading twilight. ãI guess youâre right,ä he said, though he was not 
entirely convinced. ãI better go latch the gate.ä
ãNo, no,ä Carol said quickly. ãNot while the stormâs on.ä
ãNow look here, sugarface, Iâm not going to jump into bed and pull the blankets 
over my head every time thereâs a little thunder÷just because of what happened 
this afternoon.ä
ãI donât expect you to,ä she said. ãBut before you start dancing in the rain 
like Gene Kelly, youâve got to let me get over what happened today. Itâs still 
too fresh in my mind for me to stand here watching you while you cavort across 
the lawn in the lightning.ä
ãitâll only take a moment and÷ä
ãSay, are you trying to get out of making that fettuccine?ä she asked, cocking 
her head and looking at him suspiciously.
"Certainly not. Iâll finish making it as soon as Iâve gone and closed the gate.ä
ãI know what youâre up to, mister,ä she said smugly. ãYouâre hoping you will be 
struck by lightning because you know your sauce is going to turn out lumpy, and 
you simply canât take the humiliation.ä
ãThatâs a base canard,ä he said, falling easily into their game again. ãI make 
the silkiest fettuccine Alfredo this side of Rome. Silkier than Sophia Lorenâs 
thighs.ä
ãAll I know is, the last time you made it, the stuff was as lumpy as a bowl of 
oatmeal.ä
ãI thought you said it was as lumpy as a mattress in a ten-dollar-a-night 
motel.ä
She lifted her head proudly. ãIâm not just a one-simile woman, you know.ä
ãHow well I know.ä
ãSo are you going to make fettuccine÷or will you take the cowardâs way out and 
get killed by lightning?ä
ãIâll make you eat your words,ä he said.
Grinning, she said, ãThatâs easier than eating your lumpy fettuccine.ä
He laughed. ãAll right, all right. You win. I can latch the gate in the 
morning.ä
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 heâd thought he 
had seen÷the slightly twisted, moon-white face of a woman, lightning reflected 
in her eyes, her mouth curled into a snarl of hatred or rage÷had surely been a 
trick of light and shadow. Still, the incident left him uneasy. He could not 
entirely regain the warm, cozy feeling heâd had just before heâd looked out the 
window.
 
 
Grace Mitowski filled the yellow plastic bowl with Meow Mix and put it in the 
corner by the kitchen door.
ãKitty-kitty-kitty.ä
Aristophanes didnât respond.
The kitchen wasnât Ariâs favorite place in the house, for it was the only room 
in which he was not permitted to climb wherever he wished. He wasnât 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 didnât want anyone telling him 
he couldnât 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. ãKitty-kitty-kitty.ä
There was no answering meow. Aristophanes did not, as expected, come running, 
his tail curled up slightly, eager for his dinner.
ãAri-Ari-Ari! Soupâs on, you silly cat.ä
She put away the box of cat food and washed her hands at the sink.
Thunk, thunk-thunk!
The hammering sound÷one hard blow followed by two equally hard blows struck 
close together÷was
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 then÷ Thunk! Thunk!
She hung the towel on the rack and stepped into the downstairs hallway.
Thunk-thunk-thunk!
She walked hesitantly down the hail 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 
couldnât 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!
ãStop that!ä she shouted. ãWho are you? Whoâs there?ä
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 wasnât 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 wasnât 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 kidsâ 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 werenât 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 wasnât 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 wouldnât 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 wouldnât 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 wasnât 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 hail, and with each step she half expected the hammering to start 
again. But it didnât.
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 wasnât hungry yet. She decided to watch the ABC evening news before 
preparing dinner÷although 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 hadnât 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.
ãAri! Where are you hiding, you sneaky Siamese?ä
She went to the kitchen.
Aristophanes was standing at the yellow bowl, eating his Meow Mix. He glanced up 
as she entered the room.
ãYou fur-footed menace,ä she said. ãWhat in the world has gotten into you 
today?ä
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 husbandâs 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: Somethingâs 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 wasnât 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 couldnât 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 hail 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 knob÷and discovered that, 
while her back was turned, the door had disappeared, as had the wail 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 manâs 
head, and the other was a womanâs. 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 other÷from the first house to the meadow to the 
second house to the meadow to the first house again÷until 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 mind÷thunk, thunk, thunk
thunk, thunk÷and 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 sheâd gone to bed, but the storm 
had returned while sheâd 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 wouldnât 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 sheâd ever had before.
That strange, jarring sound÷thunk, :hunk÷had been the most frightening thing in 
the dream, and the memory of it still nagged her. It wasnât just an ordinary 
hammering noise; there was an odd echo to it, a hardness and sharpness she 
couldnât 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 typistâs 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. ãHello.ä
ãPaul? Grace Mitowski.ä
ãGood morning, love. How are you?ä
ãWell, these old bones donât like rainy weather, but otherwise Iâm coping.ä
Paul smiled. ãListen, I know you can still run circles around me any time.ä
ãNonsense. Youâre a compulsive worker with a guilt complex about leisure. Not 
even a nuclear reactor has your energy.ä
He laughed. ãDonât psychoanalyze me, Grace. I get enough of that from my wife.ä
ãSpeaking of whom. .
ãSorry, but you just missed her. You ought to be able to catch her at the office 
in half an hour.ä
Grace hesitated.
Hot coffee began to drizzle into the Pyrex pot, and the aroma of it swiftly 
filled the room.
Sensing tension in Graceâs hesitation, Paul said, ãWhatâs wrong?ä
ãWell. . .ã She cleared her throat nervously. ãPaul, how is she? Sheâs not ill 
or anything?ä
ãCarol? Oh, no. Of course not.ä
ãYouâre sure? I mean, you know that girlâs like a daughter to me. if anything 
was wrong, Iâd want to know.ä
ãSheâs fine. Really. In fact she had a physical exam last week. The adoption 
agency required it. Both of us passed with flying colors.ä
Grace was silent again.
Frowning, Paul said, ãWhy are you worried all of a sudden?ä
ãWell. . . youâll think old Gracie is losing her marbles, but Iâve 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 Iâve got to warn Carol. .
ãWarn her about what?ä
ãI donât know. All I remember about the dreams is that Carol was in them. I woke 
up thinking: itâs coming. Iâve got to warn Carol that itâs coming. I know that 
sounds silly. And donât ask me what Îitâ might be. I canât remember. But I feel 
Carolâs in danger. Now Lord knows, I donât believe in dream prophecies and 
garbage like that. I think I donât believe in them÷yet here I am calling you 
about this.ä
The coffee was ready. Paul leaned over, turned off the brewer. ãThe strange 
thing is÷Carol and I were nearly hurt in a freak accident yesterday.ä He told 
her about the damage at OâBrianâs office.
ãGood God,ä she said, ãI 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! Iâm 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?ä
ãIf nothing else,ä Paul said uneasily, ãitâs at least a remarkable coincidence.ä
They were silent for a moment, wondering, and then she said, ãListen, Paul, I 
donât recall that weâve ever discussed this subject much before, but tell me÷ do 
you believe in dream prophecies, clairvoyance, things of that nature?ä
ãI donât believe, and I donât disbelieve. Iâve never really made up my mind.ä
ãIâve always been so smug about it. Always considered it a pack of lies, 
delusions, or just plain nonsense. But after this֊
ãYouâre reconsidering.ä
ãLetâs just say a tiny doubt has cropped up. And now Iâm more worried about 
Carol than I was when I called you.ä
ãWhy? I told you she wasnât even scratched.ä
ãShe escaped once,ä Grace said, ãbut I had two dreams, and one of them came to 
me hours after the lightning. So maybe the Îitâ is something else. I mean, if 
the first dream had some truth in it, then maybe the second does, too. God, 
isnât this crazy? If you start believing in just a little bit of this nonsense, 
you get carried away with it real fast. But I canât help it. Iâm still concerned 
about her.ä
ãEven if your first dream was prophetic,ä Paul said, ãthe second one was 
probably just a repeat of it, an echo, not a whole new dream.ä
ãYou think so?ä
ãSure. This never happened to you before, so why should it happen again? Most 
likely, it was just a freak thing.. . like the lightning yesterday.ä
ãYeah, I guess youâre probably right,ä she said, sounding somewhat relieved. 
ãMaybe it could happen once. Maybe I can accept that. But Iâm not Edgar Cayce or 
Nostradamus. And I can guarantee you Iâm never going to be writing a weekly 
column of predictions for the National Enquirer.ä
Paul laughed.
ãStill,ä she said, ãI wish I could remember exactly what happened in both those 
nightmares.ä
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 Graceâs dream had been merely a strange coincidence, he was 
nonetheless affected by it, more profoundly affected than seemed reasonable.
itâs coming.
The moment Grace had voiced those two words, Paul had felt a gut-deep, bone-deep 
chill.
itâs 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 womanâs 
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 
hadnât been half empty, he would have spilled coffee all over the carpet.
THUNK! THUNK!
It couldnât be the same shutter theyâd 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. 
Thwzk, 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 didnât want to get up on a ladder and fix a shutter in the rain, 
that was exactly what had to be done, for he couldnât get any writing 
accomplished with that constant clattering to distract him. At least there 
hadnât 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 itâs 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 OâBrian, from 
the adoption agency. Initially, the conversation was awkward, and Paul was 
embarrassed by it. OâBrian insisted on ex
pressing his gratitude: ãYou saved my life; you really did!ä 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: ãBut I was so shaken, stunned, I just wasnât thinking clearly enough to 
thank you, which was unforgivable of me.ä Each time Paul protested at the 
mention of words like ãheroic,ä and ãbrave,ä OâBrian became even more vociferous 
than before. At last, Paul stifled his objections and allowed the man to get it 
out of his system; OâBrian 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.
OâBrian 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. ãOf 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 
order÷except, of course, for your application. We canât find it anywhere. I 
suppose it might have blown out through one of the broken windows. I donât know 
why your papers should be the only ones weâve lost, and of course we must have a 
completed, signed application before we can present your names to the 
recommendations committee. Iâm extremely sorry about this inconvenience, Mr. 
Tracy, I truly am.ä
ãIt wasnât your fault,ä Paul said. ãIâll just stop in
later today and pick up another form. Carol and I can fill it out and sign it 
tonight.ä
ãGood,ä OâBrian said. ãIâm glad to hear that. It has to be back in my hands 
early tomorrow morning if weâre 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 thatâs just about how much time we have 
before next Wednesdayâs committee meeting.
If we miss that session, thereâs not another one for two weeks.ä
ãIâll be in to pick up the form before noon,ä Paul assured him. ãAnd Iâll have 
it back to you first thing Friday morning.ä
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 wouldnât have written a single word.
THUNK! TRUNK!
ãDammit,ä he said.
Thunk, thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk...
It definitely was going to be one of those days.
He went downstairs to the hail 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 wasnât 
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.
ãChrist!ä 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 bit÷but also skidded÷on 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 two÷all of this in two or three or four seconds÷and 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 childâs 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 
couldnât 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 couldnât 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 OâBrianâs 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 kitchenâs 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 didnât.
Nevertheless, the source of the sound was definitely overhead.
Thwzk, thunk-thunk, thunk...
The pounding suddenly grew quieter than it had been, but it didnât 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 wasnât 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 girlâs right arm and felt the wrist for a 
pulse. She found the beat at once; it was strong and steady.
ãThank God,ä Carol said shakily. ãThank God, thank God.ä
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. ãIs she dead?ä
ãNo,ä Carol said. She gently thumbed back one of the girlâs eyelids, then the 
other. ãJust unconscious.
Probably a mild concussion. Is anyone calling an ambulance?ä
ãI donât know,ä he said.
ãThen you call one. Quickly.ä
He hurried away, splashing through a puddle that was deeper than the tops of his 
shoes.
Carol pressed down on the girlâs 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, Îappeared out of the rain. ãIt wasnât your fault,ä she told Carol.
ãI saw it happen. I saw it all. The child darted out in front of you without 
looking. There wasnât a thing you could have done to prevent it.ä
ãI saw it, too,ä said a portly man who didnât quite fit under his black 
umbrella. ãI 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, thatâs what happened.ä
ãSheâs not dead,ä Carol said, unable to keep a tremor out of her voice. ãThereâs 
a first-aid kit on the back seat of my car. Will one of you get it for me?ä
ãSure,ä 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 didnât 
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 couldnât have made it so fast.
ãSuch a pretty child,ä 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 didnât 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 girlâs skin was hot to the touch, fevered, in spite of the cold rain 
that bathed it.
Suddenly, while her fingers were still touching the
girlâs 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 girlâs 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 wrapper÷just 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 carâs 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 girlâs chalk-white face, and her relief was clouded 
with doubt. Perhaps the horror wasnât 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. ãYouâre soaked to the skin. Iâve got a blanket in the trunk. 
Iâll get it for you.ä
ãNo, no,ä she said. ãIâll be fine.ä 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 didnât care about her appearance or about the 
goosebumps that prickled her skin. ãLetâs just get this over with.ä
ãWell. . . if youâre sure youâre okay.ä
ãIâm sure.ä
As he turned up the thermostat on the car heater, Weatherby said, ãBy any 
chance, do you know the kid who stepped in front of your car?ä
ãKnow her? No. Of course not.ä
ãShe didnât have any ID on her. Did you notice if she was carrying a purse when 
she walked into the street?ä
ãI canât say for sure.ä
ãTry to remember.ä
ãI donât think she was.ä
ãProbably not,ä he said. ãAfter all, if she goes walking in a storm like this 
without a raincoat or an umbrella, why would she bother to take a purse? Weâll 
search the street anyway. Maybe she dropped it somewhere.ä
ãWhat happens if you canât find out who she is?
How will you get in touch with her parents? I mean, she shouldnât be alone at a 
time like this.ä
ãNo problem,ä Weatherby said. ãSheâll tell us her name when she regains 
consciousness.â
ãIf she does.ä
ãHey, she will. Thereâs no need to be concerned about that. She didnât seem 
seriously injured.ä
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.
ãYouâre in the clear,ä Weatherby said. ãYou 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 wasnât your fault.ä
ãI should have been more careful.ä
ãI donât see what else you could have done.ä
ãSomething. Surely I could have done something,ä
she said miserably.
He shook his head. ãNo. Listen, Dr. Tracy, Iâve seen this sort of thing happen 
before. Thereâs an accident, and somebodyâs hurt, and nobodyâs really to 
blame÷yet 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, itâs 
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.ä
ãBut why would such a pretty girl want to throw herself in front of a car?ä
Weatherby shrugged. ãYou told me you were a psychiatrist. You specialize in 
children and teenagers, right?ä
ãSo you must know all the answers better than I do. Why would she want to kill 
herself? Could be trouble at home÷a father who drinks too much and makes heavy 
passes at his own little girl, a mother who doesnât 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 couldnât face her 
folks with the news. There must be hundreds of reasons, and Iâm sure youâve 
heard most of them in your line of work.ä
What he said was true, but it didnât make Carol feel better.
If only Iâd been driving slower, she thought. If only Iâd been quicker to react, 
maybe that poor girl wouldnât be in the hospital now.
ãShe might have been on drugs, too,ä Weatherby said. ãToo damned many kids fool 
around with dope these days. I swear, some of they'll swallow any pill theyâre 
given. If it isnât something that can be swallowed, theyâll sniff it or stick it 
in a vein. This kid you hit might have been so high she didnât even know where 
she was when she stepped in front of your car.
Now, if thatâs the case, are you going to tell me itâs still somehow your 
fault?ä
Carol leaned back in the seat, closed her eyes, and let her breath out with a 
shudder. ãGod, I donât know what to tell you. All I know is. . .I feel wrung 
out.ä
ãThatâs perfectly natural, after what youâve just been through. But it isnât 
natural to feel guilty about this. It wasnât your fault, so donât dwell on it. 
Put it behind you and get on with your life.ä
She opened her eyes, looked at him, and smiled. ãYou know, Officer Weatherby, I 
have a hunch youâd make a pretty good psychotherapist.ä
He grinned. ãOr a terrific bartender.ä
Carol laughed.
ãFeeling better?ä he asked.
ãA little bit.ä
ãPromise me you wonât lose any sleep over this.ä
ãIâll try not to,ä she said. ãBut Iâm still concerned about the girl. Do you 
know which hospital theyâve taken her to?ä
ãI can find out,ä he said.
ãWould you do that for me? Iâd like to go talk to the doctor whoâs handling her 
case. If he tells me sheâs going to be all right, Iâll find it a whole lot 
easier to take your advice about getting on with my life.ä
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 wasnât 
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 
hadnât 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 didnât 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 
time÷and 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.
THUNKâ
Just one this time.
Then all was quiet again.
 
***
 
 
The visitorsâ lounge at the hospital looked like an explosion in a clownâs 
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 lounge÷obviously the work of a designer who had read too much about the 
various psychological mood theories of color÷was 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,
ãYou look as if you could use a hot bath and a big glassful of warm brandy.ä
ãI was soaked to the skin,ä she said, ãbut Iâm pretty well dried out now. What 
about the girl?ä
ãCuts, contusions, abrasions,ä he said.
ãInternal bleeding?ä
ãNothing showed up on the tests.ä
ãFractures?ä
ãNot a broken bone in her body. She came through it amazingly well. You couldnât 
have been driving very fast when you hit her.ä
ãI wasnât. But considering the way she slipped up onto the hood and then rolled 
off into the gutter, I thought maybe. . .ã Carol shuddered, unwilling to put 
words to what she had thought.
ãWell, the kidâs in good condition now. She regained consciousness in the 
ambulance, and she was alert by the time I saw her.ä
ãThank God.ä
ãThereâs no indication that sheâs even mildly con-cussed. I donât foresee any 
lasting effects.ä
Relieved, Carol sagged back in the red chair. ãIâd like to see her, talk to 
her.ä
ãSheâs resting now,ä Dr. Hannaport said. ãI donât want her disturbed at the 
moment. But if youâd like to come back this evening, during visiting hours, 
sheâll be able to see you then.ä
ãIâll do that. Iâll definitely do that.ä She blinked.
ãGood heavens, I havenât even asked you what her name is.ä
His bushy eyebrows rose again. ãWell, weâve got a small problem about that.ä
ãProblem?ä Carol tensed up again. ãWhat do you mean? Canât she remember her 
name?ä
ãShe hasnât remembered it yet, but÷ä
ãOh, God.ä
ã÷she will.ä
ãYou said no concussion÷ä
ãI swear to you, it isnât serious,ä 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.
ãPlease donât excite yourself about this. The girl is going to be fine. Her 
inability to remember her name isnât a symptom of severe concussion or any 
serious brain injury; not in her case, anyway. She isnât confused or 
disoriented. Her field of vision is normal, and she has excellent depth 
perception. We tested her thought processes with some math problems÷addition, 
subtraction, multiplication÷and she got them all correct. She can spell any word 
you throw at her; sheâs a damn good speller, that one. So sheâs not severely 
concussed. Sheâs simply suffering from mild amnesia. Itâs selective amnesia, you 
understand, just a loss of personal memories, not a loss of skills and education 
and whole blocks of social concepts. She hasnât forgotten how to read and write, 
thank God; sheâs 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, sheâs 
disconcerted and apprehensive. But selective amnesia is the easiest kind to 
recover from.ä
ãI know,ä Carol said. ãBut somehow that doesnât make me feel a whole hell of a 
lot better.ä
Hannaport squeezed her hand firmly and gently.
ãThis kind of amnesia is only very, very rarely permanent or even long-lasting. 
Sheâll most likely remember who she is before dinnertime.ä
ãIf she doesnât?ä
"Then the police will find out who she is, and the minute she hears her name, 
the mists will clear.ä
ãShe wasnât carrying any ID.ä
ãI know,ä he said. ãIâve talked to the police.ä
ãSo what happens if they canât find out who she is?ä
ãThey will.ä He patted her hand one last time, then let go.
ãI donât see how you can be so sure.ä
ãHer parents will file a missing-persons report. Theyâll have a photograph of 
her. When the police see the photograph, theyâll make a connection. Itâll be as 
simple as that.ä
She frowned. ãWhat if her parents donât report her missing?ä
ãWhy wouldnât they?ä
ãWell, what if sheâs a runaway from out of state? Even if her folks did file a 
missing-persons report back in her hometown, the police here wouldnât 
necessarily be aware of it.ä
ãThe last time I looked, runaway kids favored New York City, California, 
Florida÷just about any place besides Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.ä
ãThereâs always an exception to any rule.ä
Hannaport laughed softly and shook his head. ãIf pessimism were a competitive 
sport, youâd win the world series.ä
She blinked in surprise, then smiled. ãIâm sorry. I guess I am being excessively 
gloomy.ä
Glancing at his watch, getting up from his chair, he said, ãYes, I think you 
are. Especially considering how well the girl came through it all. It could have 
been a lot worse.ä
Carol got to her feet, too. In a rush, the words falling over one another, she 
said, ãI guess maybe the reason it bothers me so much is because I deal with 
disturbed children every day, and itâs my job to help them get well again, and 
thatâs all I ever wanted to do since I was in high school÷work with sick kids, 
be a healer÷but now Iâm responsible for all the pain this poor girl is going 
through.ä
ãYou mustnât feel that way. You didnât intend to harm her.ä
Carol nodded. ãI know Iâm not being entirely rational about the situation, but I 
canât help feeling the way I feel.ä
ãI have some patients to see,ä Hannaport said, glancing at his watch again. ãBut 
let me leave you with one thought that might help you handle this.ä
ãIâd like to hear it.ä
ãThe girl suffered only minor physical injuries. I wonât say they were 
negligible injuries, but they were damned close to it. So youâve got nothing to 
feel guilty about on that score. As for her amnesia.. . well, maybe the accident 
had nothing to do with it.ä
ãNothing to do with it? But I assumed that when she hit her head on the car or 
on the pavement֊
ãIâm sure you know a blow on the head isnât the only cause of amnesia,ä Dr. 
Hannaport said. ãItâs not even the most common factor in such cases. Stress, 
emotional shock÷they can result in loss of memory. In fact we donât 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.ä
He emphasized each argument in favor of his theory by raising fingers on his 
right hand. ãOne: She wasnât 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.ä He waggled his three raised fingers. "Three very good 
reasons why you shouldnât be so eager to blame yourself for the kidâs 
condition.ä
ãMaybe youâre right, but I still÷ä
ãI am right,ä he said. ãThereâs no maybe about it. Give yourself a break, Dr. 
Tracy.ä
A woman with a sharp, nasal voice paged Dr. Hannaport on the hospitalâs tinny 
public address system.
ãThank you for your time,ä Carol said. ãYouâve been more than kind.ä
ãCome back this evening and talk to the girl if you want. Iâm sure youâll find 
she doesnât blame you one bit.ä
He turned and hurried across the gaudy lounge, in answer to the pageâs 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.
ãYou just caught me as I was going out the door,ä he said. ãIâve got to drive 
down to OâBrianâs 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.ä
ãDitto on this end,ä she said.
ãWhatâs wrong?ä
She told him about the accident and briefly summarized her conversation with Dr. 
Hannaport.
ãIt could have been worse,ä Paul said. ãAt least we can be thankful no one was 
killed or crippled.ä
ãThatâs what everyone keeps telling me: ÎIt could have been worse, Carol.â But 
it seems plenty bad enough to me.ä
ãAre you all right?ä
ãYeah. I told you. I wasnât even scratched.ä
ãI donât mean physically. I mean, are you together emotionally? You sound 
shaky.ä
ãI am. Just a little.ä
ãIâll come to the hospital,ä he said.
ãNo, no. Thatâs not necessary.ä
ãAre you sure you should drive?ä
ãI drove here after the accident without trouble, and Iâm feeling better now 
than I did then. Iâll be okay. What Iâm going to do is, Iâm going over to 
Graceâs house. Sheâs only a mile from here; itâs easier than going home. I have 
to sponge off my clothes, dry them out, and press them. I need a shower, too. 
Iâll probably have an early dinner with Grace, if thatâs all right by her, and 
then Iâll come back here during visiting hours this evening.ä
ãWhen will you be home?ä
ãProbably not until eight or eight-thirty.ä
ãIâll miss you.ä
ãMiss you, too.ä
ãGive my best to Grace,ä he said. ãAnd tell her I think she is the next 
Nostradamus.ä
ãWhatâs that supposed to mean?ä
ãGrace 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.ä
ãSeriously?ä
ãYeah. She was embarrassed about it. Afraid Iâd think she was getting senile or 
something.ä
ãYou told her about the lightning yesterday?ä
ãYeah. But she felt something else would happen, something bad.ä
ãAnd it did.ä
ãCreepy, huh?ä
ãDecidedly,ä Carol said. She remembered her own nightmare: the black void; the 
flashing, silvery object drawing nearer, nearer.
ãIâm sure Graceâll tell you all about it,ä Paul said. ãAnd Iâll see you this 
evening.ä
ãI love you,ä Carol said.
ãLove you, too.ä
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 her÷an odd notion that she found more frightening than 
anything else.
She knew her amnesia wasnât 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, 
alarming÷a fuzzy fragment of a dream, a vision÷which she couldnât 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, couldnât.
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 itâs better that I donât 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.
Whatâs 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
GRACEâS 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.
ãIâve never believed in clairvoyance or premonitions.ä
ãNeither have I,ä Grace said. ãBut now I wonder. After all, I have two 
nightmares about you getting hurt, and the next thing I hear is that youâve had 
two close calls, just as if you were acting out a script or something.ä
They sat at the small table by the kitchen window. Carol was wearing one of 
Graceâs robes and a pair of Graceâs slippers while her own clothes finished 
drying out.
ãOnly one close call,ä she told Grace. ãThe lightning. That was a gut-wrencher, 
all right. But I wasnât really in any danger this morning. That poor girl was 
the one who nearly got killed.ä
Grace shook her head. ãNo. It was a close call for you, too. Didnât you tell me 
you slid toward the oncoming traffic when you braked to avoid the girl? And 
didnât you say the Cadillac missed you by an inch or less? Well, what if it 
hadnât missed? If that Caddy had rammed your little VW, you certainly wouldnât 
have walked away without a scratch.ä
Frowning, Carol said, ãI hadnât looked at it that way.ä
ãYouâve been so busy worrying about the girl that you havenât had a chance to 
think about yourself.ä
Carol ate a bite of spice cake and washed it down with coffee. ãYouâre not the 
only one having nightmares.ä 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. ãThatâs one nasty dream. What do you make of it?ä
ãOh, I donât think itâs prophetic.ä
ãWhy couldnât it be? Mine appear to have been.ä
ãYes, but÷it doesnât follow that both of us are turning into soothsayers. 
Besides, my dream didnât make a whole lot of sense. It was just too wild to be 
taken seriously. I mean, severed heads that suddenly come to life÷that sort of 
thing isnât really going to happen.ä
ãIt could be prophetic without being literally prophetic. I mean, it might be a 
symbolic warning.ä
ãOf what?ä
ãI donât see any easy interpretation of it. But I
really think you ought to be extra careful for a while. God, I know Iâm starting 
to sound like a phony gypsy fortune-teller, like Maria Ouspenskya in all those 
old monster movies from the thirties, but I still donât think you should dismiss 
it as just an ordinary dream. Especially not after whatâs already happened.ä
 
***
 
 
Later, after lunch, as Grace squirted some liquid soap into the sinkful of dirty 
dishes, she said, ãHowâs the situation with the adoption agency? Does it look 
like theyâll give you and Paul a child soon?ä
Carol hesitated.
Grace glanced at her. ãSomething wrong?ä
Taking the dish towel from the rack and unfolding it, Carol said, ãNo. Not 
really. OâBrian says weâll be approved. Itâs a sure thing, he says.ä
ãBut youâre still worried about it.ä
ãA little,ä Carol admitted.
ãWhy?ä
ãIâm not sure. Itâs just that.. Iâve had this feeling...ä
ãWhat feeling?ä
ãThat it wonât work out.ä
ãWhy shouldnât it?ä
ãI canât shake the idea that somebodyâs trying to stop us from adopting.ä
ãWho?ä
Carol shrugged.
ãOâBrian?ä Grace asked.
ãNo, no. Heâs on our side.ä
ãSomeone on the recommendations committee?ä
ãI donât know. I donât actually have any evidence of ill will toward Paul and 
me. I canât point my finger at anyone.ä
Grace washed some silverware, put it in the drainage rack, and said, ãYouâve 
wanted to adopt for so long that you canât believe itâs finally happening, so 
youâre looking for boogeymen where there arenât any.ä
ãMaybe.ä
ãYouâre just spooked because of the lightning yesterday and the accident this 
morning.ä
ãMaybe.ä
ãThatâs understandable. It spooks me, too. But the adoption will go through as 
smooth as can be.ä
ãI hope so,ä 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, ãI donât believe it. Ari always uses the litter box like 
heâs supposed to do. Heâs never done anything like this before.ä
ãHeâs always been a fussy cat, hasnât he? Fastidious.ä
ãExactly. But now look what heâs done. That chairâll have to be reupholstered. I 
guess Iâd better find the silly beast, put his nose to this mess, and give him a 
good scolding. I donât want this to become a habit, for Godâs sake.ä
They looked in every room, but they couldnât 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, ãEarlier, you mentioned something 
about Ari tearing up a few things.ä
Grace winced. ãYes. I didnât want to have to tell you÷but 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÷,â
ãDonât worry about it,ä Carol said. ãIâll make you a couple of new pillows. I 
enjoy doing it. Needlepoint relaxes me. I only asked because I thought maybe, if 
Ariâs been doing a lot of things thatâre out of character, it might be a sign 
that he isnât well.ä
Grace frowned. ãHe looks healthy. His coatâs glossy, and heâs certainly as spry 
as ever.ä
ãAnimals 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.ä
ãI suppose I ought to take him to the vet.ä
Carol said, ãWhile thereâs a break in the rain, why donât we go outside and see 
if we can find him?ä
ãWasted effort. When a cat doesnât want to be found, it wonât be found. Besides, 
heâll come back by dinnertime: Iâll keep him in all night, and take him to the 
vetâs in the morning.ä Grace looked at the mess on the easy chair, grimaced, and 
shook her head. ãThis isnât like my Ari,ä she said worriedly. ãItâs just not 
like him at all.ä
*** 
 
 
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.
ãMay I come in?ä Carol asked.
ãSure.ä
Carol went to the foot of the bed. ãHow are you feeling?ä
ãOkay.ä
ãWith all the scrapes and cuts and bruises, it must be hard to get comfortable.ä
ãGee, Iâm not banged up all that bad. Iâm just a little sore. Itâs nothing 
thatâs going to kill me. Everyone's so nice; youâre all making too much of a 
fuss about me.ä
ãHowâs your head feel?ä
ãI had a headache when I first came to, but itâs been gone for hours.ä
ãDouble vision?ä
ãNothing like that,ä the girl said. A strand of golden hair slipped from behind 
her ear and fell across her cheek; she tucked it back in place. ãAre you a 
doctor?ä
ãYes,ä Carol said. ãMy nameâs Carol Tracy.ä
ãYou can call me Jane. Thatâs the name on my chart. Jane Doe. I guess itâs as 
good as any. It might even turn out to be a lot nicer than my real name. Maybe 
Iâm actually Zelda or Myrtle or something like that.ä She had a lovely smile. 
ãYouâre the umpteenth doctor whoâs been in to see me. How many do I have, 
anyway?ä
ãIâm not one of yours,ä Carol said. ãIâm here because ... well. . . it was my 
car you stepped in front of.ä
ãOh. Hey, gee, Iâm awfully sorry. 1 hope there wasnât a lot of damage.ä
Surprised by the girlâs statement and by the genuine look of concern on her 
face, Carol laughed. ãFor heavenâs sake, honey, donât worry about my car. itâs 
your health thatâs important, not the VW. And Iâm the one who should be 
apologizing. I feel terrible about this.ä
ãYou shouldnât,ä the girl said. ãI still have all my teeth, and none of my bones 
are broken, and Dr. Hannaport says the boys will still be interested in me.ä She 
grinned self-consciously.
ãHeâs certainly right about the boys,ä Carol said.
ãYouâre a very pretty girl.ä
The grin became a shy smile, and the girl looked down at the covers on her lap, 
blushing.
Carol said, ãI was hoping Iâd find you here with your folks.ä
The girl tried to maintain a cheerful facade, but when she looked up, fear and 
doubt showed through the mask. ãI guess they havenât filed a missing-persons 
report yet. But itâs only a matter of time.ä
ãHave you remembered anything at all about your past?ä
ãNot yet. But I will.ä She straightened the collar of her hospital gown and 
smoothed the covers over her lap as she talked. ãDr. Hannaport says 
everythingâll probably come back to me if I just donât push too hard at 
remembering. He says Iâm lucky I donât have global amnesia. Thatâs when you even 
forget how to read and write. Iâm not that bad off! Heck, no. Boy, wouldnât that 
be something? What if I had to learn to read, write, add, subtract, multiply, 
divide, and spell all over again? What a bore!ä She finished smoothing her 
covers and looked up again. ãAnyway, Iâll most likely have my memory back in a 
day or two.,,
ãIâm sure you will,ä Carol said, though she wasnât sure at all. ãIs there 
anything you need?ä
ãNo. They supply everything. Even tiny tubes of toothpaste.ä
ãWhat about books, magazines?ä
The girl sighed. ãI was bored out of my skull this afternoon. You think they 
might keep a pile of old magazines for the patients?ä
ãProbably. What do you like to read?ä
ãEverything. I love to read; I remember that much. But I canât remember the 
titles of any books or magazines. This amnesia sure is funny, isnât it?ä
ãHilarious,ä Carol said. ãSit tight. Iâll be right back.ä
At the nursesâ station at the end of the hail, she explained who she was and 
arranged to rent a small television set for Jane Doeâs room. An orderly promised 
to hook it up right away.
The chief RN on duty÷a stocky, gray-haired woman who wore her glasses on a chain 
around her neck÷said, ãSheâs such a sweet girl. Sheâs charmed everyone. Hasnât 
complained or uttered a cross word to a soul. There arenât many teenagers with 
her composure.ä
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.
ãYou shouldnât have done all this,ä the girl said.
ãWhen my parents show up, Iâll make sure they pay you back.ä
ãI wonât accept a dime,ä Carol said.
ãBut÷ä
ãNo buts.ä
ãI donât need to be pampered. Iâm fine. Really. If you÷ä
ãIâm 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.ä
ãWhat do you mean?ä
ãWell, if you watch enough television, you might see a show you remember seeing 
before. That might spark a sort of chain reaction of memories.ä
ãYou think so?ä
ãItâs 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 thereâs a chance the TV will do the trick.ä
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.
ãFamiliar?ä Carol asked.
The girl shook her head: no. Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes.
ãHey, donât get upset,ä Carol said. ãIt would be amazing if you remembered the 
first thing you saw. Itâs bound to take time.ä
She nodded and bit her lip, trying not to cry.
Carol moved close, took the girlâs hand; it was cool.
ãWill you come back tomorrow?ä Jane asked shakily.
ãOf course I will.ä
ãI mean, if itâs not out of your way.ä
ãItâs no trouble at all.ä ãSometimes.. .ã
ãWhat?ä
The girl shuddered. ãSometimes Iâm so afraid.ä
ãDonât be afraid, honey. Please donât. Itâll all work out. Youâll see. Youâre 
going to be back on the track in no time,ä 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. ãSorry,ä she said. ãI donât know 
what got into me. Being a crybaby isnât going to solve anything. Anyway, youâre 
right. My folks will probably show up tomorrow, and everythingâll work out for 
the best. Look, Dr. Tracy, if you come to see me tomorrow֊
ãI will .ã
ãIf you do, promise not to bring me any more candy or magazines or anything. 
Okay? Thereâs no reason for you to spend your money like that. Youâve already 
done too much for me. Besides, the best thing you could do is just come. I mean, 
itâs nice to know someone outside the hospital cares about me. Itâs nice to know 
I havenât been lost or forgotten in here. Oh, sure, the nurses and the doctors 
are swell. They really are, and Iâm grateful. They care about me, but itâs
sort of their job to care. You know? So thatâs not exactly the same thing, is 
it?ä She laughed nervously. ãAm I making sense?ä
ãI know exactly what youâre feeling,ä Carol assured her. She was achingly aware 
of the girlâs 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 girlâs 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 girlâs room.
ÎWhat a terrific kid,ä 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 hail 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.
ãWhat are you doing in here? You know the rules.ä
He blinked but didnât 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.
ãCome down from there this instant,ä 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, 
ãShoo.ä
The catâs 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.
ãHey!ä she said.
Aristophanes raised his head languidly, peered down at her.
ãOut,ä she said gruffly. ãNow.ä
When he still didnât move, she started toward the highboy, and he was at last 
encouraged to obey. He jumped down and darted past her so fast she didnât 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 kittenâs 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. Weâll 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 couldnât trust her senses; she 
wasnât able to wrench herself fully awake, and in a few seconds she sank down 
into the dream once more.
 
 
At one oâclock 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 nursesâ rubber-soled shoes on the highly polished tile floors.
Harriet÷a small, pretty, neatly uniformed black woman÷was at the nursesâ 
station, around the corner from the bank of elevators, entering data on 
patientsâ 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:
ãNo. . . no. . . no. Donât! Please donât kill me! No!ä 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 Harrietâs side. ãWhat happened? Mustâve 
woke up half the floor.ä
ãJust a bad dream,ä Harriet said.
Jane blinked sleepily at them. ãShe was trying to kill me.ä
ãHush now,ä Harriet said. ãIt was only a dream.
No one here will hurt you.ä
ãA dream?ä Jane asked, her voice slurred. ãOh. Yeah. Just a dream. Whew! What a 
dream.ä
The girlâs 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.
ãLooks like she switched to a better channel,ä Harriet said.
ãPoor kid. After what sheâs been through, the least she deserves is a good 
nightâs sleep.ä
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.
ãThe ax,ä she whispered in her sleep. ãThe ax. Oh, the ax. Yes. Yes.ä
Her hands curled slightly, as if she were clutching a solid but invisible 
object.
ãThe ax,ä 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.
Thank! 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.. thank...
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?
Thank!
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 couldnât 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 oâclock, when Paul was on the freeway, headed downtown to 
deliver the new set of application papers to Alfred OâBrianâs office, the 
Pontiac's engine cut out. It didnât 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 didnât 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 couldnât spare his young assistant÷a big, 
redheaded, open-faced kid named Corky÷until the stream of customers subsided to 
a trickle shortly before ten oâclock. Then Paul and Corky rode back to the 
crippled Pontiac in a tow truck.
They tried jump-starting the car, but the battery wouldnât 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 wasnât 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 agencyâs offices.
Alfred OâBrian 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 wasnât optimistic about the possibility of making all the required 
verifications prior to the recommendations committeeâs meeting next Wednesday 
morning.
ãWeâll try to do a rush job on your papers,ä he told Paul. ãI owe you that much 
at least! But in getting these verifications, we have to deal with people 
outside this office, and some of them wonât get back to us right away or wonât 
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 weâll be ready for this session of the recommendations 
committee, even though I want to be. Weâll probably have to submit your 
application at the second September meeting, at the end of the month. I feel 
terrible about that, Mr. Tracy. Iâm more sorry than I can say.
I truly am. If we hadnât lost those papers in the turmoil yesterday÷ä
ãDonât worry about it,ä Paul said. ãThe lightning wasnât 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 isnât much in the scheme of things.ä
ãWhen your papers are presented to the committee, youâll be approved quickly,ä 
OâBrian said. ãIâve never been more sure about a couple than I am about you. 
Thatâs what Iâm going to tell them.ä
ãI appreciate that,ä Paul said.
ãIf we canât make Wednesdayâs meeting÷and I assure you weâll try our best÷then 
itâs only a minor, temporary setback. Nothing to be concerned about. Just a bit 
of bad luck.ä
 
***
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.
ãHe looks fit,ä Brad said, putting Ari on the stainless-steel table that stood 
in the middle of the sparkling clean surgery.
ãHeâs never been one to tear up the furniture, not since he was just a kitten,ä 
Grace said. ãHeâs never been a climber, either. But now, every time I turn 
around, heâs perched on top of something, peering down at me.ä
Brad examined Ari, feeling for swollen glands and enlarged joints. The cat 
cooperated docilely, even when Brad used a rectal thermometer on him. 
"Temperatureâs normal.ä
ãSomethingâs wrong,ä 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. ãIs he off his food?ä
ãNo,ä Grace said. ãHe stills eats well.ä
ãVomiting?ä
ãNo.ä
ãDiarrhea?ä
ãNo. He hasnât shown any symptoms like those.
Itâs just that heâs.. . different. Heâs 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 heâs taken in climbing. And heâs gotten very sneaky lately, 
always creeping around, hiding from me, watching me when be thinks I donât see 
him.ä
ãAll cats are a bit sneaky,ä Brad said, frowning. ãThatâs the nature of the 
beast.ä
ãAri didnât used to sneak,ä Grace said. ãNot like heâs been doing the last 
couple of days. And heâs not as friendly as he used to be. The last two days, he 
hasnât wanted to be petted or cuddled.ä
Still frowning, Brad lifted his gaze from the cat and met Graceâs eyes. ãBut 
dear, look at him.ä
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 doctorâs large, 
leathery hand.
Sighing, Grace said, ãI know what youâre thinking. Iâm an old woman. Old women 
get funny ideas.ä
ãNo, no, no. I wasnât thinking any such thing.ä
ãOld women become obsessively attached to their pets because sometimes their 
pets are the only company they have, their only real friends.ä
ãI am perfectly aware that doesnât apply to you, Grace. Not with all the friends 
youâve got in this town. I merely÷ä
She smiled and patted his cheek. ãDonât protest too strongly, Brad. I know 
whatâs 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 doesnât offend me. It does frustrate me because I 
know something is wrong with Ari.ä
Brad looked down at the cat again, continued stroking its belly, and said, ãHave 
you changed his diet in any way?ä
ãNo. He gets the same brand of cat food, at the same times of day, in the same 
quantities heâs always gotten it.ä
ãHas the company changed the product recently?ä
ãHow do you mean?ä
ãWell, does the package say Înew, improved,â or
Îricher flavor,â or anything like that?ä
She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. ãI don't think so.ä
ãSometimes, 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.ä
ãBut wouldnât that be a physical reaction? Like I said, this seems to be 
strictly a personality change.ä
Brad nodded. ãIâm sure you know food additives can cause behavioral problems in 
some children. A lot of hyperactive kids calm down when theyâre put on a diet 
free of the major additives. Animals can be affected by these things, too. From 
what youâve 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 heâll probably be the old Ari again.ä
ãIf he isnât?ä
ãThen bring him in, leave him with me for a couple of days, and Iâll 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.ä
You are humoring me, Grace thought. Just coddling an old lady.
ãVery well,ä she said. ãIâll try changing his food. But if heâs still not 
himself a week from now, Iâll want you to give him a complete battery of tests.ä
ãOf course.ä
ãIâll want an answer.ä
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. Ariâs claws had made three short furrows in 
the meaty edge of her palm. Blood welled up and began to trickle down her wrist.
 
 
Carolâs last appointment on Friday was at one oâclock: 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 hadnât 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 didnât 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. Kathyâs progress had been immensely satisfying to Carol, 
and todayâs 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 oâclock, 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, ãYou really came.ä
ãSaid I would, didnât I?ä
ãWhatâve you got?ä
ãCards, checkers. I thought maybe theyâd help you pass the time.ä
ãYou promised you wouldnât buy me anything else.ä
ãHey, did I say I was giving these to you? No way. You think Iâm a soft touch or 
something? Iâm lending them, kid. I expect them back. And whenever you return 
them, theyâd better be in as good condition as they are now, or Iâll take you 
all the way to the Supreme Court to get compensated for the damage.ä
Jane grinned. ãBoy, youâre tough.ä
ãI eat nails for breakfast.ä
ãDonât they get stuck in your teeth?ä
ãI pluck Îem out with pliers.ä
ãEver eat barbed wire?ä
ãNever for breakfast. I have it for lunch now and then.ä
They both laughed, and Carol said, ãSo do you play checkers?ä
ãI donât know. I donât remember.ä
The girl shrugged.
ãNothingâs come back yet?ä Carol asked.
ãNot a thing.ä
ãDonât worry. It will.ä
ãMy folks havenât shown up, either.ä
ãWell, youâve only been missing for one day. Give them time to find you. Itâs 
too soon to start worrying about that.ä
They played three games of checkers. Jane remembered all of the rules, but she 
couldnât 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 girlâs 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. Theyâre probably crazy with worry right now. Sooner or later theyâll 
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.
ãMr. Tracy?ä
ãYes. Are you from Safe Homes?ä
ãThatâs right,ä the gray man said. ãNameâs Bill Alsgood. I am Safe Homes. 
Started the company two years ago.ä
They shook hands, and Alsgood entered the foyer, looking with interest at the 
interior of the house. ãLovely place. Youâre lucky to get same-day service. 
Usually, Iâm scheduled three days in advance. But when you called this morning 
and said it was an emergency, Iâd just had a cancellation.ä
ãYouâre a building inspector?ä Paul asked, closing the door.
ãStructural engineer, to be precise. What our company does is inspect the house 
before itâs sold, usually on behalf of the buyer, at his expense. We tell him if 
heâs buying into a heartache of any sort÷a leaky roof, a cellar that floods, a 
crumbling foundation, faulty wiring, bad plumbing, that kind of thing. Weâre 
fully bonded, so even if we overlook something, our client is protected. Are you 
the buyer or the seller?ä
ãNeither,ä Paul said. ãMy wife and I own the place, but we arenât ready to sell 
it. Weâre having a problem with the house, and I canât pinpoint the cause of it. 
I thought you might be able to help.ä
Alsgood raised one gray eyebrow. ãMay I suggest that what you need is a good 
handyman. Heâd be considerably cheaper, and once heâd found the trouble, he 
could fix it, too. We donât do any repair work, you know. We only inspect.ä
ãIâm aware of that. Iâm pretty handy myself, but I havenât figured out whatâs 
wrong or how to fix it.
I think I need the kind of expert advice that no handyman can give me.â
ãYou do know we charge two hundred and fifty dollars for an inspection?ä
ãI know,ä Paul said. ãBut this is an extremely annoying problem, and it might be 
causing serious structural damage.ä
ãWhat is it?ä
Paul told him about the hammering sounds that occasionally shook the house.
ãThatâs peculiar as hell,ä Alsgood said. ãIâve never heard a complaint like it 
before.ä He thought for a moment, then said, ãWhereâs your furnace?ä
ãIn the cellar.ä
ãMaybe itâs a heating duct problem. Unlikely. But we can start down there and 
work our way up to the roof until weâve found the cause.ä
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. Alsgoodâs 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 didnât 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 clothes÷once a variety of 
shades ÷ into a single, dull hue, so that he appeared to be wearing a drab 
uniform. ãItâs basically a solid house, Mr. Tracy. The condition is really 
topnotch.ä
ãThen where the devil did that sound come from? And why was the whole house 
shaken by it?ä
ãI wish Iâd heard it.ä
ãI was sure itâd start up at least once while you were here.ä
Alsgood sipped his coffee, but the warm brew added no color to his cheeks. 
ãStructurally, thereâs not a thing wrong with this house. Thatâs what my report 
will say, and Iâd stake my reputation on it.ä
ãWhich puts me right back at square one,ä Paul said, folding his hands around 
his coffee cup.
ãIâm sorry you spent all this money without getting an answer,ä Alsgood said. ãI 
really feel bad about that.ä
ãIt isnât your fault. Iâm convinced you did a thorough job. In fact, if I ever 
buy another house, Iâll definitely want you to inspect it first. At least I now 
know the trouble isnât structural, which rules out possibilities and narrows the 
field of inquiry.ä
ãMaybe you wonât even hear it again. It might stop just as suddenly as it 
started.ä
ãSomehow, I suspect youâre wrong about that,ä Paul said.
Later, at the front door, as Alsgood was leaving, he said, ãOne thought has 
occurred to me, but I hesitate to mention it.ä
ãWhy?ä
ãYou might think itâs off the wall.ä
ãMr. Alsgood, Iâm a desperate man. Iâm willing to consider anything, no matter 
how farfetched it might be.ä
Alsgood looked at the ceiling, then at the floor, then back along the hail that 
lay behind Paul, then down at his own feet. ãA ghost,ä 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 Paulâs gaze. ãMaybe you donât believe in ghosts.ä
ãDO you?ä Paul asked.
ãYes. Iâve been interested in the subject most of my life. I have a large 
collection of publications dealing with spiritualism of all sorts. Iâve had some 
personal experiences in haunted houses, too.ä
ãYouâve seen a ghostä
ãI believe I have, yes, on four occasions. Ectoplasmic apparitions. 
Insubstantial, manlike shapes drifting in the air. Iâve also twice witnessed 
poltergeist phenomena. As far as this house is concerned..
His voice trailed away, and he licked his lips nervously. ãIf you find this 
boring or preposterous, I donât want to waste your time.ä
ãQuite frankly,ä Paul said, ãI canât picture myself calling an exorcist in to 
deal with this. But Iâm not entirely close-minded where ghosts are concerned. I 
find it hard to accept, but Iâm certainly willing to listen.ä
ãReasonable enough,ä 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. ãAll right. Hereâs something 
to consider. From what youâve told me, Iâd say there might be a poltergeist at 
work here. Of course, no objects have been hurled around by an unseen presence; 
thereâs 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 rack÷those are all indications of a poltergeist 
at work, one thatâs 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.ä His wan 
countenance flushed with excitement as he considered the supernatural 
destruction. ãLevitations 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 donât break much of anything, but the 
overwhelming number of them are malign, and thatâs what youâll most likely have 
to deal with÷if indeed youâve got one here at all.â, Having warmed to his 
subject, he finished in an almost breathless rush of words: ãIn 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 donât know whether youâre 
coming or going.ä
Startled by Alsgoodâs passionately delivered speech
and by the odd new light in the manâs eyes, Paul said, ãWell.. . uh. . . itâs 
really not that bad. Not nearly that bad. Just a hammering sound and֊
ãItâs not that bad yet,ä Alsgood said somberly.
ãBut if you have a poltergeist here, the situation could deteriorate rapidly. If 
youâve never seen one in action, Mr. Tracy, you simply canât understand what 
itâs like.ä
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 Alsgoodâs manner.
ãIf it does turn out to be a poltergeist,ä Alsgood said, ãif things do get a lot 
worse, will you call me right away? Iâve been fortunate enough to observe two 
poltergeists, as I said. Iâd like nothing better than to see a third going 
through its tricks. The opportunity doesnât arise very often.ä
ãI guess not,ä Paul said.
ãSo youâll call me?ä
ãI very much doubt thereâs a poltergeist involved here, Mr. Alsgood. If I keep 
looking long enough and hard enough, Iâll find a perfectly logical explanation 
for whatâs been happening. But on the off-chance that it is a malign spirit, 
rest assured Iâll give you a call the moment the first refrigerator or 
chiffonier levitates.ä
Alsgood wasnât able to see anything amusing about their conversation. He frowned 
when he detected levity in Paulâs voice, and he said, ãI didnât really expect 
you to take me seriously.ä
ãOh, please donât think Iâm not grateful for÷ä
ãNo, no,ä Alsgood said, waving him to silence.
ãI understand. No offense taken.ä The excitement had gone out of his watery 
eyes. ãYouâve been raised to believe strictly in science. Youâve been taught to 
put your faith only in things that can be seen and touched and measured. Thatâs 
the modem way.ä 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. ãAsking 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. Itâs sad but true, and I have no 
reason to be angry about it.ä
He opened the front door, and the sound of the rain grew louder. ãAnyway, for 
your sake, I hope it isnât a poltergeist youâve got here. I hope you find that 
logical explanation youâre looking for. I really do, Mr. Tracy.ä
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 Alsgoodâs 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 oâclock 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 dinner÷ broiled 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. ãThe 
ax,ä she said with a wistful sigh. ãThe 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, ãItâs coming! Itâs coming!ä 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 didnât disturb Paul. He mumbled in his sleep but didnât 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 canât 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 OâBrianâs office on Wednesday, the accident just 
yesterday morning, the girlâs 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 place÷two bedrooms, one bath, a living room 
with a big stone fireplace, and a complete kitchen÷a 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 patients÷a couple of really troubled kids who simply 
could not be turned away÷and for both herself and Paul, work had expanded to 
fill every spare moment. Perhaps they were the overachievers that Alfred OâBrian 
had thought they might be.
But weâll change when we have a child, Carol told herself. Weâll make lots of 
time for leisure and for family outings because creating the best environment 
for our child is the job weâre 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 
couldnât take off this coming week, of course. She would need time to reschedule 
her appointments. Besides, she didnât want to leave town until Jane Doeâs 
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, ãI love you.ä
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 husbandâs 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 girlâs amnesia, prodded her memory without 
letting her see that she was being prodded.
But it was all wasted effort, for Janeâs 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.
ãHavenât the police come up with any leads at all?ä she asked.
He shrugged his burly shoulders. ãNot yet.ä
ãItâs been over two days since the accident.ä
ãWhich isnât all that long.ä
ãIt seems like an eternity to that poor kid in there,ä Carol said, gesturing 
toward the door of 316.
ãI know,ä Hannaport said. ãAnd I feel just as bad about it as you do. But itâs 
still too soon to be pessimistic.ä
ãIf I had a girl like her, and if my kid turned up missing for even one day, Iâd 
be pushing the police hard, and Iâd make damned sure the story was in all the 
papers, and Iâd be pounding on doors and making a nuisance of myself all over 
the city.ä
Hannaport nodded. ãI know you would. Iâve 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. Itâs good of you to take all this time with 
her.ä
ãWell, Iâm not angling for a testimonial dinner,ä
Carol said. ãI donât think Iâm doing any more than I have to do. I mean, Iâve 
got a responsibility here.ä
A nurse came along, pushing a patient in a wheelchair. Carol and Hannaport 
stepped out of the way.
ãAt least Jane seems to be in good physical shape,ä Carol said.
ãLike I told you on Wednesday÷there were no
serious injuries. In fact, because she is in such good condition, she presents 
us with a problem. She doesnât really belong in a hospital. I just hope her 
parents show up before Iâm forced to discharge her.ä
ãDischarge her? But you canât do that if she has nowhere to go. She canât cope 
outside. For Godâs sake, she doesnât even know who she is!ä
ãNaturally, Iâll 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, weâll have to look around for a few other patients who can be safely 
released. Janeâs bound to be one of them. If some guyâs brought in here with a 
cracked skull from an auto accident, or if an ambulance delivers a woman whoâs 
been stabbed by a jealous boyfriend, I canât justify turning away seriously 
injured people while Iâm keeping a perfectly healthy girl whose worst physical 
problem is a contusion on her left shoulder.ä
ãBut her amnesia÷ä
ãIs something we canât treat anyway.ä
ãBut she has nowhere to go,ä Carol said. ãWhat would happen to her?ä
In his calm, soft, reassuring voice, Hannaport said, ãSheâll be okay. Really. 
Weâre not going to just abandon her. Weâll petition to have her declared a ward 
of the court until her parents show up. In the meantime, sheâll do just as well 
at some minimal-care facility as she would do here.ä
ãWhat facility are you talking about?ä
ãJust three blocks from here, thereâs a borne for runaway and pregnant teenage 
girls, and itâs far
cleaner and better managed than the average state institution.ä
ãThe Polmar Home,ä Carol said. ãI know it.ä
ãThen you know itâs not a dungeon or a dump.ä
ãI still donât like moving her out of here,ä Carol said. ãSheâs going to feel as 
if sheâs being shunted aside, forgotten, and left to rot. Sheâs on very shaky 
ground already. ThisâII scare her half to death.ä
Frowning, Hannaport said, ãI donât like it much myself, but! truly donât have an 
option. If weâre short on bed space, the law says weâve 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. Iâm in a bind.ä
ãI understand. Iâm not blaming you. Dammit, if someone would just come forward 
to claim her!ä
ãSomeone might, any minute.ä
Carol shook her head. ãNo. Iâve got a feeling itâs not going to be that easy. 
Have you told Jane yet?ä
ãNo. We wonât 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.ä
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 wasnât 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, guidance÷ ãOf 
course!ä Carol said. She grinned.
Hannaport looked at her questioningly.
ãWhy canât she come with me?ä Carol asked.
ãWhat?ä
ãLook, Dr. Hannaport, if itâs all right with Paul, my husband, why couldnât you 
recommend to the court that I be awarded temporary custody of Jane until someone 
shows up who can identify her?ä
ãYou really better think twice about that,ä Hannaport said. ãTaking her in, 
disrupting your lives֊
ãIt wonât be a disruption,ä Carol said. ãItâll be a pleasure. Sheâs a delightful 
kid.ä
Hannaport stared at her a long moment, searching her face and her eyes.
ãAfter all,ä Carol argued as persuasively as she could, ãthe only kind of doctor 
who might be able to cure Janeâs amnesia is a psychiatrist. And in case youâve 
forgotten, thatâs what I am. Iâd not only be able to provide a decent home for 
her; Iâd also be able to treat her rather intensively.ä
Finally, Hannaport smiled. ãI think itâs a grand and generous offer, Dr. Tracy.ä
ãThen youâll make the recommendation to the court?ä
ãYes. Of course, you never can be sure what a judge will do. But I think thereâs 
a pretty good chance heâll see where the best interests of the girl lie.ä
A few minutes later, in the hospital lobby, Carol used
a pay phone to call Paul. She recounted the conversation sheâd had with Dr. 
Hannaport, but before she
got to the big question, Paul interrupted her. ãYou want to make a place for 
Jane,ä he said.
Surprised, Carol said, ãHowâd you guess?ä
He laughed. ãI know you, sugarface. When it comes to kids, youâve got a heart 
the consistency of vanilla pudding.ä
ãShe wonât be in your way,ä Carol said quickly. ãShe wonât distract you from 
your writing. And now that OâBrian wonât be able to present our application for 
the adoption until the end of the month, thereâs no chance weâll have two kids 
to take care of. In fact maybe the delay at the agency was meant to be÷so weâd 
have a place for Jane until her folks show up. Itâs only temporary, Paul. 
Really. And we֊
ãOkay, okay,ä he said. ãYou donât have to sell me on it. I approve of the plan.ä
ãIf youâd like to come here and meet Jane first, thatâs÷ä
ãNo, no. Iâm sure sheâs everything youâve said she is.                Donât 
forget, though, you were planning to go to the mountains in a week or so.ä
ãWe 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 weâre going.ä
ãWhen do we have to appear in court?ä
ãI donât know. Probably Monday or Tuesday.ä
ãIâll be on my best behavior,ä Paul said.
ãScrub behind your ears?ä
ãOkay. And Iâll also wear shoes.ä
Grinning, Carol said, ãDonât pick your nose in front of the judge.ä
ãNot unless he picks his first.ä
She said, ãI love you, Dr. Tracy.ä
ãI love you, Dr. Tracy.ä
When she put down the receiver and turned away from the pay phone, she felt 
wonderful. Not even the gaudy decor of the visitorsâ 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.
ãHello.ä
No one answered her. ãHello,ä she said again.
A thin, whispery, male voice said, ãGrace..
ãYes?ä
His words were muffled, and there was an echo on the line, as if he were talking 
into a tin can.
ãI canât understand you,ä she said. ãCan you speak up?ä
He tried, but again the words were lost. They seemed to be coming from an 
enormous distance, across an unimaginably vast chasm.
ãWe have a terrible connection,ä she said. ãYouâll have to speak up.ä
ãGrace,ä he said, his voice only slightly louder. ãGracie itâs almost too late. 
Youâve got to . . . move fast. Youâve got to stop it... from happening .. 
again.ä
It was a dry, brittle voice; it cracked repeatedly, with a sound like dead 
autumn leaves underfoot. ãItâs almost. . . too late. . . too late 
She recognized the voice, and she froze. Her hand tightened on the receiver, and 
she couldnât get her breath.
ãGracie.. . it canât go on forever. Youâve 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 didnât 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.
÷The Book of Counted Sorrows
 
 
 
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 sheâd been wearing when sheâd 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 Carolâs 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, ãHoney, you need this stuff, so please just relax and let me 
buy it for you. Okay? the long run, it wonât be coming out of my pocket anyway. 
Iâll most likely be reimbursed either by your parents, by the foster children 
program, or by some other county agency.ä
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. ãItâs really just a 
guest room?ä Jane asked, incredulous. ãYou donât use it regularly? Boy, if this 
were my house, Iâd come in here all the time! Iâd just sit and read for a little 
while every day÷read and sit there in the window and soak up the atmosphere.ä
Carol had always liked the room, but through Janeâs eyes she achieved a new 
perception and appreciation of it. As she watched the girl inspecting 
things÷sliding open the closet doors, checking the view from each angle of the 
bay window, testing the firmness of the mattress on the queen-sized bed÷ Carol 
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, ãSheâs a terrific kid.ä
ãDidnât I tell you so?ä
ãFunny thing, though.ä
ãWhat?ä
ãEver since I saw her this afternoon, outside the courtroom,ä Paul said, ãIâve 
had the feeling that Iâve seen her somewhere before.ä
ãWhere?ä
He shook his head. ãIâll be damned if I know. But thereâs something familiar 
about her face.ä
 
 
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 couldnât 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 Leonardâs 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 
dumplings÷served with cinnamon, milk, and just a bit of sugar÷were 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 couldnât 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.
ãGracie. .
The voice was faint but intelligible.
ãGracie. . . itâs almost too late.ä
It was him. Leonard. Or someone who sounded exactly like Leonard had sounded.
She couldnât respond to him. Her throat clutched tight.
ãGracie.. .ã
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.
ãGracie. . . stop it from happening again. It mustnât. . . go on forever.. . 
time after time. . . the blood. . . the murder. . .ä
She closed her eyes, forced herself to speak. Her voice was weak, quavery. She 
didnât even recognize it as her own. It was the voice of a stranger÷a weary, 
frightened, frail old woman. ãWho is this?ä
The whispery, vibrative voice on the telephone said, ãProtect her, Oracle.ä
ãWhat do you want from me?ä
ãProtect her.ä
ãWhy are you doing this?ä
ãProtect her.ä
ãProtect who?ä she demanded.
ãWilla. Protect Willa.ä
She was still frightened and confused, but she was beginning to be angry, too. 
ãI donât know anyone named Willa, dammit! Who is this?ä
ãLeonard.ä
ãNo! Do you think Iâm a doddering, senile old fool? Leonardâs dead. Eighteen 
years! Youâre not Leonard. What kind of game are you playing?ä
She wanted to hang up on him, and she knew that was the best thing to do with a 
crank like this, but she couldnât 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. ãProtect 
Willa.ä
ãI tell you, I donât know her. And if you keep calling me with this nonsense, 
Iâm going to tell the police that some sick practical joker is÷ä
ãCarol. . . Carol,ä the man said, his voice fading syllable by syllable. ãWilla. 
. . but you call her. . . Carol.ä
ãWhat the hell is going on here?ä
ãBeware.. .the. . .cat.ä
ãWhat?ä
The voice was so distant now that she had to strain to hear it. ãThe .. . cat 
...ä
ãAristophanes? What about him? Have you done something to him? Have you poisoned 
him? Is that whatâs been wrong with him latelyä
No response.
ãAre you thereä 
Nothing.
ãWhat about the cat?ä 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. ãWho are you? Why do you want to torment 
me like this? Why do you want to hurt Aristophanes?ä
Far, far away, the achingly familiar voice of her long-dead husband uttered a 
few final, barely audible words. ãWish. . .1 was there.. . for the.. . apple 
dumplings.ä
 
***
 
 
They had forgotten to buy pajamas for Jane. She went to bed in knee socks, 
panties, and one of Carolâs T-shirts, which was a bit large for her.
ãWhat happens tomorrow?ä she asked when she was tucked in, her head raised on a 
plump pillow.
Carol sat on the edge of the bed. ãI thought we might start a program of 
treatment designed to pry open your memory.ä
ãWhat kind of treatment?ä
ãDo you know what hypnotic regression therapy is?ä
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 
stranglerâs 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 no: 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.
ãAre you all right?ä Carol asked.
The girl blinked, licked her lips. ãYeah. I was just thinking about what you 
said. Hypnotic regression. Does that mean youâre going to put me in a trance and 
make me remember everything?ä
ãWell, it isnât that easy, honey. Thereâs no guarantee itâll work. Iâll 
hypnotize you and ask you to think back to the accident on Thursday morning; 
then Iâll nudge you further and further into the past. If youâre 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 Iâm trying to get a patient to relive a 
deeply hidden, severely regressed trauma. Iâve never used the technique on an 
amnesia victim, but I know itâs 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. Weâre not going to get 
much of anywhere tomorrow, and in fact your parents will probably show up before 
Iâve been able to help you remember. But we might as well make a start. That is, 
if itâs all right with you.ä
She didnât want Carol to know that she was afraid to remember, so she said, ãOh, 
sure! It sounds fascinating.ä
ãIâve got four patients scheduled for tomorrow, but I can work you in at eleven 
oâclock. Youâll have to spend a lot of time in the waiting room, before and 
after your session, so first thing in the morning, weâll find a book for you to 
take along. Do you like to read mystery stories?ä
ãI guess so.ä
ãAgatha Christie?ä
ãThe nameâs familiar, but I donât know whether Iâve ever read any of her books.ä
ãYou 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.ä She leaned down, kissed Janeâs forehead. 
ãBut donât worry about it now. Just get a good nightâs sleep, kiddo.ä
After Carol left the room, closing the door behind her, Jane didnât 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. Donât 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, itâs 
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, ãOkay, cat. For the time being, 
your license to roam has been suspended. There might be a man out there whoâs 
been feeding you small amounts of drugs or poison of some sort, and maybe thatâs 
been the cause of your bad behavior. Weâll just have to wait and see if you 
improve. Have you been flying high on drugs, you silly cat?ä
Aristophanes meowed questioningly.
ãYes,ä Grace said. ãI know it sounds bizarre. But if itâs not some kook Iâve got 
to deal with, then it really mustâve been Leonard on the phone. And thatâs even 
more bizarre, donât you think?ä
The cat turned his head from one side to the other, as if he really were flying 
to make sense of what she was saying.
Grace stopped, held out her hand, and rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. 
ãHere, kitty. Here, kitty-kitty-kitty.ä
Aristophanes hissed, spat, turned, and ran.
For a change, they made love with the lights off.
Carolâs 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 couldnât 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 
couldnât 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 feel÷utterly without reason÷that his previous encounter with 
Jane had been strange, perhaps even unpleasant. Then he wondered if the girt 
might actually pose some sort of threat to Carol and himself.
But thatâs absurd, he thought. Doesnât 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? Sheâs 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 oâclock 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 didnât really hear 
anything they said. She had lost track of the filmâs 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 impatience÷and the sharp tongue that his impatience 
had encouraged. He couldnât tolerate people who were lazy or apathetic or 
ignorant or foolish. ãWhich includes two-thirds of the human race,ä 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
Leonardâs 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 Leonardâs 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 Graceâs life; he had never known the girl. His 
enemies couldnât possibly have anything against Carol. What had the caller meant 
when heâd referred to Carol as ãWillaä? 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 hadnât been an old enemy of Leonardâs. 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 sheâd had last week. She hadnât 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 couldnât 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 wasnât 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 Carolâs 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 couldnât hope to sound 
like the Grace Mitowski that everyone knew. Sheâd 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 wasnât imagining Aristophanesâs 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.
Iâm not senile, she told herself. Not even a little bit. But I sure donât want 
to have to convince Carol or Paul that Iâve got all my marbles, once Iâve told 
them that Iâm 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 couldnât 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! 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 didnât 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 hadnât 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 Tracyâs 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 mouseâs 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 
otherâs 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 ãooohä and 
ãaaahä 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 didnât have an analystâs 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, 
ãOkay, honey. I think we ought to begin.ä
Worry lines appeared on the girlâs forehead. ãYou really think this hypnosis is 
a good idea?ä
ãYes. I think itâs the best tool we have for restoring your memory. Donât worry. 
Itâs a simple process. Just relax and flow with it. Okay?ä
ãWell. . . okay.ä
Carol got up and stepped around the coffee table, and Jane started to get up, 
too. ãNo, you stay there,ä Carol said. She moved behind the wing chair and put 
her fingertips against the girlâs temples. ãRelax, honey. Lean back. Hands in 
your lap. Palms up, fingers slack. Thatâs fine. Now close your eyes. Are they 
closed?ä
ãYes.ä
ãGood. Very good. Now I want you to think of a kite. A large, diamond-shaped 
kite. Picture it in your mind. Itâs an enormous, blue kite sailing high in the 
blue sky. Can you see it?ä
After a brief hesitation, the girl said, ãYes.ä
ãWatch 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,ä Carol said in a mellow, soothing, rhythmic voice as she stared 
down at the girlâs thick blond hair. ãWhile youâre watching the kite, youâll 
gradually become as light and as free as it is. Youâll learn to soar up and up 
into the blue sky, just like the kite.ä With her fingertips, she lightly traced 
circles on the girlâs temples. ãAll 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.ä She moved her hands down to the girlâs neck. ãThe 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 girlâs shoulders. 
ãRelax. Let the tension fall away. Like blocks of concrete. Making you lighter, 
lighter. A weight is falling off your chest, too. And now youâre floating. Just 
a few inches off the ground, but you are floating.ä
ãYes.. . floating. . .ã she said, her voice thick.
ãThe 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.
ãYou are in a very deep sleep,ä Carol told her. ãA very relaxed, very deep, deep 
sleep. Do you understand?ä
ãYes,ä the girl murmured.
ãYou will answer a few questions for me.ä
ãOkay.ä
ãYou will remain in your deep sleep, and you will answer my questions until I 
tell you itâs time to wake up. Understood?ä
ãYes.ä
ãGood. Very good. Now tell me÷what is your name?ä
The girl was silent.
ãWhat is your name, honey?ä
ãJane.ä
ãIs that your real name?ä
ãNo.ââ
ãWhat is your real name?ä
Jane frowned. ãI. . . donât remember.ä
ãWhere did you come from?ä
ãThe hospital.ä
ãBefore thatää
ãNowhere.ä
A bead of saliva glistened at the corner of the girlâs
mouth. Languorously, she licked it away before it could drool down her chin.
Carol said, ãHoney, do you remember the Mickey Mouse watch you saw a few minutes 
ago?ä
ãYes.ä
ãWell, Iâve taken that watch from the shelf,ä Carol said, though she hadnât 
moved from her chair. ãAnd now Iâm 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?ä
ãYes.ä
ãNow something amazing is happening. As I turn those hands backwards and 
backwards, time itself begins to flow in reverse. It isnât a quarter past eleven 
any more. Itâs now eleven oâclock. This is a magic watch. It governs the flow of 
time. And now itâs ten oâclock in the morning. . . nine oâclock. . . eight 
oâclock.... Look around you. Where are you now?ä
The girl opened her eyes. They were fixed on a distant point. She said, ãUmmm. . 
. the kitchen. Yeah. The breakfast nook. Boy, the baconâs nice and crisp.ä
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.
ãYouâre standing on the sidewalk,ä Carol said.
ãYouâre dressed only in a blouse and jeans. Itâs raining. Chilly.ä
The girl closed her eyes again. She shivered.
ãWhatâs your name?ä Carol asked. Silence.
ãWhatâs your name, honey?ä
ãI donât know.ä
ãWhere have you just come from?ä
ãNowhere.ä
ãYou mean you have amnesia?ä ãYes.ä
ãEven before the accident?â
ãYes.ä
Although she was still very concerned about the girl, Carol was relieved to hear 
that she wasnât responsible for Janeâs condition. For a moment she felt like 
that blue kite, capable of soaring up and away.
Then she said, ãOkay. Youâre about to step into the street. Do you just want to 
cross it, or do you intend to walk in front of a car?â
ãI. . . donât. . . know.ä
ãHow do you feel? Happy? Depressed? Indifferent?ä
ãScared,ä the girl said in a small, shaky voice.
ãWhat are you scared of?ä Silence.
ãWhat are you scared of?ä ãItâs coming.ä
ãWhatâs coming?ä ãBehind me!ä ãWhatâs behind you?ä
The girl opened her eyes again. She was still staring at a distant point, but 
now there was stark terror in her eyes.
ãWhatâs behind you?ä Carol asked again.
ãOh God,ä the girl said miserably.
ãWhat is it?ä
ãNo, no.ä She shook her head. Her face was bloodless.
Carol leaned forward in her chair. ãRelax, honey.ä
You will relax and be calm. Close your eyes.
Calm. . . like the kite.. . far above everything... floating. . . warm.ä
The tension went out of Janeâs face.
ãAll right,ä Carol said. ãStaying calm, always relaxed and calm, you will tell 
me what youâre afraid of.ä
The girl said nothing.
ãHoney, what are you scared of? Whatâs behind you?ä
ãSomething...ä
ãWhat?ä
ãSomething...ä
Patiently, Carol said, ãBe specific.ä
ãI. . . donât know what it is. . . but itâs coming. . . and it scares me.ä
ãOkay. Letâs go back a bit further.ä Using the image of the backwards-moving 
hands on the Mickey Mouse wristwatch, she regressed the girl another full day 
into the past. ãNow look around. Where are you?ä
ãNowhere.ä
ãWhat do you see?ä
ãNothing.ä
ãYou must see something, honey.ä
ãDarkness.ä
ãAre you in a dark room?ä
ãNo.ä
ãAre there walls in the darkness?ä
ãNo.ä
ãAre you outdoors at night?ä
"No."
She regressed the girl another day. ãNow what do you see?ä
ãJust the darkness.ä
ãThere must be something else.ä
ãNo.ä
ãOpen your eyes, honey.ä
The girl obeyed. Her blue eyes were vacant, glassy. ãNothing.ä
Carol frowned. ãAre you sitting or standing in that dark place?ä
ãI donât know.ä
ãWhat do you feel under you? A chair? A floor? A bed?ä
ãNothing.ä
ãReach down. Touch the floor.ä
ãThere isnât a floor.ä
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, Janeâs eyes fluttered and went shut.
Finally, Carol said, ãAll right. Iâm 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. Iâm turning the hands now. Backwards... backwards.. .ã
Ten seconds passed in silence. Twenty. Thirty.
After a full minute, Carol said, ãWhere are you?ä
ãNowhere yet.ä
ãKeep 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. 
ãSomebody help me! Mama! Aunt Rachael! For Godâs sake, help me!ä
The voice wasnât Janeâs. It came from her mouth, through her tongue and lips, 
but it didnât sound at all like her. It wasnât merely distorted by panic. It was 
an entirely different voice from Janeâs. It had its own character, its own 
accent and tone.
ãIâm going to die hereâ Help! Get me out of here!ä
Carol was on her feet, too. ãHoney, stop it. Calm down.ä
ãIâm on fire! Iâm on fire!ä the girl screamed, and she slapped at her clothes as 
if trying to put out the flames.
ãNo!ä Carol said sharply. She stepped around the coffee table and managed to 
seize the girlâs 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. ãSmoke,ä she said, 
gagging. ãSo much smoke.ä
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 girlâs hand. ãHoney, can you hear me?ä
ãYes.ä
ãAre you okay?ä
ãIâm afraid 
ãThere is no fire.ä
ãThere was. Everywhere,ä the girl said, still speaking with the unfamiliar 
voice.
ãThere isnât any more. No fire anywhere.ä
ãIf you say so.ä
ãI do. I say so. Now tell me your name.ä
ãLaura.ä
ãDo you remember your last name?ä
ãLaura Havenswood.ä
Carol flushed with triumph. ãVery good. Thatâs just fine. Whereâs your home, 
Laura?ä
ãShippensburg.ä
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.
ãDo you know the address where you live in Shippensburg?ä Carol asked.
ãThereâs no street name. Itâs a farm. Just outside of town, off Walnut Bottom 
Road.ä
ãSo you could take me there if you had to?ä
ãOh, yes. Itâs 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 thereâs a long drive 
flanked by maples, and there are big oaks around
the house. Itâs cool and breezy in the summer with all those shade trees.ä
ãWhatâs your fatherâs first name?ä
ãNicholas.ä
ãAnd his phone number?ä
The girl frowned. ãHis what?ä
ãWhatâs the telephone number at your house?ä
The girl shook her head. ãI donât know what you mean.ä
ãDonât you have a telephone?ä
ãWhat is a telephone?ä the girl asked.
Carol stared at her, puzzled. It wasnât 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 girlâs brow furrowed, and her eyes 
widened. She started breathing hard again.
ãLaura, listen to me. You will be calm. You will relax and÷ä
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 wasnât 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, ãI guess it didnât work, huh?ä She sounded 
like Jane again; the Laura voice was gone.
But why the hell had her voice changed in the first place? Carol wondered.
ãYou donât remember what happened?ä Carol asked.
ãWhatâs 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 thatâs 
why it didnât work.ä
ãBut it did work,ä Carol assured her. ãAnd you should be able to recall all of 
it.ä
The girl looked skeptical. ãAll of what? What happened? What did you find out?â
Carol stared at her. ãLaura.ä
The girl didnât even blink. She merely looked perplexed.
ãYour name is Laura.ä
ãWho saidä
ãYou did.ä
ãLaura? No. I donât think so.ä
ãLaura Havenswood,ä Carol said.
The girl frowned. ãIt doesnât ring any bells at all.ä
Surprised, Carol said, ãYou told me you live in Shippensburg.ä
ãWhereâs that?ä
ãAbout an hour from here.ä
ãI never heard of it.ä
ãYou live on a farm. There are stone gateposts to mark the entrance to your 
fatherâs property, and thereâs a long driveway flanked by maple trees. Thatâs 
what you told me, and Iâm sure itâll turn out to be just like you said. Itâs 
virtually impossible to answer questions incorrectly or deceptively while youâre 
hypnotized. Besides, you donât have any reason to deceive me. You have nothing 
to lose and everything to gain if we break through this memory block.ä
ãMaybe I am Laura Havenswood,ä the girl, said. ãMaybe what I told you in the 
trance was true. But I canât remember it, and when you tell me who I am, it 
doesnât mean a thing to me. Boy, I thought if I could just remember my name, 
then everything would fall into place. But itâs still a blank. Laura, 
Shippensburg, a farm÷I canât connect with any of it.ä
Carol was still crouched beside the girlâs chair. She rose and flexed her stiff 
legs. ãIâve never encountered anything quite like this. And so far as I know, a 
reaction like yours hasnât 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, thereâs always a profound effect. Yet you 
werenât 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.ä
ãBut it doesnât.ä
ãStrange. .
The girl looked up from the wing chair. ãWhat now?â
Carol thought for a moment, then said, ãI suppose we ought to have the 
authorities check out the Hayenswdod identity.ä
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 Carolâs 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 Carolâs 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.
ãDr. Tracy,ä Werth said, ãIâve been back and forth on the phone all afternoon 
with the police in Shippensburg and with the county sheriffâs office up there.
Iâm afraid I have to report itâs all been a wild-goose chase.ä
ãThere must be some mistake.ä
ãNope. We canât find anyone in Shippensburg or the surrounding county with the 
name Havenswood. Thereâs no telephone listed for anyone of that name, and-ä
ãMaybe they just donât have a phone.ä
ãOf course, we considered that possibility,ä Werth said. ãWe didnât jump to 
conclusions, believe me. For instance, when we checked with the power company, 
we discovered they donât have a customer named Havenswood anywhere m Cumberland 
County, but that didnât discourage us either. We figured these people weâre 
looking for might be Amish. Lots of Amish in that neck of the woods. If they 
were Amish, of course, they wouldnât 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.ä
ãThey could be tenants,ä Carol said.
ãCould be. But what I really think they are is nonexistent. The girl mustâve 
been lying.ä
ãWhy would she?ä
ãI donât know. Maybe the whole amnesia thing is a hoax. Maybe sheâs just an 
ordinary runaway.ä
ãNo. Definitely not.ä Carol looked up at Laura÷ no, her name was still 
Jane÷looked into those clear, bottomless blue eyes. To Werth, she said, 
ãBesides, it just isnât possible to lie that well or that blatantly when youâre 
hypnotized.ä
Although Jane could hear only half of the conversation, she had begun to 
perceive that the Havenswood name wasnât going to check out. Her face clouded. 
She got up and went to the display shelves to study the statuettes of Mickey 
Mouse.
ãThere is something damned odd about the whole thing,ä Lincoln Werth said.
ãOdd?ä Carol asked.
ãWell, when I passed along the description of the farm that the girl gave÷those 
stone gateposts, the long driveway with the maples ÷and 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.ä
ãWell, then÷ä
ãBut nobody named Havenswood lives there,ä Detective Werth said. ãThe 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 
Iâm told. Before Oren owned the farm, it belonged to his daddy, who bought it 
seventy years ago. One of the sheriffâs men went out there and asked the 
Ohlmeyers if theyâd ever heard of a girl named Laura Havenswood or anything even 
similar to that. They hadnât. Didnât know anyone fitting our Jane Doeâs 
description, either.ä
ãYet the farm is there, just like she told us it was.ä
ãYeah,ä Werth said. ãFunny, isnât it?ä
 
 
In the Volkswagen, on the way home from the office, as they drove along the 
sun-splashed autumn streets, the girl said, ãDo you think I was faking the 
trance?ä
ãHeavens, no! You were very deeply under. And Iâm quite sure you arenât a good 
enough actress to fake that business about the fire.ä
ãFire?ä
ãI guess you donât remember that, either.ä Carol told her about Lauraâs 
screaming fit, the desperate cries for help. ãYour terror was genuine. It came 
from experience. Iâd bet anything on that.ä
ãI donât remember any of it. You mean I really was in a fire once?ä
ãCould be.ä Ahead, a traffic light turned red. Carol stopped the car and looked 
at Jane. ãYou donât 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 werenât actually in a fire yourself. 
If thatâs 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?ä
ãI think I get what you mean. So maybe the fire÷ the shock of it÷is responsible 
for my amnesia. And maybe my parents havenât shown up to claim me because. . . 
theyâre dead, burned to death.ä
Carol took the girlâs hand. ãDonât worry about it now, honey. I may be all 
wrong. I probably am. But I think itâs a possibility you ought to be prepared 
for.ä
The girl bit her lip, nodded. ãThe idea scares me a little. But I donât exactly 
feel sad. I mean, I donât remember my folks at all, so losing them would almost 
be like losing strangers.ä
Behind them, the driver of a green Datsun blew his horn.
The light had changed. Carol let go of the girlâs hand and touched the 
accelerator. ãWeâll probe into the fire during tomorrowâs session.ä
"You still think I am Laura Havenswood?ä
ãWell, for the time being, weâll keep calling you Jane. But I donât see why 
youâd come up with the name Laura if it wasnât yours.ä.
ãThe identity didnât check out,ä the girl reminded her.
Carol shook her head. ãThatâs not exactly true. We havenât 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; youâve seen it, if only in passing. Apparently, even under hypnosis, 
even regressed beyond the onset of your amnesia, your memories are tangled. I 
donât know how thatâs possible or why. Iâve never encountered anything quite 
like it. But weâll work hard at untangling them for you.
The problem might lie in the questions I asked and the way I asked them. Weâll 
just have to wait and see.ä
They rode in silence for a moment, and then the girl said, ãI half hope we donât 
get things untangled too quickly. Ever since you told me about your cabin in the 
mountains, Iâve really been looking forward to going up there.ä
ãOh, youâll get to go. Donât worry about that.
Weâre leaving on Friday, and even if tomorrowâs session goes well, we wonât be 
able to untangle this Laura Havenswood thing that fast. I warned you, this could 
be a slow, complicated, frustrating process. Iâm surprised we made any progress 
at all today, and Iâll be twice as surprised if we make even half as much 
headway tomorrow.ä
ãI guess youâll be stuck with me for a while.ä
Carol sighed and pretended weariness. ãLooks that way. Oh, youâre such a 
terrible, terrible, terrible burden. Youâre just too much to bear.ä She took one 
hand off the steering wheel long enough to clutch her heart in a melodramatic 
gesture that made Jane giggle. ãToo much! Oh, oh!ä
ãYou know what?ä the girl asked.
ãWhat?ä
ãI like you, too.ä
They looked at each other and grinned.
At the next red light, Jane said, ãIâve got a feeling about the mountains.ä
ãWhatâs that?ä
ãI have this strong feeling that itâs going to be a lot of fun up there. Really 
exciting. Something special. A real adventure.ä 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 couldnât 
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
ãNot a bad start,ä 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 wasnât 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 didnât indulge in 
leisure activities; he attacked them. To Jane, he said,. ãI have a hunch youâre 
the kind of kid who says sheâs never played poker before÷and quickly proceeds to 
win every pot in the game.ä
ãCan you bet on Scrabble?ä Jane asked.
ãYou can, but we wonât,ä Paul said.
ãScared?ä
ãTerrified. Youâd wind up with the house.ä
ãIâd let you stay.ä
ãHow decent of you.ä
ãFor very low rent.ä
ãAh, this child truly has a heart of gold!ä
While he bantered with Jane, Carol studied her own group of letters. ãHey,ä she 
said, ãIâve got a word that ties right in with Janeâs.ä She added LOOD to the B 
in BLADE, forming BLOOD.
ãJudging from your words,ä Paul said, ãI guess you two intend to play a 
cutthroat game.ä
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 Paulâs 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.
ãWeird,ä Carol said.
ãHereâs something weirder still,ä 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. ãYou arenât going to believe this.ä 
She added three letters to the board.
                                                                                 
 BLADE
           KILL
                  O
  O
                                                                                 
 DEATH
                                                                                 
         O
                                                                                 
         M
                                                                                 
          B
ãKillâ?ä Paul said.. ãOh, come on. Enoughâs enough. Take it away and make 
another word.ä
ãI canât,ä Carol said. ãThatâs all I have. The rest of my letters are useless.ä
ãBut you could have put Îlikâ above the Îeâ in
Îblade,ä Paul said. ãYou could have spelled Îlikeâ instead of Îkill.ä
ãSure, I could have done that, but Iâd have gotten fewer points if! had. You 
see? Thereâs no square with a double-letter score up there.ä
As he listened to Carolâs 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 dŽjˆ 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 heâd 
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 dŽjˆ vu wasnât 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, ãListen, why donât 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 Îkill.ä
He could see that his suggestion startled her.
She said, ãWhy should I do that?ä
Paul frowned. ãBlade, blood, death, tomb, kill÷ what kind of words are they for 
a nice, friendly, peaceable game of Scrabble?ä
She stared at him for a moment, and her piercing eyes made him a bit 
uncomfortable. ãItâs only coincidence,ä she said, clearly puzzled by his 
tenseness.
ãI know itâs only coincidence,ä he said, though he didnât know anything of the 
sort. He was simply un
able 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. ãIt 
still gives me the creeps,ä he said lamely. He turned to Jane, seeking an ally. 
ãDoesnât it give you the creeps?â
ãYeah. It does. A little,ä the girl agreed. ãBut itâs also kind of fascinating. 
I wonder how long we can keep going with words that fit this pattern.ä
ãI wonder, too,ä Carol said. Playfully, she slapped Paulâs shoulder. ãYou know 
what your trouble is, babe? You donât have any scientific curiosity. Now come 
on. Itâs your turn.ä
After putting DEATH on the board, he hadnât 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.
ãWell?ä Carol asked.
Coincidence. It had to be just coincidence.
ãWell?ä
He looked up at her.
ãWhat have you got?ä 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.
ãPaul?ä
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.
ãPaul, for heavenâs sake!ä
ãWeâll start a new game,ä he said. ãMaybe those words didnât bother you, but 
they bothered me. Iâm here to relax. If I want to hear about blood and death and 
killing, I can switch on the news.ä
Carol said, ãWhat word did you have?ä
ãI donât know,ä he lied. ãI didnât work with the letters to see. Come on. Letâs 
start all over.ä
ãYou did have a word,ä she said.
ãNo.ä
ãIt looked to me like you did,ä Jane said.
ãOpen up,ä Carol said.
ãAll 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.ä
Janeâs eyes sparkled mischievously. ãReally? Tell us. Donât be stuffy.ä
ãStuffy? Have you no manners, young lady?ä
ãNone!ä
ãHave you no modesty?ä
ãNope.ä
ãAre you just a common broad?ä
ãCommon,ä she said, nodding rapidly. ãCommon to the core. So tell us what word 
you had.ä
ãShame, shame, shame,ä 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 wasnât 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, ãWhat was your word?ä
ãHmmmm?ä he said, pretending not to know what she meant.
ãYour obscene word in the Scrabble game. Donât try to tell me youâve forgotten 
what it was.ä
ãNothing important.ä
She laughed. ãAfter everything we just did in this bed, surely you donât think I 
need to be sheltered!ä
ãI didnât have an obscene word.ä Which was the truth. ãI didnât really have any 
word at all.ä Which was a lie. ãItâs just that.. .I thought those first five 
words on the board were bad for Jane.ä
ãBad for her?ä
ãYes. I mean, you told me itâs 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?ä
Carol turned on her side, raised herself up a bit, leaned over him, her bare 
breasts grazing his chest, and stared into his eyes. ãis that really the only 
reason you were so upset?ä
ãDonât you think I was right? Did I overreact?ä
ãMaybe you did. Maybe you didnât. It was Creepy.ä She kissed his nose. ãYou know 
why I love you so much?ä
ãBecause Iâm such a great lover?ä
ãYou are, but thatâs not why I love you.ä ãBecause I have tight buns?ä
ãNot that.ä
ãBecause I keep my fingernails so neat and clean?ä
ãNot that.ä
ãI give up.ä
ãYouâre so damned sensitive, so caring about other people. How typical of my 
Paul to worry about the Scrabble game being fun for Jane. Thatâs why I love 
you.ä
ãI thought it was my hazel eyes.ä
ãNah.ä
ãMy classic profile.ä
ãAre you kidding?ä
ãOr the way my third toe on my left foot lays half under the second toe.ä
ãOh, Iâd forgotten about that. Hmmmmmmmm. Youâre right. Thatâs why I love you. 
Not because youâre sensitive. Itâs your toes that drive me wild.ä
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, heâd 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 heâd picked up an 
A, then an R. And he had known what was going to happen. He hadnât wanted to 
continue; heâd 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 hadnât 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 0, 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 couldnât put CAROL on the board, 
for it was a proper name, and the rules didnât 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 Godâs 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 Mitowskiâs 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 OâBrianâs 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 Christâs 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 
couldnât 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 didnât want to worry her.
Instead, lying in the darkness, feeling icy even under the covers, he worried 
for her.
 
 
At two oâclock in the morning, Grace was still reading in the study. There 
wasnât 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 oddly÷hiding from her, sneaking about, watching 
her when he thought she didnât know he was there÷but he hadnât 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 hadnât 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.
ãWhat do you want, cat?ä
He broke the staring contest. He turned away from her with haughty indifference, 
padded past the doorway, and went softly down the hail, pretending that he 
hadnât 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 didnât 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.
ãLaura?ä Carol asked.
Both of the girlâs 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 yesterdayâs sessions, but today she did 
not scream.
ãYou canât feel the fire,ä Carol told her. ãThere is no pain, honey. Relax. Be 
calm. You canât smell the smoke, either. It doesnât bother you at all. Breathe 
easily, normally. Be calm and relax.ä
The girl didnât 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 Janeâs 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 Janeâs lap and pressed the pen into her hand.
ãWrite it for me, honey.ä
The girl squeezed the pen so hard that her knuckles were white and nearly as 
sharp as the knuckles on a skeletonâs 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. ãWhat is 
it you want to say?ä
Her hand shaking like that of a palsied old woman, Jane hurriedly scrawled two 
words that were barely legible: Help me.
ãWhy do you need help?ä
Again:    Help me.
ãWhy canât you speak?ä
Head.
ãBe more specific.ä
My head.
ãWhat about your head?ä
The girlâs hand began to form a letter, then jumped down one line and made 
another false start, jumped to a third line÷as if she couldnât 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.
ãStop it!ä Carol said. ãYou will relax, dammit. Be calm.ä
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. ãOkay. Now youâre 
going to answer my questions calmly and as fully as you can. What is your name?ä
Millie.
Carol stared at the handwritten name, wondering what had happened to Laura 
Havenswood. ãMillie?
Are you sure thatâs your name?ä Millicent Parker.
ãWhere is Laura?ä
Whoâs Laura?
Carol stared at the girlâs 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 girlâs face. Jane didnât flinch. She 
wasnât faking the trance.
ãWhere do you live, Millicent?ä
Harrisburg.
ãRight here in town. Whatâs your address?ä
Front Street.
ãAlong the river? Do you know the number?ä The girl wrote it down.
ãWhatâs your fatherâs name?ä
Randolph Parker.
ãWhatâs your motherâs name?ä
The pen made a meaningless squiggle on the notebook page.
ãWhatâs your motherâs name?ä 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. ãHow old are you, 
Millie?ä
Tomorrowâs my birthday.
ãIs it really? How old will you be?ä
I wonât make it.
ãWhat wonât you make?ä
Sixteen.
ãAre you fifteen now?ä
Yes.
ãAnd you think you wonât live to be sixteen? Is that it?ä
Wonât live.
ãWhy not?ä
The sheen of sweat had nearly evaporated from the
girlâs face, but again perspiration popped out along
her hairline.
ãWhy wonât you live to see your birthday?ä Carol persisted.
As before, the girl used the felt-tipped pen to slash angrily at the notebook.
ãStop that,ä Carol said firmly. ãRelax and be calm and answer my question.ä She 
tore the ruined page out of the book and tossed it aside, then said, ãWhy wonât 
you live to see your sixteenth birthday, Millie?ä
Head.
So weâre back to this, Carol thought. She said,
ãWhat about your head? Whatâs wrong with it?ä
Cut off.
Carol stared at those two words for a moment, then looked up at the girlâs 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 couldnât be both of them. Perhaps she wasnât either of 
them. Were they people she had known? Or were they only figments of her 
imagination?
What in Christâs name is happening here? Carol wondered.
She put her own hand over the girlâs 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 girlâs eyes stopped jiggling. She sagged back in her chair.
ãAll right,ä Carol said. ãI think thatâs enough for today, honey.ä 
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 girlâs chair and stepped in front of her. ãHoney, 
whatâs wrong?ä
The girlâs eyes were wild. She began to shout with such force that she sprayed 
Carol with spittle. ãShit! The bitch did it! The rotten, goddamn bitch!ä
The voice wasnât Janeâs.
It wasnât Lauraâs either.
It was a new voice, a third one, with its own special character, and Carol had a 
hunch it didnât 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. ãThe stinking bitch did it! 
She did it to me again!ä 
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 wasnât 
easy. For at least a minute the girl continued to wail and curse. At last, 
however, at Carolâs 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, ãWhatâs 
your name?â
ãLinda.ä
ãWhatâs your last name?ä
ãBektermann.ä
It was yet another identity, as Carol had thought. She had the girl spell the 
name.
Then:      ãWhere do you live, Linda?ä
ãSecond Street.ä
ãIn Harrisburg?ä
ãYes.ä
Carol asked for the exact address, and the girl responded. ft was only a few 
blocks from the Front Street address that Millicent Parker had provided.
ãWhatâs your fatherâs name, Linda?ä
ãHerbert Bektermann.ä
ãWhatâs your motherâs name?ä
That question had the same effect on Linda as it had had on Millie. She rapidly 
became agitated and began to shout again. ãThe bitch! Oh, God, what she did to 
me. The slimy, rotten bitch! I hate her. I hate her!ä
Chilled by the combination of fury and agony in the girlâs tortured voice, Carol 
quickly quieted her.
Then:      ãHow old are you, Linda?ä
ãTomorrowâs my birthday.ä
Carol frowned. ãAm I talking to Millicent now?ä
ãWhoâs Millicent?ä
ãIs this still Linda Iâm talking to?â
ãYes.ä
ãAnd your birthday is tomorrow?ä
ãYes.ä
ãHow old will you be?ä
ãI wonât make it.ä
Carol blinked. ãYou mean you wonât live to see your birthday?ä
"Thatâs right.ä
ãIs it your sixteenth birthday?ä
ãYes.ä
ãYouâre fifteen now?ä
ãYes.ä
ãWhy are you worried about dying?ä
ãBecause I know I will.ä
ãHow do you know?ä
ãBecause I already am.ä
ãYouâre already dying?ä
ãDead.ä
ãYouâre already dead?ä
ãI will be.ä
ãPlease be specific. Are you telling me that youâre already dead? Or are you 
saying that youâre merely afraid youâre going to die sometime soon?â
ãYes.ä
ãWhich is it?ä
ãBoth.ä
Carol felt as if she were in the middle of a tea party at the Mad Hatterâs 
house.
ãHow do you think youâre going to die, Linda?ä
ãSheâll kill me.ä
ãWho?ä
ãThe bitch.ä
ãYour mother?ä
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. ãWow, what am I doing down 
here?ä
Carol helped her to her feet. ãI suppose you donât remember?ä
ãNo. Did I tell you anything more about myself?â
ãNo. I donât 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 canât 
be both of them and Laura, too. So I suspect that you arenât any of them.ä
ãI donât think so, either,ä Jane said. ãThose two new names donât 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?ä
ãIâll be damned if I know,ä Carol said. ãBut sooner or later, weâll figure it 
out. Weâll get to the bottom of all this, kiddo. I promise you that.ä
But what in Godâs name will we find at the bottom, down there in the dark? Carol 
wondered. Will it be something weâll wish weâd 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 wouldnât be able to hear the telephone ringing and wouldnât be 
tempted to answer it. Which was fine, because she wasnât psychologically 
prepared to answer the phone just yet; she hadnât decided how to deal with the 
hoaxer the next time he called and pretended that he was her long-dead husband.
Because of last weekâs 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 didnât 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, ãYou have a magnificent garden.ä
Startled, she looked up and saw a thin, jaundice-skinned man in a rumpled blue 
suit that hadnât 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. ãYou must have two dozen varieties of roses 
here.ä
ãThree dozen,ä she said.
ãTruly magnificent,ä he said, nodding approval.
His voice wasnât 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 manâs size. ãYou take care of the entire garden 
yourself?ä
Grace sat back on her heels, still holding the trowel in one gloved hand. ãSure. 
I enjoy it. And somehow. . . it just wouldnât be my garden if I hired someone to 
help me with it.ä
ãExactly!ä the stranger said. ãYes, I can understand how you feel.ä
ãAre you new in the neighborhood?ä Grace asked.
ãNo, no. Used to live just a block from here, but that was a long, long time 
ago.ä He took a deep breath and smiled again. ãAh, the wonderful aroma of roses!
Nothing else smells half so pretty. Yes, youâve got
a superb garden. Really superb.ä
ãThank you.ä
He snapped his fingers as a thought occurred to him. ãI 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, Iâm sure it would be just the thing. A 
nice change of pace for me.ä 
ãAre you a writer?ä
ãReporter,ä he said, still taking deep breaths and savoring the aroma of the 
blooms.
ãAre you with a local paper?ä
ãThe Morning News. Nameâs Palmer Wainwrightä
ãGrace Mitowski.ä
ãI hoped you might recognize my byline,ä Wainwright said, grinning.
ãSorry. I donât read the Morning News. I take the
Patriot-News from the delivery boy every morning.ä ãAh, well,ä he said, 
shrugging, ãthatâs a good paper, too. But of course, if you donât read the 
Morning News, you never saw my story about the Bektermann case.ä
As Grace realized that Wainwright intended to hang around awhile, she got off 
her haunches, stood up, and flexed her rapidly stiffening legs. ãThe Bektermann 
case? That sounds familiar.ä
ãAll 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.ä
ãReally? Why, thatâs something,ä Grace said, not sure if she should take him 
seriously but not wanting to offend him. ãThat is really something. Imagine. A 
Pulitzer nomination.ä
It seemed to her that the conversation had suddenly taken an odd turn. It wasnât 
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.
ãDidnât win,ä Wainwright said. ãBut 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 thatâre published in a year, only a handful are up for the prize.ä
ãRefresh my memory, if you will,ä Grace said.
ãWhat was the Bektermann case about?ä
He laughed good-naturedly and shook his head. ãWasnât about what I thought it 
was about. Thatâs for damned sure. I wrote it up as a tangled, Freudian
puzzle. You know÷the 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 
simply÷snapped. Thatâs how I saw it. Thatâs 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, Iâd have destroyed my 
career.ä
What the devilâs going on? Grace wondered. He seems obsessed with telling me 
about this in detail, compelled to tell me, even though heâs never even seen me 
before. Is this life imitating art÷Coleridgeâs poem reset in a rose garden? Am I 
the partygoer and Wainwright the Ancient Mariner?
As she looked into Wainwrightâs beige eyes, she suddenly realized how alone she 
was, even here in the yard. Her property was ringed by trees, sheltered, 
private.
ãWas it a murder case?ä she asked.
ãWas and is,ä Wainwright said. ãIt didnât end with the Bektermanns. Itâs still 
going on. This damned, endless pursuit. Itâs still going on, and itâs got to be 
stopped this time around. Thatâs why Iâm here. Iâve come to tell you that your 
Carol is in the middle of it. Caught in the middle. Youâve got to help her. Get 
her out of the girlâs way.ä
Grace gaped at him, reluctant to believe that she
had heard what she knew she had heard.
ãThere are certain forces, dark and powerful forces,ä Wainwright said calmly, 
ãthat want to see÷ Shrieking angrily, Aristophanes sprang at Wainwright with 
berserk passion. He landed on the manâs 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.
ãAri!ä Grace cried. ãStop it!ä
Aristophanes had his claws in the manâs neck and was biting his cheek.
Wainwright wasnât 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 Wainwrightâs 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 Wainwrightâs 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 couldnât 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 hadnât 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 Pennsylvaniaâs capital city. During the past couple of decades, 
however, many of the riverfront boulevardâs grand old houses had been razed to 
make room for sterile, modem office buildings. A few of the rambling houses had 
been preserved, at least after a fashion÷ the 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 & Crichtonâs physicians, and that her subconscious mind had made use of 
the firmâs address to flesh out the Millicent Parker identity. But Polly, who 
had worked for Maugham & Crichton ever since theyâd opened their doors, was sure 
she had never seen the girl. However, intrigued by Janeâs 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.
ãYour face,ä she said numbly.
His face was unscarred.
He smiled as if nothing had happened and took two steps toward her. ãGrace÷ä
ãThe cat,ä she said. ãI saw your cheek.. . your neck. . . itâs claws tore out. .
ãListen,ä he said, taking another step toward her, ãthere 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 mustnât be allowed to happen, Grace. Not again. Youâve got to keep 
Carol out of the girlâs way, for her sake and for the sake of the girl, too.ä
Grace gaped at him. ãWho the hell are you?ä
ãWho are you?ä Wainwright asked, raising one eyebrow quizzically. ãThat is the 
important question right now. You arenât only who you think you are. You arenât 
only Grace Mitowski.ä
Heâs mad, she thought. Or Iâm mad. Or we both are. Stark, raving mad.
She said, ãYouâre the one on the phone. Youâre the creep who imitates Leonardâs 
voice.ä
ãNo,ä he said. ãI am÷ä
ãNo wonder Ari attacked you. Youâre the one whoâs been giving him drugs or 
poison or something like that. Youâre the one, and he knew.ä
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.
ãYeah,ä she said, ãyouâre the one whoâs behind all of these weird things thatâve 
been happening. Get off my property, you son of a bitch.ä
ãGrace, there are forces aligned. . .ã He looked no different now from the way 
he had looked when heâd first spoken to her, several minutes ago. He hadnât 
looked crazed then; he didnât look crazed now. He didnât look dangerous, and yet 
he continued to babble about dark forces. ã. . . good and evil, right and wrong. 
Youâre on the right side, Grace. But the cat÷ ah, the catâs a different story. 
At all times, you must be wary of the cat.ä
ãGet out of my way,ä 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 shouldnât 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 hand÷ But he was gone.
Vanished. Again.
He hadnât 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 
runner÷even then he couldnât 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.
ãMy husband and I have lived here for six years,ä
Mrs. Gunther said, ãand the Nicholsons were next door when we moved in. I think 
I once heard them say theyâd lived in that house since 1965.ä
The name Bektermann meant nothing to Jean Gunther.
In the car again, on the way home, Jane said, ãIâm really a lot of trouble for 
you.ä
ãNonsense,ä Carol said. ãI 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 Iâll be able 
to write about this case for any psychology journal I choose. Itâll 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.ä
ãWhen youâre rich and famous, will you still talk to me?ä the girl teased.
ãCertainly. Of course, youâll have to make an appointment a week in advance.ä
They grinned at each other.
***
 
 
Using the kitchen phone, Grace called the offices of
the Morning News.
The switchboard operator at the newspaper didnât have an extension number listed 
for Palmer Wainwright. She said, ãSo far as I know, he donât even work here. And 
Iâm sure heâs no reporter. Maybe one of the new copy editors or somebody like 
that.ä
ãCould you connect me with the managing editorâs office?ä Grace asked.
ãThat would be Mr. Quincy,ä the operator said. She buzzed the proper extension.
Quincy wasnât in his office, and his secretary didnât know whether or not the 
paper employed a man named Palmer Wainwright. ãIâm new here,ä she said 
apologetically. ãIâve only been Mr. Quincyâs secretary since Monday, so I donât 
know everybody yet. If youâll leave your name and number, Iâll have Mr. Quincy 
return your call.ä
Grace gave her the number and said, ãTell him Dr. Grace Mitowski wishes to speak 
with him and that Iâll only need a few minutes of his time.ä She seldom used the 
honorific in front of her name, but it came in handy in cases like this, for a 
doctorâs phone calls were always returned.
ãIs this an emergency, Dr. Mitowski? I donât think that Mr. Quincyâs going to be 
back until tomorrow morning.ä
ãThatâll be good enough,ä she said. ãHave him call me first thing, no matter how 
early he gets in.ä
After she hung up, she went to the kitchen and stared out at the rose garden.
How could Wamwright 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, itâll seem like sheâs 
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 dessert÷small dishes of
richly flavored spumoni÷Paul said, ãAny chance we
could postpone the trip to the mountains for two days?ä
ãWhy?ä Carol asked
ãIâm a bit behind in my writing schedule, and Iâm at a very critical point in 
the book,ä he said. ãIâve written two-thirds of the toughest scene in the story, 
and I hate to leave it unfinished just to go on vacation.
I wonât enjoy myself. If we left Sunday instead of tomorrow, that would give me 
time to polish off the end of the chapter. And weâd still have eight days at the 
cabin.ä
ãDonât look at me,ä Jane said. ãIâm just excess baggage. Iâll go wherever you 
take me, whenever you take me.ä
Carol shook her head. ãJust last week, when Mr. OâBrian said we were compulsive 
overachievers, we made up our minds to change our ways, didnât we? Weâve got to 
learn to make time for leisure and not let our work encroach on that.ä
ãYouâre right,ä Paul said. ãBut just this once÷ä
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. ãOkay. You win. Weâll leave 
tomorrow morning. Iâll just bring along the typewriter and the manuscript. I can 
finish the scene up at the cabin and֊
ãNothing doing,ä Carol said, emphasizing each word by tapping her spoon against 
her ice cream dish.
ãIf you bring it along, you wonât stop when youâve reached the end of the scene 
youâre working on. Youâll keep going. You know you will. Having the typewriter 
within easy reach will just be too much of a temptation. You wonât be able to 
resist it. The whole vacation will go down the drain.ä
ãBut I just canât put that scene on hold for ten days,ä he said pleadingly. ãBy 
the time I get back to it, the tone and the spontaneity will be lost.ä
Carol ate a spoonful of spumoni and said, ãAll right. Hereâs what weâll 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 
youâre ready.ä
He frowned. ãIâm not sure thatâs a good idea.ä
ãWhy not?ä
ãWell, is it really wise for the two of you to go up there alone? I mean, the 
summer season is over. Theme arenât going to be many campers in the woods now, 
and most of the other cabins will be deserted.ä
ãFor heavenâs sake,ä Carol said, ãthereâs no
Abominable Snowman lurking around in those mountains, Paul. Weâre in 
Pennsylvania, not Tibet.ä She smiled. ãItâs nice to know youâre so concerned 
about us, darling. But weâll be perfectly safe.ä
***
 
 
Later, after Jane had gone to bed, Paul made one last attempt to change Carolâs 
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.
ãListen, be straight with me, okay?ä
ãArenât I always? Straight about what?ä
ãThe girl. Is there any chance sheâs dangerous?ä
Carol turned from the clothes rack and stared at him, obviously surprised by his 
question. ãJane? Dangerous? Well, a girl as pretty as she is will probably
break a lot of hearts over the years. And if cuteness could kill, sheâd leave 
the streets littered with bodies behind her.ä
He refused to be amused. ãI donât want you to be flippant about this. I think 
itâs important. I want you to give it careful thought.ä
ãI donât need to give it a lot of thought, Paul. Sheâs lost her memory, sure. 
But sheâs a stable, mentally healthy kid. In fact, it takes an amazingly stable 
personality to handle amnesia the way sheâs handled it. I donât know that Iâd do 
half as well if I were in her shoes right now. Iâd either be a nervous wreck or 
sunk neck-deep in depression. Sheâs resilient, flexible. Resilient and flexible 
people arenât dangerous.ä
ãNever?ä
ãHardly ever. Itâs the rigid ones who crack.ä
ãBut after whatâs happened in your therapy sessions with her, isnât it 
reasonable to wonder about what she might be capable of doing?ä he asked,
ãSheâs a tortured girl. I believe sheâs 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 
doesnât mean sheâs 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.ä
She carried a few pairs of jeans to the suitcases that were open on the bed.
Paul followed her. ãAre you going to continue her therapy while youâre at the 
cabin?ä
Yes. I think itâs best to keep chipping away at the Wall of confusion sheâs 
thrown up.ä
ãNo fair.ä
ãHuh?â
ãThatâs work,ä he said. ãIâm not allowed to take my work up to the cabin, but 
youâre going to work.
Thatâs a double standard, Dr. Tracy.ä
ãDouble standard, my ass, Dr. Tracy. Iâll need only half an hour a day for 
Janeâs therapy. Thatâs a lot different than lugging an IBM Selectric into the 
piny woods and pounding on the keys ten hours a day. Donât you realize that all 
the squirrels and deer and bunny rabbits would complain about the noise?ä
 
***
 
 
Later still, when they were in bed and the lights were out, he said, ãHell, Iâm 
letting this book take possession of me. Why canât 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. Iâll come along with you and Jane tomorrow, and I wonât bring 
the typewriter. Okay? I wonât even bring a pencil.ä
ãNo,ä Carol said.
ãNo?ä
ãWhen 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 Îwork.â if you donât finish that 
scene before you go, youâll just brood about it during the entire vacation. You 
wonât have a moment's real peace, which means I wonât have a moment's peace, 
either. And donât tell me Iâm 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.ä
She kissed him goodnight, fluffed her pillows, and settled down to sleep.
He lay in the dark, thinking about the words in yesterdayâs Scrabble game.
 
                                                                                 
BLADE
           KILL
  O
  O
                                                                                 
 DEATH
                                                                                 
          O
                                                                                 
          M
                                                                                 
           B
And the one word he had refused to reveal:
CAROL...
He still didnât 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 threat÷if 
one actually arose÷could 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 safe÷or as dangerous÷as 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 wouldnât 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 whatâs 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 wasnât 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 werenât 
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. Thatâs all. I didnât hurt anyone. I 
didnât spill anyoneâs 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. Iâm really snug in bed, where I belong. Iâm only 
dreaming that Iâm 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 Godâs sake, wake up!
She wanted to run. Couldnât.
She wanted to scream. Didnât.
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 1-shirt, panties, and knee socks 
on the floor beside the bed. She dressed quickly.
The house was silent. The Tracys werenât 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 didnât happen. It couldnât. 
Impossible. The mirror couldnât really change like that.
She stared into her own blue eyes. She wasnât sure what she saw in them.
ãWho am I?ä she asked softly.
 
 
All week, Graceâs sleep÷what little she had managed to get between bouts of 
insomnia÷had 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. ãLaura! Laura!ä 
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 
didnât turn away from the slant-set cellar doors; she didnât 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 oâclock, 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.
ãMight as well,ä Werth said. ãWe donât have any leads, and I sure donât think 
this is going to break wide open anytime soon. We keep expanding the search 
area, of course. At first we just put the kidâs photo and description out to 
authorities in the surrounding counties. When that didnât 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 Iâll 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 ainât never going to find anyone who knows the kid. I 
just have a hunch. Weâre going to keep coming up empty-handed.ä
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 
didnât pass along Werthâs pessimistic assessment of the situation. ãHe said itâs 
all right to leave town for a few days. The court didnât 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 youâve got 
to come back.ä
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 Paulâs mood.
***
 
 
When the kitchen phone rang, Grace steeled herself for the sound of Leonardâs 
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 sheâd made late yesterday afternoon.
ãYou were inquiring about one of our reporters, Dr. Mitowski?ä
ãYes. Palmer Wainwright.ä
Quincy was silent.
ãHe does work for you, doesnât he?ä Grace asked.
ãUh.. Palmer Wainwnght has been an employee of the Morning News, yes.ä
ãI believe he nearly won a Pulitzer Prize.ä
ãYes. But of course. . . that was quite a while back.ä
ãOh?ä
ãWell, if you know about the Pulitzer nomination, you must know it was for the 
series he did on the Bektermann murders.ä
ãYes.ä
ãWhich was back in 1943.ä
ãThat long ago?ä
ãUh. . . Dr. Mitowski, exactly what is it you wanted to know about Palmer 
Wainwright?ä
ãIâd like to talk with him,ä she said. ãWeâve met, and we have some unfinished 
business that Iâm rather anxious to take care of. Itâs a.. . personal matter.ä
Quincy hesitated. Then: ãAre you a long-lost relative?ä
ãOf Mr. Wainwrightâs? Oh, no.ä
ãA long-lost friend?ä
ãNo. Not that either.ä
ãWell, then, I guess I donât have to be delicate about this. Dr. Mitowski, Iâm 
afraid that Palmer Wainwright is dead.ä
ãDead!ä she said, astounded.
ãWell, surely you realized there was that possibility. He was never a well man, 
downright sickly. And youâve obviously been out of touch with him for a long 
time.ä
ãNot all that long,ä she said.
ãMust be at least thirty-five years,ä Quincy said. ãHe died back in 1946.ä
The air at Graceâs 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.
ãThirty-one years,ä she said numbly. ãYou must be wrong.ä
ãNot 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.ä
ãAre we talking about the same man?ä Grace asked. ãHe was quite thin, with sharp 
features, pale brown eyes, and a rather sallow complexion. His voice was several 
notes deeper than youâd expect from just looking at him.ä
ãThat was Palmer, all right.ä
ãAbout fifty-five?ä
ãHe was thirty-six when he died, but he did look twenty years older,ä Quincy 
said. ãIt was that string of illnesses, one thing right after another, with 
cancer at the end. Jt just wore him down, aged him fast. He was a fighter, but 
he just couldnât hold on any longer.ä
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?
ãDr. Mitowski? Are you still there?ä
ãYes. 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 donât really 
know anything about those murders. Would you mind telling me what it was all 
about?ä
ãFamily tragedy,ä Quincy said. ãThe Bektermannsâ 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 girlâs 
hands. But that didnât 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 didnât 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.ä
ãAnd thatâs the story that won Mr. Wainwright his Pulitzer nomination?ä
ãYeah. 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 girlâs 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.ä
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. Itâs 
still going on, and itâs got to be stopped this tune around ye come to tell you 
that your Carol is in the middle of it.
Youâve got to help her. Get her out of the girlâs 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 arenât only who you think you are. You arenât 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 Carolâs 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 hadnât 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 thereâs 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 oâclock, 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, ãYes?ä
An unfamiliar female voice said, ãCould I speak to Dr. Tracy, please?ä
ãSpeaking.ä
ãOh. Uh.. no.. . the Dr. Tracy Iâm looking for is a woman.ä
ãItâs my wife you want,ä he said. ãSheâs out of town for a few days. Can I take 
a message?ä
ãYes, please. Would you tell her that Polly called from Maugham & Crichton?ä
He jotted the name down on a note pad. ãAnd whatâs this in reference to?ä
ãDr. Tracy was here yesterday afternoon with a young girl whoâs suffering from 
amnesia. . .
ãYes,ä Paul said, suddenly more interested than he had been. ãI know the case.ä
ãDr. Tracy was asking if weâd ever heard of anyone named Millicent Parker.ä
ãThatâs right. She told me about it last evening. It was another dead end, I 
gather.ä
ãIt seemed to be a dead end yesterday,ä Polly said, ãbut now it turns out that 
one of our doctors is familiar with the name. Dr. Maugham himself, in fact.ä
ãListen, rather than waiting for my wife to call you back, why donât you just 
tell me what youâve come up with, and I can pass the information along to her.ä
ãWell, 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. Heâs 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.ä
ã1902?ä
ãThatâs right.ä
ãInteresting.ä
ãYou havenât heard the best part,ä Polly said, the eagerness of a gossip-monger 
in her voice. ãSeems that back in 1905, the night before Millieâs 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.ä
Unthinking, Paul snapped the pencil heâd been holding ever since heâd written 
Pollyâs 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.
ãShe stabbed her own mother?ä he asked, hoping that he had not heard correctly.
ãIsnât that something?ä
ãKill her?ä he asked numbly.
ãNo. Dr. Maugham says that according to the newspaper accounts at that time, the 
girl used a short bladed knife. It didnât sink in far enough to do really major 
damage. No vital organs or blood vessels were affected. Louise Parker÷that was 
the motherâs flame÷managed 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, Îcause she charged straight at Mrs. Parker again, and Mrs. Parker 
had to use that cleaver.ä
ãJesus.ä
ãYeah,ä Polly said, obviously enjoying his shocked reaction. ãDr. Maugham says 
she put that cleaver right into her daughterâs throat. Pretty much cut the 
girlâs head clear off. Isnât that a terrible thing? But what else could she do? 
Just let the kid go on jabbing that knife into her?ä
Stunned, Paul thought about yesterdayâs 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.
ãAre you still there?ä Polly asked.
ãOh. Uh. . . sorry. Is there more to the story?ä
ãMore?ä Polly asked. ãWasnât that enough?ä
ãYes,ä he said. ãYouâre absolutely right. That was enough. More than enough.ä
ãI donât know if this information is of any help to Dr. Tracy.ä
ãIâm sure it will be.ä
ãI donât see how it could have anything to do with the girl she brought in here 
with her yesterday.ä
ãNeither do I,ä Paul said.
ãI mean, that girl canât be Millicent Patter. Millicent Parker has been dead for 
seventy-six years.ä
 
***
In the study, Grace stood at her desk, looking down at the open dictionary.
 
REINCARNATION (reâ-in-k‡r-naâshen), 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 wasnât just envisioning it; she was 
there, hammering with her fists on the cellar door. She was not Grace Mitowski 
now; she was Rachael Adams, Lauraâs aunt.
The fire scene was not the only part of Rachaelâs life that she could recall 
with perfect clarity. She knew the womanâs 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 Iâve lived 
before? And that Carolâs lived before? And the girl theyâre calling Jane Doe?
If it was true÷if she had been permitted to recall her previous existence as 
Rachael Adams in order to save Carolâs life in this incarnation÷then she was 
wasting valuable time.
She picked up the phone to call the Tracys, wondering how in Godâs 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 wasnât 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. Youâre on the right side, Grace. But the cat÷ah, the catâs a 
different story. A: 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 day÷catapulted out of a nightmare about Carol÷there 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, sheâd 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 shouldnât have dismissed it so quickly. Something strange had been in the 
room with her÷a 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 his÷or its÷presence.
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 catâs claws, teeth, fangs. It wasnât 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 skin÷hot 
little points of pain. He wouldnât 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 unthinkable÷that 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 animalâs claws deeper into 
her back muscles. The catâs 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 didnât 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 hail.
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 heâd had with the receptionist at 
Maugham & Crichton, Paul didnât know what the hell to do.
He couldnât write. That was for sure. He couldnât 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 
sheriffâs 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:
ãYou want a deputy to meet them at the cabin?ä
ãThatâs right.ä
ãWhy?ä
ã1 think my wifeâs in danger.ä
ãWhat kind of danger?ä
ã1 think the girl, Jane Doe, might be violent. Maybe even homicidal.ä
ãWhy do you think that?ä
ãBecause under hypnosis she claimed to be Millie Parker.ä
ãWhoâs that?ä
ãMillie Parker once tried to kill her mother.ä
ãShe did? When was that?ä
ãBack in 1905.ä
ãThen sheâd be a little old lady today, for Christâs sake. The kidâs only 
fourteen or fifteen.ä
ãYou donât understand. Millie Parkerâs been dead for about seventy-six years 
and֊
ãWait a minute, wait a minute! What the hell are you saying? That your wife 
might be murdered by some kid whoâs been dead for most of the century?ä
ãNo. Of course not.ä
ãThen what do you mean?ä
ãF. . . donât know.ä
Werth would think that he had been out boozing all night, or that he had started 
the morning with a couple of joints of good grass.
Besides, it wasnât fair to Jane to accuse her publicly of being a potential 
killer. Perhaps Carol was right. Maybe the kid was just a victim. Except for 
what she said under hypnosis, she certainly seemed to be incapable of violence.
On the other hand, of all the people she could have claimed to be, why had she 
said that she was Millicent Parker, the would-be murderess? Where had she heard 
that name before. Didnât the use of it indicate latent hostility? 
Paul swiveled his typing chair away from the desk and stared out the window at 
the gray sky. The wind was picking up by the minute. The clouds were racing 
westward across the sky, as if they were enormous, swift, dark ships with 
billowing sails the color of thunderstorms.
BLADE, BLOOD, DEATH, TOMB, KILL, CAROL.
Iâve got to go to the cabin, he thought with sudden decisiveness, and he got to 
his feet.
Maybe he was overreacting to this Millicent Parker business, but he couldnât 
just sit here, wondering....
He went into the master bedroom to throw some things into a suitcase. After only 
a brief hesitation, he decided to pack his .38 revolver.
 
 
The girl said, ãHow much farther to the cabin?ä
ãAnother twenty minutes,ä Carol said. ãThe whole drive usually takes just about 
two hours and fifteen minutes, and weâre pretty much on schedule.ä
The mountains were cool and green. Some trees had already been touched by the 
artful hand of autumn, and most÷all but the evergreens÷would change the color of 
their leaves during the next few weeks. Today, however, the predominant shade 
was still green, with a smattering of gold here and there, an occasional touch 
of red. The edge of the forest÷ wherever the meadow or the roadway met the 
trees÷ was decorated with a few end-of-the-season wildflowers, blue and white 
and purple.
ãItâs beautiful up here,ä Jane said as they followed the two-lane county road 
around a curve. The right-hand bank, which sloped down to the macadam, was 
covered with vividly green clusters of rhododendron shrubs.
ãI love the Pennsylvania mountains,ä Carol said. She felt more relaxed now than 
she had in weeks. ãItâs so peaceful here. Wait till youâve been at the cabin a 
day or two. Youâll forget the rest of the world exists.ä
They came out of the curve onto an ascending straightaway, where the 
interlocking branches of the trees formed a tunnel over portions of the lane. At 
those points where the trees parted sufficiently to provide a glimpse of the 
sky, there was nothing to be seen but massive, gray-black clouds clotted 
together in surging, ugly, threatening formations.
ãI sure hope it doesnât rain and spoil our first day here,ä Jane said.
ãRain wonât spoil anything,ä Carol assured her. ãIf weâre forced to stay inside, 
weâll just throw a whole bunch of logs in the big stone fireplace and roast some 
hot dogs indoors. And we have a closetful of games to help us pass rainy days. 
Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue, Risk, Battleship, and at least a dozen others. I think 
weâll be able to avoid cabin fever.ä
ãItâs going to be fun,ä Jane said enthusiastically.
The canopy of trees parted overhead, and the September sky churned darkly.
11
GRACE sat on the edge of the bed, holding the .22 pistol, considering her 
options. She didnât have many.
In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed to her that the cat 
had a better chance of winning this duel than she did.
If she attempted to leave the house by way of the bedroom window, she would 
surely break a leg and probably her neck as well. If she had been only twenty 
years younger, she might have tried it. But at seventy, with her swollen joints 
and brittle bones, jumping from a second-floor window onto a concrete patio 
could only end in misery. Anyway, the point wasnât just to get out of the house, 
but to get out in one piece, so she could make it across town to Carolâs and 
Paulâs place.
She could open the window and start screaming for help. But she was afraid that 
Aristophanes÷or the thing using Aristophanes' body÷would attack anyone who 
showed up and tried to assist her, and she didnât want a neighborâs death on her 
conscience.
This was her battle. No one elseâs. She would have to fight it alone.
She considered all the routes by which she might possibly leave the house once 
she had reached the bottom floor÷if she reached the bottom floor÷but no 
particular route seemed less dangerous than any other. The cat could be 
anywhere. Everywhere. The bedroom was the only safe place in the house. If she 
ventured out of this sanctuary, the cat would be waiting for her and would 
attack her, regardless of whether she tried to exit the house by the front door, 
the kitchen door, or one of the ground-floor windows. It would be crouched in 
one shadow or another, perhaps perched atop a bookcase or cupboard or hutch, 
tensed and ready to launch itself down onto her startled, upturned face.
She had the gun, of course. But the cat, stealthy by nature, would always have 
the advantage of surprise. If it got just a two- or three-second lead on her, if 
she was only that little bit slower to react than was the cat, it would have 
ample time to fasten onto her face, tear open her throat, or gouge her eyes out 
with its quick, stiletto claws.
Strangely, though she had accepted the doctrine of reincarnation, though she now 
knew beyond doubt that there was some kind of life after death, she nevertheless 
feared dying. The certainty of eternal life in no way diminished the value of 
this life. Indeed, now that she could discern godlike machinery just below the 
visible surface of the world, her life seemed to have more meaning and purpose 
than ever before.
She didnât want to die.
However, although the odds of her leaving the house alive were, at best, only 
fifty-fifty, she couldnât stay in the bedroom indefinitely. She had no water, no 
food. Besides, if she didnât get out ofâ here in the next few minutes, she might 
be too late to be of any help to Carol.
If Carol is killed simply because I lack the courage to face that damned cat, 
she thought, then I might as well be dead anyway.
She switched off the two safeties on the pistol.
She got up and went to the door.
For nearly a minute she stood with one ear pressed to the door, listening for 
scratching noises or other indications that Aristophanes was nearby. She heard 
nothing.
Holding the pistol in her right hand, she used her bloody, claw-torn left hand 
to turn the knob. She opened the door with the utmost caution, half an inch at a 
time, expecting the cat to dart through the opening the instant it was wide 
enough to admit him. But he didnât.
Finally, reluctantly, she poked her head out into the hall. Looked left. Right.
The cat wasnât anywhere in sight.
She stepped into the hail and paused, afraid to move away from the bedroom door.
Go! she told herself angrily. Move your ass, Gracie!
She took a step toward the head of the stairs. Then another step. Trying to be 
quiet.
The stairs appeared to be a mile away.
She looked behind her.
Still no Aristophanes.
Another step.
This was going to be the longest walk she had ever taken.
 
 
Paul latched his suitcase, picked it up, turned away from the bed÷and jumped, 
startled, when the entire house shook as if a wreckerâs ball had struck the side 
of it.
THUNK!
He looked up at the ceiling.
THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!
During the past five days there had been no hammering to disturb the peace. He 
hadnât entirely forgotten about it, of course; he still occasionally wondered 
where that mysterious sound had come from. For the most part, however, he had 
put it out of his mind; there had been other things to worry about. But now÷ 
THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!
The nerve-fraying noise reverberated in the windows and bounced off the walls. 
It seemed to vibrate in Paulâs teeth and bones, too.
THUNK!
After spending days trying to identify the source of that sound, understanding 
came to him unexpectedly, in a flash. It was an ax. It was not a hammering, 
which was how he had been thinking of it. No. There was a sharp edge to it, a 
brittle, cracking quality at the end of each blow. It was a chopping sound.
THUNK!
Being able to identify the noise did absolutely nothing to help him understand 
where it was coming from.
So it was an ax instead of a hammer. So what? He still couldnât make sense of 
it. Why were the blows shaking the entire house? It would have to be the 
mythical Paul Bunyanâs ax to have such a tremendous impact. And regardless of 
whether it was a hammer or an ax or even, for Christâs sake, a salami, how could 
the sound of it issue from thin air?
Suddenly, inexplicably, he thought of the meat cleaver that Louise Parker had 
buried in the throat of her maniacal daughter back in 1905. He thought about the 
freakish lightning strikes at Alfred OâBrianâs office; the strange intruder he 
had seen on the rear lawn during the thunderstorm that evening; the Scrabble 
game two nights ago (BLADE, BLOOD, DEATH, TOMB, KILL, CAROL); Graceâs two 
prophetic dreams. And he knew beyond doubt÷without understanding how he 
knew÷that the sound of the ax was the thread that sewed together all these 
recent extraordinary events. Intuitively, he knew that an ax would be the 
instrument by which Carolâs life would be endangered. He didnât know how. He 
didnât know why. But he knew.
THUNK! THUNK!
A painting popped off its wall hook and clattered to the floor.
The river of blood in Paulâs veins turned winter-cold.
He had to get to the cabin. Fast.
He started toward the bedroom door, and it slammed shut in front of him. No one 
had touched it. There had been no sudden draft that might have moved it. One 
moment the door was standing wide Open, and the next instant it was flung shut 
as if it had been shoved hard by an invisible hand.
Out of the corner of his eye, Paul saw something move. Heart banging, breath 
trapped in his constricted throat, he twisted around toward the movement and 
instinctively raised his suitcase to partially shield himself.
One of the two heavy, mirrored closet doors was sliding open. He expected 
someone to step out of the closet, but when the door was all the way open, he 
could see nothing in there except clothes on hangers.
Then it slid shut, and the other door slid open. Then both of them started 
sliding at the same time, one crossing behind the other, back and forth, back 
and forth on their silent plastic wheels.
THUNK! THUNK!
A lamp crashed over on one of the nightstands.
Another painting fell off the wall.
THUNK!
On the dresser, two porcelain figurines÷a ballerina and her male dancing 
partner÷began to circle one another, almost as if they had come to life and were 
performing for Paul. They moved slowly at first, then faster, faster, until they 
were swept into the air and tossed halfway across the room and dashed to the 
floor.
 
***
 
 
The cabin was constructed of logs and was nestled in the cool shadows beneath 
the trees. it had a long, covered, screened porch out front and an excellent 
view of the lake.
It was one of ninety vacation cabins tucked into the scenic mountain valley, 
each on an acre or half-acre of its own. They were all built along the south 
shore of the lake and were reachable only by way of a private, gated, 
gravel-surfaced road that curved around the water. Some of the cabins were made 
of logs, like the one Paul and Carol had bought, but there were also white 
clapboard New England models, modern A-frames, and a few that resembled small 
Swiss chalets.
At the end of her own graveled drive, which branched off the community road, 
Carol parked the car near the front door of the cabin. She and Jane got out and 
stood for a moment in companionable silence, listening to the stillness, 
breathing the wonderfully fresh air.
ãItâs lovely,ä Jane said at last.
ãIsnât it, though?ä
ãSo quiet.ä
ãIt isnât always. Not when most of the cabins are in use. But right now thereâs 
probably no one here except Peg and Vince Gervis.ä
ãWhoâre they?ä Jane asked.
ãThe caretakers. The homeownerâs association pays their salaries. They live 
year-round in the last cabin, out at the end of the lake. In the off season, 
they run a couple of inspection tours every day, just keeping a lookout for fire 
and vandals and whatnot. Nice people.ä
Above the distant north shore of the lake, lightning blazed across the 
malevolent sky. A clap of thunder fell from the clouds and rolled across the 
water.
ãWe better get the suitcases and the food out of the car before we have to 
unload everything in the rain,ä Carol said.
Grace expected to be attacked on the stairs, for that was where she would find 
it most difficult to defend herself. If the cat frightened her and caused her to 
lose her balance, she might fall. If she fell, she would probably break a leg or 
a hip, and while she was temporarily stunned by the shock and pain of the fall, 
the cat would be all over her, tearing, biting. Therefore, she descended the 
stairs sideways, with her back against the wail, so she could look both ahead 
and behind.
But Aristophanes did not show up. Grace reached the downstairs hail without 
incident.
She looked both ways along the hail.
To reach the front door, she had to pass the open door of the study and the 
archway that led to the living room. The cat could bolt out of either place as 
she was passing by and could leap for her face before she would have time to 
spot him, aim the pistol, and pull the trigger.
To reach the other door, the one at the back of the house, she had to go right, 
along the hallway, past the open dining room door, into the kitchen. That route 
didnât look any less dangerous.
The rock and the hard place, she thought unhappily. The devil and the deep blue 
sea.
Then she remembered that her car keys were in the kitchen, hanging on the 
pegboard beside the back door, and that settled it. She would have to leave 
through the kitchen.
She moved cautiously along the hall until she came to a wall mirror, beneath 
which stood a narrow, decorative table. There were two tail vases on the table, 
bracketing the mirror. She picked up one of them in her injured left hand and 
sidled toward the open dining room door.
She paused before reaching the doorway, listened.
Silence.
She leaned forward and risked her eyes by peering into the dining room. She 
could not see any sign of the cat. That didnât mean it wasnât in there, The 
drapes were half drawn, and the day was gloomy; there were lots of shadows, many 
places where a cat could hide.
For the purpose of creating a diversion in the- event that Aristophanes was in 
one of those shadows, Grace pitched the vase inside. As it landed with a loud 
crash, she stepped across the threshold just far enough to grasp the doorknob, 
then pulled the door shut as she backed quickly into the hallway again. Now, if 
the cat was in there, it would bloody well have to stay in there.
She heard no noise from the dining room, which probably meant she hadnât managed 
to trap the elusive beast. If heâd been in there, he would have been squealing 
with rage and scratching at the inside of the closed door by now. Most likely, 
she had only wasted time and energy with her little trick. But at least there 
was now one downstairs room to which she could turn her back with impunity.
Repeatedly glancing left and right, forward and back, she crept to the kitchen 
door, hesitated, then stepped through it, the gun thrust out in front of her. 
She looked the room over slowly, thoroughly, before venturing farther. The small 
table and chairs. The humming refrigerator. The dangling, cat-chewed phone cord. 
The gleaming chrome fixtures on the oven. The double sinks. The white 
countertops. The small countertop wine rack. The cookie jar and the breadbox 
lined up beside the wine.
Nothing moved.
The refrigerator motor shut off, and the subsequent quiet was deep, unbroken.
Okay, she thought. Grit your teeth and move, Gracie.
She walked silently across the room, her eyes sweeping every niche, every nook: 
the opening under the built-in writing desk, the narrow space beside the 
refrigerator, the blind spot beyond the end of one row of cabinets. No cat.
Maybe I hurt him worse than I thought I did, she told herself hopefully. Maybe I 
didnât just lame the bastard. Maybe he crawled away and died.
She reached the back door.
She didnât dare breathe for fear her own breathing would mask whatever furtive 
sounds the cat might make.
A ring of keys, including those for the car, hung on a small oval pegboard 
beside the door. She slipped it off the hook.
She reached for the doorknob.
The cat hissed.
Grace cried out involuntarily and swung her head to the right, in the direction 
of the sound.
She was standing at one end of the long row of cabinets. At the far end, the 
wine rack and the bread-box and the cookie jar were lined up side by side; she 
had seen them from a front-on angle when she had first come into the room. Now 
she had a side view. From this angle she saw something she couldnât have seen 
from in front: The cookie jar and breadbox, which usually rested snug against 
the wall behind the counter, had been moved out a few inches. The cat had 
squeezed in behind those two objects, muscling them slowly out of its way. It 
had crouched in that hiding place, its butt against the wine rack, facing out 
toward the kitchen door. It was approximately twelve feet from her, and then it 
wasnât even that far away because it launched itself across the counter, 
hissing.
The confrontation was over in a few seconds, but during those seconds, time 
seemed to slow to a crawl, and Grace felt as if she were trapped in a 
slow-motion film. She stumbled backwards, away from the counter and the cat, but 
she didnât get far before she collided with a wall; as she moved, she raised the 
gun and fired two rounds in quick succession. The cookie jar exploded, and wood 
chips flew off one of the cabinet doors. But the cat kept coming, coming, in 
slow-motion strides across the slippery tile countertop, its mouth gaping and 
its fangs bared. She realized that hitting such a small, quick target was not 
easy, even at such short range as this. She fired again, but she knew the gun 
was wavering in her hand, and she wasnât surprised when she heard the bullet 
ricochet÷ making a high, piercing eeeee÷off something wide of the mark. To her 
terror-heightened perceptions, the echoes of the ricochet continued to infinity: 
eeeee, eeeee, eeeee, eeeee, eeeee.... Then the cat reached the end of the 
counter and leapt into the air, and Grace flied again. This time she hit the 
mark. The cat yelped. The bullet had sufficient impact to deflect the animal 
only an instant before it would have landed, scratching and biting, on her face. 
It was pitched back and to the left as if it were a bundle of rags. It slammed 
into the kitchen door and dropped stonelike to the floor, where it lay silent 
and motionless
***
 
Paul couldnât decide what the poltergeist intended to accomplish by its 
impressive displays of power. He didnât know whether or not he had anything to 
fear
from it. Was it trying to delay him, trying to keep him here until it was too 
late for him to help Carol? Or perhaps it was urging him on, trying its best to 
convince him that he must go to the cabin immediately.
Still holding the suitcase in one hand, he approached the bedroom door that had 
been flung shut by the unseen presence. As he reached for the knob, the door 
began to rattle in its frame÷gently at first, then fiercely.
Thunk... thunk.. . thunk... TRUNK!
He jerked his hand back, unsure what he ought to do.
THUNK!
The sound of the ax was coming from the door now, not from overhead, as it had 
been. Although the solid-core, raised-panel, fir door was a formidable barrier 
rather than just a flimsy Masonite model, it shook violently and then cracked 
down the middle as if it were constructed of balsa wood.
Paul backed away from it.
Another crack appeared, parallel to the first, and chips of wood flew into the 
room.
Sliding closet doors and flying porcelain figurines might be the work of a 
poltergeist, but this was something else again. Surely no spirit could chop 
apart a heavy door like this. There had to be someone swinging a very real ax 
against the other side.
Paul felt defenseless. He scanned the room for makeshift weapons, but he saw 
nothing useful.
The .38 revolver was in the suitcase. He wouldnât be able to get to it in time 
to defend himself with it, and he wished fervently that he had kept the gun in 
his hand.
THUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNK!
The bedroom door exploded inward in half a dozen large pieces and countless 
smaller chunks and scraps.
He threw one arm over his face to protect his eyes. Wood rained down on all 
sides of him.
When he lowered his arm, he saw there was no one standing beyond the doorway, no 
man with an ax. The chopper-of-doors was, after all, the unseen presence.
THUNK!
Paul stepped over a shattered section of the door and went out into the hallway
 
***
 
 
The fuse box was in the kitchen pantry. Carol engaged all the breaker switches, 
and the lights came on.
There was no telephone. That was virtually the only modern convenience the cabin 
lacked.
ãDo you think itâs chilly in here?ä Carol asked.
ãA little.ä
ãWe have a bottled-gas furnace, but unless itâs really cold, the fireplace is 
nicer. Letâs bring in some firewood.ä
ãYou mean weâve got to cut down a tree?ä
Carol laughed. ãThat wonât be necessary. Come see.ä
She led the girl outside, to the rear of the cabin, where an open porch ended in 
steps leading down to a short rear yard. The yard met the edge of a small meadow 
where the grass was knee-deep, and the meadow climbed up toward a wall of trees 
fifty yards away.
When Carol saw that familiar landscape, she stopped, surprised, remembering the 
dream that had spoiled her sleep several nights last week. In the nightmare, she 
had been running through one house, then through another house, then across a 
mountain meadow, while something silvery flickered in the darkness behind her. 
At the time, she had not realized that the meadow in the dream was this meadow.
ãSomething wrong?ä Jane asked.
ãHuh? Oh. No. Letâs get that firewood.ä
She led the girl down the porch steps and to the left, to where a woodshed was 
attached to the southwest corner of the cabin.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The rain hadnât
begun to fall yet.
Carol keyed open the heavy-duty padlock on the woodshed, took it off the hasp, 
and slipped it in her jacket pocket. There would be no need to replace it until 
they were ready to return to Harrisburg, nine or ten days from now.
The woodshed door creaked open on unoiled hinges. Inside, Carol tugged on the 
chain-pull light, and a bare hundred-watt bulb revealed stacks of dry cordwood 
being protected from inclement weather.
A scuttle for carrying firewood hung from a ceiling hook. Carol got it down and 
handed it to the girl. ãIf you fill it up four or five times, weâll have more 
than enough wood to last us until tomorrow morning.ä
By the time Jane returned from taking the first scuttle-load into the cabin, 
Carol was at the chopping block, using an ax to split a short log into four 
sticks.
ãWhatâre you doing?ä the girl asked, stopping well
out of the way and staring warily at the ax.
ãWhen I build a fire,ä Carol said, ãI put kindling on the bottom, a layer of 
these splits on top of that, and then the full logs to crown it off. It never 
fails to bum well that way. See? Iâm a regular Daniel Boone.ä
The girl scowled. ãThat ax looks awful sharp.ä
ãHas to be.ä
ãAre you sure itâs safe?ä
ãIâve done it lots of times before, here and at home,ä Carol said. ãIâm an 
expert. Donât worry, honey. Iâm not going to accidentally amputate my toes.ä
She picked up another short log and started to split it into quarters.
Jane went to the woodshed, giving the chopping block a wide berth. When she 
returned, carrying her second scuttle-load to the house, she repeatedly glanced 
over her shoulder, frowning.
Carol began quartering another log.
THUNK!
***
 
 
Carrying his suitcase, Paul walked down the second-floor hall to the stairway, 
and the poltergeist went with him. On both sides, doors opened and slammed shut, 
opened and slammed shut, again and again, all by themselves and with such 
tremendous force that it sounded as if he were walking through a murderous 
barrage of cannon fire.
As he descended the stairs, the chandelier at the top of the well began 
describing wide circles on the end of its chain, stirred by a breeze that Paul 
could not feel or moved by a hand that had no substance.
On the first floor, paintings were flung off walls as he passed by. Chairs 
toppled over. The living room sofa rocked wildly on its four graceful wooden 
legs. In the kitchen, the overhead utensil rack shook; pots and pans and ladles 
banged against one another.
By the time he reached the Pontiac in the garage, he knew he didnât have to 
bother taking the entire suitcase to the mountains. He hadnât wanted to go 
charging into the cabin with just a gun and the clothes on his back, for if 
nothing had been wrong, he would have looked like an idiot, and he would have 
done Jane a grave injustice. But now, because of the call from Polly at Maugham 
& Crichton, and because of the astounding display put on by the poltergeist, be 
knew that everything was wrong; there was no chance whatsoever that he would 
reach the cabin only to discover that all was peaceful. He would be walking into 
a nightmare of one kind or another. No doubt about it. So he opened the suitcase 
on the garage floor beside the car, took out the loaded revolver, and left the 
rest of his stuff behind.
As he was backing out of the driveway, he saw Grace Mitowskiâs blue Ford turn 
the corner, too fast. It angled toward the curb in front of the house, scraping 
its sidewalls so badly that blue-white smoke rose from them.
Grace was out of the car the instant it stopped. She rushed to the Pontiac, 
moving faster than Paul had seen her move in years. She pulled open the front, 
passenger-side door and leaned in. Her hair was in complete disarray. Her face 
was eggshell white and spattered with blood.
ãGood God, Grace, whatâs happened to you?ä
ãWhereâs Carol?ä
ãShe went to the cabin.ä
ãAlready?ä
ãThis morning.ä
ãDamn? Exactly when?â
"Three hours ago.ä
Graceâs eyes contained a haunted expression. ãThe girl went with her?ä
ãYes.ä
She closed her eyes, and Paul could see she was on the edge of panic, trying to 
deal with it and calm herself. She opened her eyes and said, ãWeâve got to go 
after them.ä
ãThatâs where Iâm headed.ä
He saw her eyes widen as she noticed the revolver lying on the car seat beside 
him, the muzzle pointed forward, toward the dashboard.
She raised her eyes from the gun to his face. ãYou know whatâs happening?ä she 
asked, surprised.
ãNot really,ä he said, putting the gun in the glove compartment. ãAll I know for 
sure is that Carolâs in trouble. Damned serious trouble.ä
ãItâs not just Carol weâve got to worry about,ä Grace said. ãItâs both of them.ä
ãBoth? The girl, you mean? But I think the girlâs the one whoâs going to÷ä
ãYes,ä Grace said. ãSheâs going to try to kill Carol. But she might be the one 
who ends up dead. Like before.ä
She got in the car and pulled the door shut.
ãLike before?ä Paul said. ãI donât÷ä He saw her blood-crusted hand. ãThat needs 
medical attention.ä
ãThereâs no time.ä
ãWhat the hellâs happening?ä he demanded, his fear for Carol briefly giving way 
to frustration.ä I know something strange is going on, but I donât know what in 
Christâs name it is.ä
ãI do,ä she said. ãI know. In fact I know a lot more than maybe I want to know.ä
ãIf youâve got anything that makes sense, anything concrete,ä he said, ãwe 
should call the cops. They can put in a call to the sheriffâs department up 
there and get help sent out to the cabin real fast, faster than we can get 
there.ä
ãWhat Iâve got, my information, is harder than concrete, so far as Iâm 
concerned,ä Grace said. ãBut the police wouldnât see it the same way I do. 
Theyâd say I was just a senile old fool. Theyâd want to lock me up in a nice 
safe place for my own good. At best, theyâd laugh at me.ä
He thought about the poltergeist÷the sound of the ax, the splintering door, the 
airborne ceramic figurines, the toppling chairs÷and he said, ãYeah. I know 
exactly what you mean.ä
ãWeâll have to handle this ourselves,ä Grace said. ãLetâs get rolling. I can 
tell you everything I know on the way. Each minute we waste, I just get sicker 
and sicker, thinking about what might be happening in the mountains.ä
Paul backed the car into the street and drove away from the house, heading for 
the nearest freeway entrance. When he was on the open highway, he floored the 
accelerator, and the car rocketed ahead.
ãHow long does it usually take to get there?ä Grace asked.
ãAbout two hours and fifteen minutes.ä
ãToo long.ä
ãWeâll do better than that.ä
The speedometer needle touched eighty.
12
THEY had brought a lot of food in cardboard cartons and ice chests. They 
transferred all of those items to the cupboards and refrigerator, agreeing to 
forgo lunch altogether in order to indulge themselves guiltlessly in a gluttonâs 
dinner.
ãAll right,ä Carol said, producing a list from one of the kitchen drawers, 
ãhereâs what we need to do to make this place livable.ä She read from the list:
ãRemove plastic dropcloths from furniture; dust
everything; scrub the kitchen sink; clean the bathroom; and put sheets and 
blankets on the beds.ä
ãYou call this a vacation?ä Jane asked.
ãWhatâs wrong? Doesnât that sound like a fun agenda to you?ä
ãThrilling.ä
ãWell, the cabinâs not enormous. The two of us will go through the list of 
chores in an hour or an hour and a half.ä
They had barely started when they were interrupted by a knock at the door. It 
was Vince Gervis, the colonyâs caretaker. He was a big, barrel-chested man with 
enormous shoulders, enormous biceps, enormous hands, and a smile to match the 
rest of him.
ãJust makinâ my rounds,ä he said. ãSaw your car. Thought Iâd say hello.ä Carol 
introduced him to Jane and said she was a niece (a convenient white lie), and 
there was some polite chitchat, and then Gervis said, ãDr. Tracy, whereâs the 
other Dr. Tracy? Iâd like to give him my best, too.ä
ãOh, he isnât with us right now,ä Carol said. ãHeâs coming up on Sunday, after 
he finishes some important work he couldnât just put aside.ä
Gervis frowned.
Carol said, ãIs something wrong?ä
ãWell. . . me and the missus was planninâ to go into town to do some shoppinâ, 
maybe see a movie, eat a restaurant meal. Itâs what we generally do on Friday 
afternoons, you see. But there isnât another soul up here besides you and Jane. 
Will be tomorrow, beinâ as itâs a Saturday, and seemâ as if the weather donât 
get too bad so that everybody stays to home. But thereâs no one else so far 
today except you.ä
ãDonât worry about us,ä Carol said. ãWeâll be fine.
You and Peg go on into town like you planned.ä
ãWell.. . Iâm not sure I like the idea of you two ladies out here all by your 
lonesome, twenty miles from other folks. No sir, I donât like it much.ä
ãNobodyâs going to bother us, Vince. The roadâs gated; you canât even get in 
without a key card.ä
ãAnybody can walk in if heâs willinâ to go overland just a little ways.ä
Carol required several minutes and a lot of words to reassure him, but at last 
he decided that he and his wife would keep to their usual Friday schedule.
Shortly after Vince left, the rains came. The soft roar of a hundred million 
droplets striking a hundred million rustling leaves was soothing to Carol.
But Jane found the noise somewhat unpleasant.
ãI donât know why,ä she said, ãbut the sound makes me think of fire. Hissing. . 
. just like a lot of flames eating up everything in sight. Sizzle, sizzle, 
sizzle.. .ã
 
 
The rain forced Paul to slow down to sixty, which was still too fast for highway 
conditions, but the situation called for the taking of some risks.
The windshield wipers thumped metronomically, and the tires sang softly on the 
wet macadam.
The day was dark and growing darker. It looked more like twilight than like 
midday. The wind blew obscuring curtains of rain across the treacherously wet 
pavement, and the gray-brown road spray flung up by other traffic hung in the 
air, a thick and dirty mist.
It seemed almost as if the Pontiac were a tiny vessel sailing through the deep 
currents of a vast, cold sea, the only pocket of warmth and light within a 
million miles.
Grace said, ãYou probably wonât believe what Iâve got to tell you, and that 
would be understandable.ä
ãAfter whatâs happened to me today,ä Paul said, ãIâm ready to believe anything.ä
And maybe thatâs what the poltergeist meant to do, he thought. Maybe it meant to 
prepare me for whatever story Grace has to tell. In fact, if I hadnât been 
delayed by the poltergeist, I would have left the house before Grace arrived.
ãIâll keep it as simple and straightforward as I can,ä Grace said. ãBut itâs not 
a simple and straightforward matter.ä She cradled her torn left hand in her 
right hand; the bleeding had stopped, and the cuts were all crusty, clotted. ãIt 
starts in 1865, in Shippensburg. The family was named Havenswood.ä
Paul glanced her, startled by the name.
She looked straight ahead, at the rain-sodden land through which they were 
rushing. ãThe mother was Willa Havenswood, and the daughterâs name was Laura. 
Those two didnât get along well. Not well at all. The fault was on both sides, 
and the reasons for their constant bickering arenât really important here. 
Whatâs important is that one day in the spring of 1865, Willa sent Laura into 
the cellar to do some spring cleaning, even though she knew perfectly well that 
the girl was deathly afraid of the cellar. It was punishment, you see. And while 
Laura was down there in the cellar, a fire broke out upstairs. She was trapped 
and burned to death. She must have died blaming her mother for putting her in 
that trap in the first place. Maybe she even blamed Willa for starting the fire÷ 
which she didnât. It was accidentally started by Rachael Adams, Lauraâs aunt. 
Itâs even possible that Laura wondered if her mother had started the fire on 
purpose, just to get rid of her. The child had emotional problems; she was 
capable of melodramatic notions of that sort. The mother had emotional problems, 
too; she was capable of inspiring paranoia, for sure. Anyway, Laura died a 
gruesome death, and we can be pretty certain that her last thought was an ardent 
wish for revenge. There was no way she could have known that her mother perished 
in that fire, too!ä
So thatâs why the Havenswood identity didnât check out when Carol put the police 
on to it, Paul thought. Theyâd have had to go all the way back to the 1800s in 
order to find the Havenswood family.
County records for that period probably donât even exist any more.
A slow-moving truck appeared out of the mists ahead, and Paul passed it. For a 
moment the filthy spray from the truckâs big tires drummed on the side of the 
Pontiac, and the noise was too loud for Grace to speak above it.
When they had passed the truck, she said, ãSince 1865, Laura has been pursuing 
revenge through at least two and probably three other lives. Reincarnation, 
Paul. Can you believe in that? Can you believe that in 1943, Laura Havenswood 
was a fifteen-year-old girl named Linda Bektermann and that the night before her 
sixteenth birthday she tried to kill her mother, who was Willa Havenswood 
reincarnated?
Itâs a true case. Linda Bektermann went berserk and tried to ax her mother to 
death, but her mother turned the tables and killed the girl instead. Laura 
didnât get her revenge. And can you believe that Willa is now alive again and 
that sheâs our Carol this time? And that Laura is alive again, too?ä
ãJane?ä
ãYes.ä
Together, Carol and Jane cleaned the cabin in an hour and fifteen minutes. Carol 
was delighted to see that the girl was an industrious worker who took great 
pleasure in doing even a menial job well.
When they were finished, they poured two glasses of Pepsi to reward themselves, 
and they sat in the two big easy chairs that faced the mammoth fireplace.
ãItâs too early to start cooking dinner,ä Jane said.
ãAnd itâs too wet out there to go for a walk, so what game do you want to play?ä
ãAnything that looks good to you is fine with me. You can look over all the 
stuff in our game closet and take your pick. But first, I think we really should 
get the therapy session out of the way.ä
ãAre we going to keep that up even on vacation?ä
the girl asked. She was clearly uneasy about it, though she had not been 
noticeably uneasy before, even on the occasion of the first session, the day 
before yesterday.
ãOf course weâve got to keep on with it,ä Carol said. ãNow that weâve made a 
start, itâs best to continue working at it, pushing and probing a little bit 
every day.ä
ãWell. . . all right.ä
ãGood. Letâs turn these chairs around to face each other.ä
The fire flickered off to one side, creating dancing shadows on the hearth.
Outside, the rain rattled ceaselessly through the trees and pattered on the 
roof, and Carol realized that it did sound like even more fire, as Jane had 
said, so that they seemed to be totally surrounded by the hiss and crackle of 
flames.
She needed only a few seconds to put Jane into a trance this time. But as had 
happened during the first session, the girl needed almost two minutes to regress 
to a period at which memories existed for her. This time the long silence didnât 
disturb Carol as it had done before.
When the girl spoke at last, she used the Laura voice. ãMama? Is that you? Is 
that you, Mama?ä
ãLaura?ä
The girlâs eyes were squeezed shut. Her voice was tight, tense. ãIs that you? Is 
it you, Mama? Is it?ä
ãRelax,ä Carol said.
Instead of relaxing, the girl became visibly more tense. She hunched her 
shoulders, fisted her hands in her lap. Lines of strain appeared in her forehead 
and at the corners of her mouth. She leaned away from the back of her chair, 
toward Carol.
ãI want you to answer some questions,ä Carol said. ãBut you must be calm and 
relaxed first. Now, you will do exactly as I say. You will unclench your fists. 
You will֊
ãI wonât!ä
The girlâs eyes popped open. She leapt up out of her chair and stood before 
Carol, quivering.
ãSit down, honey.ä
ãI wonât do what you say! Iâm sick of doing what you tell me to do, sick of your 
punishments.ä
ãSit down,ä Carol said softly but forcefully.
The girl glared at her. ãYou did it to me,ä she said in the Laura voice. ãYou 
put me down there in that awful place.ä
Carol hesitated, then decided to flow with it. ãWhat place do you mean?ä
ãYou know,ä the girl said accusingly. ãI hate you.ä
ãWhere is this awful place you spoke of?ä Carol persisted.
ãThe cellar.ä
ãWhatâs so awful about the cellar?ä
Hatred seethed in the girlâs eyes. Her lips were peeled back from her teeth in a 
feral snarl.
ãLaura? Answer me. Whatâs so awful about the cellar?ä
The girl slapped her across the face.
The blow stunned Carol. It was sharp, painful, unexpected. For an instant she 
simply couldnât believe that she actually had been hit.
Then the girl hit her again. Backhanded.
And again. Harder than before.
Carol grabbed her adversaryâs slender wrists, but the girl wrenched loose. She 
kicked Carol in the shins, and when Carol cried out and sagged for an instant, 
the girl went for her throat. Carol fended her off, though not easily, and 
attempted to get up from the armchair. Jane pushed her down and fell on top of 
her. She felt the girl bite her shoulder, and suddenly her shock and confusion 
turned to fear. The chair tipped over, and they both rolled onto the floor, 
flailing.
 
 
The flat land through which they had been driving began to rise and form itself 
into gently rolling hills, but the mountains were still a long way off.
If there had been any change in the weather during the last half hour, it had 
been for the worse. Rain was falling harder than ever; the hard, fat pellets of 
water shattered like glass on the roadway, and the amorphous fragments bounced 
high. Paul kept the speedometer needle at eighty.
ãReincarnation,ä he said thoughtfully. ãJust a few minutes ago, I told you that 
I could believe anything today, but thatâs wild. Reincarnation? Where in the 
devil did you come by this theory?ä
As the windshield wipers continued to thump, and as the tires sang a shrill 
dirge on the rain-puddled pavement, Grace told him about the telephone calls 
from Leonard, the visit from the long-dead reporter, the prophetic dreams; she 
told him about the grim battle with Aristophanes. ãI am Rachael Adams, Paul. 
That other life had been revealed to me so that I can stop this murderous cycle. 
Willa did not start the fire. I started it accidentally. There is no reason for 
the girl to seek revenge. Itâs all a mistake, a dark misunderstanding. If I can 
talk to the girl, Jane, while sheâs regressed to her Laura phase, I can persuade 
her of the truth. I know I can. I can stop all of this here, now, once and 
forever. Do you think Iâm babbling? Senile? I donât believe I am. In fact, I 
know Iâm not. And I suspect youâve had some strange experiences recently that 
confirm what Iâm telling you.ä
ãYou hit that one on the head, all right,ä he told her.
Nevertheless, reincarnation÷being born again in a new body÷it was a stunning, 
soul-shaking thing to accept. There is no lasting death. Yes, that was much 
harder to accept than the existence of poltergeists.
ãDo you know about Millicent Parker?ä he asked her.
ãNever heard the name,ä Grace said.
The rain started falling even harder. He turned the windshield wipers up to 
their highest speed.
ãIn 1905,ä he told Grace, ãMillie Parker attempted to kill her mother÷on the 
night before her sixteenth birthday. Like the Linda Bektermann case, the mother 
ended up killing Millie, instead of the other way around. Purely self-defense. 
And hereâs what you might not realize: Under hypnosis, Jane claimed to be Laura, 
Millie, and then Linda Bektermann. But the names meant nothing to us.ä
ãAnd again, in the Millicent Parker case,ä Grace said, ãthe girlâs desire for 
revenge was frustrated. Yes. I knew there must be another life between Laura and 
Linda.ä
ãBut why this night-before-the-birthday thing that keeps cropping up?ä
ãLaura was looking forward to her sixteenth birthday with great eagerness,ä 
Grace-Rachael said. ãIt was going to be the best day of her life, she said. She 
had all sorts of plans for it÷and for how her life would be changed after she 
attained that magical age.
I think, somehow, she felt her motherâs treatment of her would change once she 
was Îgrown up.â But she died in the fire before her birthday.ä
ãAnd in life after life, as her sixteenth birthday approaches, the fear of her 
mother and the hatred of her mother wells up from her subconscious.ä
Grace nodded. ãFrom the subconscious of the girl she was in 1865, the girl÷the 
identity÷who is buried down at the bottom of Janeâs psyche.ä
They rode in silence for a minute or two.
Paulâs hands were sweaty on the steering wheel.
His mind spun as he tried to absorb the story she had told, and he had that old 
feeling of balancing on a tightrope high above a deep, deep, dark chasm.
Then he said, ãBut Carol isnât Janeâs mother.ä
ãYouâve forgotten something,ä Grace said.
ãWhat?ä
ãCarol had a child out of wedlock when she was a teenager. I know she told you 
all about it. Iâm giving away no secrets.ä
Paulâs stomach quivered. He was cold all the way into the marrow of his bones. 
ãMy God. You mean. . . Jane is the child that Carol put up for adoption.ä
ãI have no proof of it,ä Grace said. ãBut I bet that when the police spread 
their search nets wide enough, when they finally locate the girlâs parents in 
some other state, weâll learn that sheâs adopted. And that Carol is her natural 
mother.ä
 
 
For what seemed like an eternity, they struggled on the floor by the hearth, 
grunting, twisting, the girl throwing punches, Carol trying to resist without 
hurting her. At last, when it became clear that Carol was unquestionably the 
stronger of the two and would eventually gain control of the situation, the girl 
shoved away from her, scrambled up, kicked her in the thigh, and ran out of the 
room, into the kitchen.
Carol was shocked and dazed both by the girlâs unexpected violence and by the 
maniacal power of the blows. Her face stung, and she knew her cheeks were going 
to bruise. Her bitten shoulder was bleeding; a large, damp, red stain was 
spreading slowly down the from of her blouse.
She got up, swayed unsteadily for a moment. Then she went after the girl. 
ãHoney, wait!ä
In the distance, outside the house, Lauraâs voice rose in a sharp, shrill 
scream: ãI haaaaaate you!ä
Carol reached the kitchen, leaned against the refrigerator. The girl was gone. 
The back door was open.
The sound of the rain was very loud.
She hurried to the door and looked out at the rear lawn, at the small meadow, at 
the forest that crowded in at the edge of the meadow. The girl had disappeared.
ãJane! Laura!ä
Millicent? She wondered. Linda? What on earth should I call her?
She crossed the porch and went down the steps into the yard, into the pelting, 
cold rain. She turned right, then left, not sure where to look first.
Then Jane appeared. The girl came out of the woodshed at the southwest corner of 
the cabin. She was carrying an ax.
***
 
 
ã... and Carol is her natural mother.ä
Graceâs words echoed and reechoed in Paulâs head.
For a moment he was incapable of speech.
He stared ahead, shocked, not really seeing the road, and he nearly ran up the 
back end of a sluggishly moving Buick. He jammed on his brakes. He and Grace 
were thrown forward, testing their seat belts. He slowed down until he could 
regain control of himself.
Finally, the words burst out of him like machine-gun fire: ãBut how in the hell 
did the kid find out who her real mother was, they donât give out that kind of 
information to children her age, how did she get here from whatever state she 
was living in, how did she track us down and make it all happen like this? Good 
Christ, she did step in front of Carolâs car on purpose. It was a setup. The 
whole damned thing was a setup!ä
ãI donât know how she found her way to Carol,ä Grace said. ãMaybe her parents 
knew who the childâs natural mother was, and kept the name around in the family 
records, in case the girl ever wanted to know it when she grew up. Perhaps not. 
Perhaps anything. Maybe she was simply drawn to Carol by the same forces that 
tried to get to me through Aristophanes. That might explain why she appeared to 
be in a daze before she stepped in front of the car. But I donât really know. 
Maybe weâll never know.ä
ãOh, shit,ä Paul said, and his voice wavered. ãOh, no, no. Goddamn!ä
ãWhat?ä
ãYou know how Carol is on that day,ä he said shakily. ãThe day her baby was 
born, the baby she gave up. Sheâs different from the way she is every other day 
of the year. Depressed, withdrawn. Itâs always such a bad day for her that the 
dateâs engraved on my memory.ä
ãOn mine, too,ä Grace said.
ãItâs tomorrow,ä he said. ãIf Jane is Carolâs child, sheâll be sixteen 
tomorrow.ä
ãYes.ä
ãAnd sheâll try to kill Carol today.ä
 
***
 
Sheets of dark rain rippled and flapped like wind-whipped canvas tents.
Carol stood on the soggy lawn, unable to move, numbed by fear, frozen by the 
cold rain.
Twenty feet away, the girl stood with the ax, gripping it in both hands. Her 
drenched hair hung straight to her shoulders, and her clothes were pasted to 
her.
She appeared to be oblivious to the storm and the chilly air. Her eyes were 
owlish, as if she were high on amphetamine, and her face was distorted by rage.
ãLaura?ä Carol said at last. ãListen to me. You will listen to me. You will drop 
the ax.ä
ãYou stinking, rotten bitch,ä the girl said through tightly clenched teeth.
Lightning cracked open the sky, and the falling rain glittered for a moment in 
the stroboscopic flashes that came through from the other side of the heavens.
When the subsequent thunder rolled away and Carol could be heard, she said, 
ãLaura, I want you to÷â,
ãI hate you!ä the girl said, She took one step toward Carol.
ãStop this right now,ä Carol said, refusing to retreat. ãYou will be calm. You 
will relax.ä
The girl took another step.
ãDrop the ax,ä Carol insisted. ãHoney, listen to me. You will listen to me. You 
are only in a trance. You are֊
ãIâm going to get you this time, Mama. This time Iâm not going to lose.ä
ãIâm not your mother,ä Carol said. ãLaura, you are-ä
ãIâm going to cut your goddamn head off this time, you bitch!ä
The voice had changed.
It wasnât Lauraâs now.
It belonged to Linda Bektermann, the third identity.
ãIâm going to cut your goddamn head off and put it on the kitchen table with 
Daddyâs.ä
With a jolt, Carol recalled last weekâs nightmare.
There had been a moment in the dream when she had stepped into the kitchen and 
had encountered two severed heads on the table, a manâs and a womanâs. But how 
could Jane know what had been in that nightmare?
Carol finally took a step backwards, then another. Although the rain was cold, 
she began to sweat.
ãIâm only going to tell you one more time, Linda. You must put the ax down and÷ä
ãIâm going to cut your head off and chop you into a thousand little pieces,ä the 
girl said.
And the voice now belonged to Jane.
It wasnât the voice of an identity heretofore only evident in a trance. This was 
Janeâs voice. She had come out of the trance on her own power. She knew who she 
was. She knew who Carol was. And she still wanted to use the ax.
Carol edged toward the back porch steps.
The girl quickly circled in that direction, blocking access to the cabin. Then 
she started toward Carol, moving fast, grinning.
Carol turned and ran toward the meadow.
 
 
In spite of the pounding rain, which snapped with bulletlike power into the 
windshield, in spite of the dirty mist that hung over the road, in spite of the 
treacherously greasy pavement, Paul slowly pressed the accelerator all the way 
to the floor and swung the Pontiac into the passing lane.
ãItâs a mask,ä he said.
Grace said, ãWhat do you mean?ä
ãThe Jane Doe identity, the Linda Bektermann and Millie Parker identities÷each 
of them was just a mask. A very real, very convincing mask. But a mask 
nonetheless. Behind the mask there was always the same face, the same person. 
Laura.ä
ãAnd weâve got to put an end to the masquerade once and for all,ä Grace said. 
ãIf I can just talk to her as her Aunt Rachael, Iâll be able to stop this 
madness. Iâm sure I will, Sheâll listen to me.. . to Rachael. Thatâs who she was 
closest to. Closer than she was to her mother. I can make her understand that 
her mother, Willa, didnât intentionally or even accidentally start that fire 
back in 1865. At last sheâll understand. Sheâll see that thereâs no 
justification for revenge. The cycle will come to an end.ä
ãIf weâre in time,ä Paul said.
ãIf,ä Grace said.
 
 
***
 
 
Carol ran through the stinging rain and through the knee-high grass. She ran up 
the sloping meadow, her arms tucked in close to her side, legs pumping high, 
gasping for breath, each stride jarring her to the bones.
Ahead lay the forest, which seemed to be her only salvation. There were thousand 
of places to hide in the wilderness, countless trails on which she could lose 
the girl. After all, she was somewhat familiar with the land, but to the girl it 
was a strange place.
Halfway across the meadow, she risked a glance behind her. The girl was only 
fifteen feet away.
Lightning slashed through the bellies of the clouds, and the blade of the ax 
flashed once, twice, with a brilliant reflection of that icy electric glow.
Carol looked straight ahead once more and redoubled her efforts to reach the 
trees. The meadow was wet, spongy, and in some places slippery. She expected to 
fall or at least twist an ankle, but she reached the perimeter of the forest 
without trouble.
She plunged in among the trees, among the purple and brown and black shadows, 
into the lush undergrowth, and she began to think there was a chance÷ maybe only 
a very small chance, but a chance nonetheless÷that she would come out of this 
alive.
 
 
***
 
 
Hunching over the steering wheel, squinting at the ram-swept highway, Paul said, 
ãI want one thing perfectly clear between us.ä
Grace said, ãWhatâs that?ä
ãCarolâs my first concern.ä
ãOf course.ä
ãIf we walk into the middle of a nasty situation at the cabin, Iâll do 
whateverâs necessary to protect Carol.ä
Grace glanced at the glove compartment. ãYou mean. . . the gun.ä
ãYes. If! have to, if thereâs no other way, Iâll use it, Grace. Iâll shoot the 
girl if thereâs no other choice.ä
ãItâs unlikely that weâll walk into the middle of a
confrontation,ä Grace said. ãEither it wonât have begun yet÷or itâll all be over 
with by the time we get there.ä
ãI wonât let her hurt Carol,ä he said grimly. ãAnd if worse comes to worst, I 
donât want you trying to stop me.ä
ãThere are some things you should consider,ä
Grace said.
ãWhat?ä
ãFirst of all, itâll be just as tragic if Carol kills the girl. And thatâs the 
pattern, after all. Both Millie and Linda attacked their mothers, but they were 
the ones killed. What if that happens this time? What if Carol is forced to kill 
the girl in self-defense? You know sheâs never stopped feeling guilty about 
putting the baby up for adoption. She carries that on her shoulders sixteen 
years after the fact. So what will happen when she discovers sheâs killed her 
own daughter?ä
ãItâll destroy her,ä he said without hesitation.
ãI think it very well might. And whatâll it do to your relationship with Carol 
if you kill her daughter, even if you do it to save Carolâs life?ä
He thought about that for a moment. Then he said,
ãIt might destroy us, and he shuddered.
 
 
***
 
 
For a while, no matter how tortuous the path she followed through the woods, 
Carol could not lose the girl. She switched from one natural trail to another, 
crossed a small stream, doubled back the way she had come. She moved in a crouch 
at all times, staying out of sight below the brush line. She made no sound that 
could be heard above the constant hissing of the rain Most of the time she 
carefully stepped on old leaves or made her way from stone to stone, from log to 
log, leaving no footprints, in the damp, bare earth. Yet Jane pursued her with 
uncanny confidence, without hesitation, as if she were part bloodhound.
At last, however, Carol was certain she had lost the girl. She squatted under a 
huge pine, leaned back against the damp bark, and breathed deeply, rapidly, 
raggedly, while waiting for her heart to stop racing.
A minute passed. Two. Five.
The only sound was the rain drizzling down through the leaves and through the 
interlaced pine needles.
She became aware of the dank odor of heavy vegetation÷moss and fungus and forest 
grass and more.
Nothing moved.
She was safe, at least for now.
But she couldnât just sit beneath the tall pine, waiting for help to arrive. 
Eventually, Jane would stop searching for her and would try to find a way back 
to the cabin. If the girl didnât get lost÷which she most likely would do÷if she 
somehow managed to return to the cabin, and if she was still in a psychotic 
fugue when she got there, she might murder the first person she encountered. If 
she took Vince Gervis by surprise, even his great size and impressive muscles 
would be of no use against the blade of an ax.
Carol stood up, moved away from the tree, and began to circle back toward the 
cabin. The keys to the Volkswagen were in her purse, and her purse was in one of 
the bedrooms. She had to get the keys, drive into town, and ask the county 
sheriff for assistance.
What went wrong? she wondered. girl shouldnât have become violent. There was no 
indication that she was capable of such a thing. The potential to kill simply 
was not a part of her psychological profile. Paul was right to be worried. But 
why?
Proceeding with utmost caution, expecting the girl to leap at her from behind 
every tree and bush, Carol needed fifteen minutes to reach the edge of the 
forest at a point not far from the place at which she had
entered the trees with the girl in hot pursuit. The meadow was deserted. At the 
bottom of the slope, the cabin huddled in the pouring rain.
The kidâs lost, Carol thought. All of that twisting and turning and doubling 
back through unfamiliar territory was too much for her. Sheâll never find the 
way home by herself.
The sheriffâs men werenât going to like this one: a search in the rain, in the 
forest, for a violent girl who was armed with an ax. No, they werenât going to 
like this one at all.
Carol navigated the meadow at a run.
The rear door of the cabin was standing open, just as she had left it.
She hurried inside, slammed the door, and threw the bolt. Relief swept through 
her.
She swallowed a couple of times, caught her breath, and crossed the kitchen to 
the door that led into the living room. She was about to step across that 
threshold when she was stopped by a sudden, terrible certainty that she was not 
alone.
She jumped back, spurred by intuition more than anything else, and even as she 
moved, the ax swung in from the left, through the doorway. It sliced the air 
where she had been. If she hadnât moved, she would have been cut in half.
The girl stepped into the room, brandishing the ax. ãBitch.ä
Carol backed to the door that she had just latched.
She fumbled behind her for the bolt. Couldnât find it.
The girl closed in.
Whimpering, Carol turned to the door, seized the
latch. She sensed the ax rising, into the air behind her and knew she wouldnât 
have time to open the door, and she jerked to one side, and the blade bit into 
the door just where her head would have been.
With superhuman strength, the girl wrenched the ax out of the wood.
Gasping, Carol ducked past her and ran into the living room. She looked for 
something with which to defend herself. The only thing available was a poker in 
the rack of fireplace tools. She grabbed it.
Behind her, Jane said, ãI hate you!ä
Carol whirled.
The girl swung the ax.
Carol brought the poker up without any time to spare, and it rang against the 
gleaming, viciously sharp blade, deflecting the blow.
The impact rang back the length of the poker, into Carolâs hands, numbing them. 
She couldnât maintain her grip on the iron rod; it fell from her tingling hands.
The impact did not ring back along the wooden handle of the ax, and Jane still 
held that weapon with firm determination.
Carol backed up onto the wide hearth of the stone fireplace. She could feel the 
heat against her legs.
She had nowhere else to run.
ãNow,ä Jane said. ãNow. At last.ä
She lifted the ax high, and Carol cried out in anticipation of the pain, and the 
front door was flung open. It crashed against the wall. Paul was there. And 
Grace.
The girl glanced at them but was not going to be distracted; she brought the ax 
down toward Carolâs face.
Carol collapsed onto the hearth.
The ax struck the stone mantel over her head; sparks flew.
Paul rushed at the girl, but she sensed him coming. She turned toward him, 
slashed with the ax, and drove him back.
Then turned on Carol again.
ãCornered rat,ä she said, grinning.
The ax came up.
This time it wonât miss, Carol thought.
Someone said, ãSpiders!ä
The girl froze.
The ax was suspended in midair.
ãSpiders!ä It was Grace. ãThere are spiders on your back, Laura. Oh God, theyâre 
all over your back. Spiders! Laura, look out for the spiders!ä
Carol watched, bewildered, as a look of stark terror took possession of the 
girlâs face.
ãSpiders!ä Grace shouted again. ãBig, black, hairy spiders, Laura. Get them off! 
Get them off your back. Quick!ä
The girl screamed and dropped the ax, which clattered against the stone hearth. 
She brushed frantically at her back, twisting her arms up behind her. She was 
snuffling and squealing like a very small child. ãHelp me!ä
ãSpiders,ä Grace said again, as Paul picked up the ax and put it out of the way.
The girl tried to tear off her blouse. She dropped to her knees, then fell onto 
her side, gibbering in terror. She writhed on the floor, brushing imaginary 
spiders off her body. Within a minute she seemed to be in a state of shock; she 
lay shuddering, weeping.
ãShe was always afraid of spiders,ä Grace said. ãThat was why she hated the 
cellar.ä
"The cellar?ä Carol asked.
ãWhere she died,ä Grace said.
Carol didnât understand. But at the moment she didnât care. She watched the girl 
writhing on the floor, and she suddenly felt overwhelming pity for her. She 
knelt beside Jane, lifted her up, hugged her.
ãYou okay?ä Paul asked her.
She nodded.
ãSpiders,ä the girl said, quivering uncontrollably.
ãNo, honey,ä Carol said. ãNo spiders. There arenât any spiders on you. Not now. 
Not any more.ä And she looked at Grace, wondering.