Bag of Bones Part 7

Had there been been crying? Had there really? crying? Had there really?

Yes. Crying or something something. Just what now seemed moot. What seemed germane was that coming here had been a dangerous idea and a stupid course of action for a man who has taught his mind to misbehave. As I stood in the foyer with no light but the flash and the glow falling in the windows from the bulb over the back stoop, I realized that the line between what I knew was real and what I knew was only my imagination had pretty much disappeared.

I left the house, checked to make sure the door was locked, and walked back up the driveway, swinging the flashlight beam from side to side like a pendulum - like the tail of old Felix the Krazy Kat in the kitchen. It occurred to me, as I struck north along the lane, that I would have to make up some sort of story for Bill Dean. It wouldn't do to say, 'Well, Bill, I got down there and heard a kid bawling in my locked house, and it scared me so bad I turned into the gingerbread man and ran back to Derry. I'll send you the flashlight I took; put it back on the shelf next to the paperbacks, would you?' That wasn't 'any good because the story would get around and people would say, 'Not surprised. Wrote too many books, probably. Work like that has got to soften a man's head. Now he's scared of his own shadow. Occupational hazard.'

Even if I never came down here again in my life, I didn't want to leave people on the TR with that opinion of me, that half-contemptuous, see-what-you-get-for-thinking-too-much att.i.tude. It's one a lot of folks seem to have about people who live by their imaginations.

I'd tell Bill I got sick. In a way it was true. Or no . . . better to tell him someone else else got sick . . . a friend . . . someone in Derry I'd been seeing . . . a lady-friend, perhaps. 'Bill, this friend of mine, this got sick . . . a friend . . . someone in Derry I'd been seeing . . . a lady-friend, perhaps. 'Bill, this friend of mine, this lady lady-friend of mine got sick, you see, and so . . . '

I stopped suddenly, the light s.h.i.+ning on the front of my car. I had walked the mile in the dark without noticing many of the sounds in the woods, and dismissing even the bigger of them as deer settling down for the night. I hadn't turned around to see if the shroud-thing (or maybe some spectral crying child) was following me. I had gotten involved in making up a story and then embellis.h.i.+ng it, doing it in my head instead of on paper this time but going down all the same well-known paths. I had gotten so involved that I had neglected to be afraid. My heartbeat was back to normal, the sweat was drying on my skin, and the mosquitoes had stopped whining in my ears. And as I stood there, a thought occurred to me. It was as if my mind had been waiting patiently for me to calm down enough so it could remind me of some essential fact.

The pipes. Bill had gotten my go-ahead to replace most of the old stuff, and the plumber had done so. Very recently he'd done so.

'Air in the pipes,' I said, running the beam of the eight-cell flashlight over the grille of my Chevrolet. 'That's what I heard.'

I waited to see if the deeper part of my mind would call this a stupid, rationalizing lie. It didn't . . . because, I suppose, it realized it could be true. Airy pipes can sound like people talking, dogs barking, or children crying. Perhaps the plumber had bled them and the sound had been something else . . . but perhaps he hadn't. The question was whether or not I was going to jump in my car, back two tenths of a mile to the highway, and then return to Derry, all on the basis of a sound I had heard for ten seconds (maybe only five), and while in an excited, stressful state of mind.

I decided the answer was no. It might take only one more peculiar thing to turn me around - probably gibbering like a character on Tales from the Crypt Tales from the Crypt - but the sound I'd heard in the foyer wasn't enough. Not when making a go of it at Sara Laughs might mean so much. - but the sound I'd heard in the foyer wasn't enough. Not when making a go of it at Sara Laughs might mean so much.

I hear voices in my head, and have for as long as I can remember. I don't know if that's part of the necessary equipment for being a writer or not; I've never asked another one. I never felt the need to, because I know all the voices I hear are versions of me. Still, they often seem like very real versions of other people, and none is more real to me-or more familiar - than Jo's voice. Now that voice came, sounding interested, amused in an ironic but gentle way . . . and approving.

Going to fight, Mike? Going to fight, Mike?

'Yeah,' I said, standing there in the dark and picking out gleams of chrome with my flashlight. 'Think so, babe.'

Well, then - that's all right, isn't it? Well, then - that's all right, isn't it?

Yes. It was. I got into my car, started it up, and drove slowly down the lane. And when I got to the driveway, I turned in.

There was no crying the second time I entered the house. I walked slowly through the downstairs, keeping the flashlight in my hand until I had turned on every light I could find; if there were people still boating on the north end of the lake, old Sara probably looked like some weird Spielbergian flying saucer hovering above them.

I think houses live their own lives along a time-stream that's different from the ones upon which their owners float, one that's slower. In a house, especially an old one, the past is closer. In my life Johanna had been dead nearly four years, but to Sara, she was much nearer than that. It wasn't until I was actually inside, with all the lights on and the flash returned to its spot on the bookshelf, that I realized how much I had been dreading my arrival. Of having my grief reawakened by signs of Johanna's interrupted life. A book with a corner turned down on the table at one end of the sofa, where Jo had liked to recline in her nightgown, reading and eating plums; the cardboard cannister of Quaker Oats, which was all she ever wanted for breakfast, on a shelf in the pantry; her old green robe hung on the back of the bathroom door in the south wing, which Bill Dean still called 'the new wing,' although it had been built before we ever saw Sara Laughs.

Brenda Meserve had done a good job - a humane job-of removing these signs and signals, but she couldn't get them all. Jo's hardcover set of Sayers's Peter Wimsey novels still held pride of place at the center of the living-room bookcase. Jo had always called the moosehead over the fireplace Bunter, and once, for no reason I could remember (certainly it seemed a very un-Bunterlike accessory), she had hung a bell around the moose's hairy neck. It hung there still, on a red velvet ribbon. Mrs. Meserve might have puzzled over that bell, wondering whether to leave it up or take it down, not knowing that when Jo and I made love on the living-room couch (and yes, we were often overcome there), we referred to the act as 'ringing Bunter's bell.' Brenda Meserve had done her best, but any good marriage is secret territory, a necessary white s.p.a.ce on society's map. What others don't know about it is what makes it yours.

I walked around, touching things, looking at things, seeing them new. Jo seemed everywhere to me, and after a little while I dropped into one of the old cane chairs in front of the TV. The cus.h.i.+on wheezed under me, and I could hear Jo saying, 'Well excuse excuse yourself, Michael!' yourself, Michael!'

I put my face in my hands and cried. I suppose it was the last of my mourning, but that made it no easier to bear. I cried until I thought something inside me would break if I didn't stop. When it finally let me go, my face was drenched, I had the hiccups, and I thought I had never felt so tired in my life. I felt strained all over my body - partly from the walking I'd done, I suppose, but mostly just from the tension of getting here . . . and deciding to stay here. To fight. That weird phantom crying I'd heard when I first stepped into the place, although it seemed very distant now, hadn't helped.

I washed my face at the kitchen sink, rubbing away the tears with the heels of my hands and clearing my clogged nose. Then I carried my suitcases down to the guest bedroom in the north wing. I had no intention of sleeping in the south wing, in the master bedroom where I had last slept with Jo.

That was a choice Brenda Meserve had foreseen. There was a bouquet of fresh wildflowers on the bureau, and a card: WELCOME BACK, MR. NOONAN. If I hadn't been emotionally exhausted, I suppose looking at that message, in Mrs. Meserve's spiky copperplate handwriting, would have brought on another fit of the weeps. I put my face in the flowers and breathed deeply. They smelled good, like suns.h.i.+ne. Then I took off my clothes, leaving them where they dropped, and turned back the coverlet on the bed. Fresh sheets, fresh pillowcases; same old Noonan sliding between the former and dropping his head onto the latter.

I lay there with the bedside lamp on, looking up at the shadows on the ceiling, almost unable to believe I was in this place and this bed. There had been no shroud-thing to greet me, of course . . . but I had an idea it might well find me in my dreams.

Sometimes - for me, at least - there's a transitional b.u.mp between waking and sleeping. Not that night. I slipped away without knowing it, and woke the next morning with sunlight s.h.i.+ning in through the window and the bedside lamp still on. There had been no dreams that I could remember, only a vague sensation that I had awakened sometime briefly in the night and heard a bell ringing, very thin and far away.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The little girl - actually she wasn't much more than a baby-came walking up the middle of Route 68, dressed in a red bathing suit, yellow plastic flip-flops, and a Boston Red Sox baseball cap turned around backward. I had just driven past the Lakeview General Store and d.i.c.kie Brooks's All-Purpose Garage, and the speed limit there drops from fifty-five to thirty-five. Thank G.o.d I was obeying it that day, otherwise I might have killed her.

It was my first day back. I'd gotten up late and spent most of the morning walking in the woods which run along the lakesh.o.r.e, seeing what was the same and what had changed. The water looked a little lower and there were fewer boats than I would have expected, especially on summer's biggest holiday, but otherwise I might never have been away. I even seemed to be slapping at the same bugs.

Around eleven my stomach alerted me to the fact that I'd skipped breakfast. I decided a trip to the Village Cafe was in order. The restaurant at Warrington's was trendier by far, but I'd be stared at there. The Village Cafe would be better - if it was still doing business. Buddy Jellison was an ill-tempered f.u.c.k, but he had always been the best fry-cook in western Maine and what my stomach wanted was a big greasy Villageburger.

Now this little girl, walking straight up the white line and looking like a majorette leading an invisible parade.

At thirty-five miles per hour I saw her in plenty of time, but this road was busy in the summer, and very few people bothered creeping through the reduced-speed zone. There were only a dozen Castle County police cruisers, after all, and not many of them bothered with the TR unless they were specifically called there.

I pulled over to the shoulder, put the Chevy in PARK, and was out before the dust had even begun to settle. The day was muggy and close and still, the clouds seeming low enough to touch. The kid - a little blondie with a snub nose and scabbed knees - stood on the white line as if it were a tightrope and watched me approach with no more fear than a fawn.

'Hi,' she said. 'I go beach. Mummy 'on't take me and I'm mad as h.e.l.l.' She stamped her foot to show she knew as well as anybody what mad as h.e.l.l was all about. Three or four was my guess. Well-spoken in her fas.h.i.+on and cute as h.e.l.l, but still no more than three or four. 'Well, the beach is a good place to go on the Fourth, all right,' I said, 'but - '

'Fourth of July and fireworks too too,' she agreed, making 'too' sound exotic and sweet, like a word in Vietnamese.

' - but if you try to walk there on the highway, you're more apt to wind up in Castle Rock Hospital.'

I decided I wasn't going to stand there playing Mister Rogers with her in the middle of Route 68, not with a curve only fifty yards to the south and a car apt to come wheeling around it at sixty miles an hour at any time. I could hear a motor, actually, and it was revving hard.

I picked the kid up and carried her over to where my car was idling, and although she seemed perfectly content to be carried and not frightened a bit, I felt like Chester the Molester the second I had my arm locked under her bottom. I was very aware that anyone sitting around in the combined office and waiting room of Brooksie's Garage could look out and see me. This is one of the strange midlife realities of my generation: we can't touch a child who isn't our own without fearing others will see something lecherous in our touching . . . or without thinking, way down deep in the sewers of our psyches, that there probably is something lecherous in it. I got her out of the road, though. I did that much. Let the Marching Mothers of Western Maine come after me and do their worst.

'You take me beach?' the little girl asked.

She was bright-eyed, smiling. I figured that she'd probably be pregnant by the time she was twelve, especially given the cool way she was wearing her baseball cap. 'Got your suitie?'

'Actually I think I left my suitie at home. Don't you hate that? Honey, where's your mom?'

As if in direct answer to my question, the car I'd heard came busting out of a road on the near side of the curve. It was a Jeep Scout with mud splashed high up on both sides. The motor was growling like something up a tree and p.i.s.sed off about it. A woman's head was poked out the side window. Little curie's mom must have been too scared to sit down; she was driving in a mad crouch, and if a car had had been coming around that particular curve in Route 68 when she pulled out, my friend in the red bathing suit would likely have become an orphan on the spot. been coming around that particular curve in Route 68 when she pulled out, my friend in the red bathing suit would likely have become an orphan on the spot.

The Scout fishtailed, the head dropped back down inside the cab, and there was a grinding as the driver ups.h.i.+fted, trying to take her old heap from zero to sixty in maybe nine seconds. If pure terror could have done the job, I'm sure she would have succeeded.

'That's Mattie,' the girl in the bathing suit said. 'I'm mad at her. I'm running away to have a Fourth at the beach. If she's mad I go to my white nana.'

I had no idea what she was talking about, but it did did cross my mind that Miss Bosox of 1998 could have her Fourth at the beach; I would settle for a fifth of something whole-grain at home. Meanwhile, I was waving the arm not under the kid's b.u.t.t back and forth over my head, and hard enough to blow around wisps of the girl's fine blonde hair. cross my mind that Miss Bosox of 1998 could have her Fourth at the beach; I would settle for a fifth of something whole-grain at home. Meanwhile, I was waving the arm not under the kid's b.u.t.t back and forth over my head, and hard enough to blow around wisps of the girl's fine blonde hair.

'Hey!' I shouted. 'Hey, lady! I got her!'

The Scout sped by, still accelerating and still sounding p.i.s.sed off about it. The exhaust was blowing clouds of blue smoke. There was a further hideous grinding from the Scout's old transmission. It was like some crazy version of Let's Make a Deal Let's Make a Deal.' 'Mattie, you've succeeded in getting into second gear - would you like to quit and take the Maytag washer, or do you want to try for third?'

I did the only thing I could think of, which was to step out onto the road, turn toward the Jeep, which was now speeding away from me (the smell of the oil was thick and acrid), and hold the kid up high over my head, hoping Mattie would see us in her rearview mirror. I no longer felt like Chester the Molester; now I felt like a cruel auctioneer in a Disney cartoon, offering the cutest li'l piglet in the litter to the highest bidder. It worked, though. The Scout's mudcaked taillights came on and there was a demonic howling as the badly used brakes locked. Right in front of Brooksie's, this was. If there were were any old-timers in for a good Fourth of July gossip, they would now have plenty to gossip about. I thought they would especially enjoy the part where Mom screamed at me to unhand her baby. When you return to your summer home after a long absence, it's always nice to get off on the right foot. any old-timers in for a good Fourth of July gossip, they would now have plenty to gossip about. I thought they would especially enjoy the part where Mom screamed at me to unhand her baby. When you return to your summer home after a long absence, it's always nice to get off on the right foot.

The backup lights flared and the Jeep began reversing down the road at a good twenty miles an hour. Now the transmission sounded not p.i.s.sed off but panicky - please, it was saying, please stop, you're killing me. The Scout's rear end wagged from side to side like the tail of a happy dog. I watched it coming at me, hypnotized - now in the northbound lane, now across the white line and into the southbound lane, now overcorrecting so that the left-hand tires spumed dust off the shoulder.

'Mattie go fast,' my new girlfriend said in a conversational, isn't-this-interesting voice. She had one arm slung around my neck; we were chums, by G.o.d.

But what the kid said woke me up. Mattie go fast, all right, too too fast. Mattie would, more likely than not, clean out the rear end of my Chevrolet. And if I just stood here, Baby Snooks and I were apt to end up as toothpaste between the two vehicles. fast. Mattie would, more likely than not, clean out the rear end of my Chevrolet. And if I just stood here, Baby Snooks and I were apt to end up as toothpaste between the two vehicles.

I backed the length of my car, keeping my eyes fixed on the Jeep and yelling, 'Slow down, Mattie! Slow down!'

Cutie-pie liked that. 'S'yo down!' she yelled, starting to laugh. 'S'yo down, you old Mattie, s'yo down!'

The brakes screamed in fresh agony. The Jeep took one last walloping, unhappy jerk backward as Mattie stopped without benefit of the clutch. That final lunge took the Scout's rear b.u.mper so close to the rear b.u.mper of my Chevy that you could have bridged the gap with a cigarette. The smell of oil in the air was huge and furry. The kid was waving a hand in front of her face and coughing theatrically.

The driver's door flew open; Mattie Devore flew out like a circus acrobat shot from a cannon, if you can imagine a circus acrobat dressed in old paisley shorts and a cotton smock top. My first thought was that the little girl's big sister had been babysitting her, that Mattie and Mummy were two different people. I knew that little kids often spend a period of their development calling their parents by their first names, but this pale-cheeked blonde girl looked all of twelve, fourteen at the outside. I decided her mad handling of the Scout hadn't been terror for her child (or not just just terror) but total automotive inexperience. terror) but total automotive inexperience.

There was something else, too, okay? Another a.s.sumption that I made. The muddy four-wheel-drive, the baggy paisley shorts, the smock that all but screamed Kmart, the long yellow hair held back with those little red elastics, and most of all the inattention that allows the three-year-old in your care to go wandering off in the first place . . . all those things said trailer-trash to me. I know how that sounds, but I had some basis for it. Also, I'm Irish, G.o.ddammit. My ancestors were trailer-trash when the trailers were still horse-drawn caravans.

'Stinky-phew!' 'Stinky-phew!' the little girl said, still waving a pudgy hand at the air in front of her face. 'Scoutie the little girl said, still waving a pudgy hand at the air in front of her face. 'Scoutie stink! stink!'

Where Scoutie's bathing suitie? Where Scoutie's bathing suitie? I thought, and then my new girlfriend was s.n.a.t.c.hed out of my arms. Now that she was closer, my idea that Mattie was the bathing beauty's sister took a hit. Mattie wouldn't be middle-aged until well into the next century, but she wasn't twelve or fourteen, either. I now guessed twenty, maybe a year younger. When she s.n.a.t.c.hed the baby away, I saw the wedding ring on her left hand. I also saw the dark circles under her eyes, gray skin dusting to purple. She was young, but I thought it was a mother's terror and exhaustion I was looking at. I thought, and then my new girlfriend was s.n.a.t.c.hed out of my arms. Now that she was closer, my idea that Mattie was the bathing beauty's sister took a hit. Mattie wouldn't be middle-aged until well into the next century, but she wasn't twelve or fourteen, either. I now guessed twenty, maybe a year younger. When she s.n.a.t.c.hed the baby away, I saw the wedding ring on her left hand. I also saw the dark circles under her eyes, gray skin dusting to purple. She was young, but I thought it was a mother's terror and exhaustion I was looking at.

I expected her to swat the tot, because that's how trailer-trash moms react to being tired and scared. When she did, I would stop her, one way or another distract her into turning her anger on me, if that was what it took. There was nothing very n.o.ble in this, I should add; all I really wanted to do was to postpone the f.a.n.n.y-whacking, shoulder-shaking, and in-your-face shouting to a time and place where I wouldn't have to watch it. It was my first day back in town; I didn't want to spend any of it watching an inattentive s.l.u.t abuse her child.

Instead of shaking her and shouting 'Where did you think you were going, you little b.i.t.c.h?' Mattie first hugged the child (who hugged back enthusiastically, showing absolutely no sign of fear) and then covered her face with kisses.

'Why did you do that?' she cried. 'What was in your head? When I couldn't find you, I died.'

Mattie burst into tears. The child in the bathing suit looked at her with an expression of surprise so big and complete it would have been comical under other circ.u.mstances. Then her own face crumpled up. I stood back, watched them crying and hugging, and felt ashamed of my preconceptions.

A car went by and slowed down. An elderly couple - Ma and Pa Kettle on their way to the store for that holiday box of Grape-Nuts - gawked out. I gave them an impatient wave with both hands, the kind that says what are you you staring at, go on, put an egg in your shoe and beat it. They sped up, but I didn't see an out-of-state license plate, as I'd hoped I might. This version of Ma and Pa were locals, and the story would be fleeting its rounds soon enough: Mattie the teenage bride and her little bundle of joy (said bundle undoubtedly conceived in the back seat of a car or the bed of a pickup truck some months before the legitimizing ceremony), bawling their eyes out at the side of the road. With a stranger. No, not exactly a stranger. Mike Noonan, the writer fella from upstate. staring at, go on, put an egg in your shoe and beat it. They sped up, but I didn't see an out-of-state license plate, as I'd hoped I might. This version of Ma and Pa were locals, and the story would be fleeting its rounds soon enough: Mattie the teenage bride and her little bundle of joy (said bundle undoubtedly conceived in the back seat of a car or the bed of a pickup truck some months before the legitimizing ceremony), bawling their eyes out at the side of the road. With a stranger. No, not exactly a stranger. Mike Noonan, the writer fella from upstate.

'I wanted to go to the beach and suh-suh-swim! suh-suh-swim!' the little girl wept, and now it was 'swim' that sounded exotic - the Vietnamese word for 'ecstasy,' perhaps.

'I said I'd take you this afternoon.' Mattie was still sniffing, but getting herself under control. 'Don't do that again, little guy, please don't you ever do that again, Mommy was so scared.'

'I won't,' the kid said 'I really won't.' Still crying, she hugged the older girl tight, laying her head against the side of Mattie's neck. Her baseball cap fell off. I picked it up, beginning to feel very much like an outsider here. I poked the blue-and-red cap at Mattie's hand until her fingers closed on it.

I decided I also felt pretty good about the way things had turned out, and maybe I had a right to. I've presented the incident as if it was amusing, and it was, but it was the sort of amusing you never see until later. When it was happening, it was terrifying. Suppose there had been a truck coming from the other direction? Coming around that curve, and coming too fast?

A vehicle did did come around it, a pickup of the type no tourist ever drives. Two more locals gawked their way by. come around it, a pickup of the type no tourist ever drives. Two more locals gawked their way by.

'Ma'am?' I said. 'Mattie? I think I'd better get going. Glad your little girl is all right.' The minute it was out, I felt an almost irresistible urge to laugh. I could picture me drawling this speech to Mattie (a name that belonged in a movie like Unforgiven Unforgiven or or True Grit True Grit if any name ever did) with my thumbs hooked into the belt of my chaps and my Stetson pushed back to reveal my n.o.ble brow. I felt an insane urge to add, 'You're right purty, ma'am, ain't you the new schoolteacher?' if any name ever did) with my thumbs hooked into the belt of my chaps and my Stetson pushed back to reveal my n.o.ble brow. I felt an insane urge to add, 'You're right purty, ma'am, ain't you the new schoolteacher?'

She turned to me and I saw that she was was right purty. Even with circles under her eyes and her blonde hair sticking off in gobs to either side of her head. And I thought she was doing okay for a girl probably not yet old enough to buy a drink in a bar. At least she hadn't belted the baby. right purty. Even with circles under her eyes and her blonde hair sticking off in gobs to either side of her head. And I thought she was doing okay for a girl probably not yet old enough to buy a drink in a bar. At least she hadn't belted the baby.

'Thank you so much,' she said. 'Was she right in the road?' Say she wasn't, her eyes begged. At least say she was walking along the shoulder.

'Well - '

'I walked on the line,' the girl said, pointing. 'It's like the cross-mock.' Her voice took on a faintly righteous tone. 'Crossmock is safe.'

Mattie's cheeks, already white, turned whiter. I didn't like seeing her that way, and didn't like to think of her driving home that way, especially with a kid.

'Where do you live, Mrs. - ?'

'Devore,' she said. 'I'm Mattie Devore.' She s.h.i.+fted the child and put out her hand. I shook it. The morning was warm, and it was going to be hot by mid-afternoon - beach weather for sure - but the fingers I touched were icy. 'We live just there.'

She pointed to the intersection the Scout had shot out of, and I could see - surprise, surprise - a doublewide trailer set off in a grove of pines about two hundred feet up the little feeder road. Wasp Hill Road, I recalled. It ran about half a mile from Route 68 to the water - what was known as the Middle Bay. Ah yes, doc, it's all coming back to me now. I'm once more riding the Dark Score range. Saving little kids is my specialty.

Still, I was relieved to see that she lived close by - less than a quarter of a mile from the place where our respective vehicles were parked with their tails almost touching - and when I thought about it, it stood to reason. A child as young as the bathing beauty couldn't have walked far . . . although this one had already demonstrated a fair degree of determination. I thought Mother's haggard look was even more suggestive of the daughter's will. I was glad I was too old to be one of her future boyfriends; she would have them jumping through hoops all through high school and college. Hoops of fire, likely.

Well, the high-school part, anyway. Girls from the doublewide side of town did not, as a general rule, go to college unless there was a juco or a voke-tech handy. And she would only have them jumping until the right boy (or more likely the wrong one) came sweeping around the Great Curve of Life and ran her down in the highway, her all the while unaware that the white line and the crossmock were two different things. Then the whole cycle would repeat itself.

Christ almighty, Noonan, quit it, Christ almighty, Noonan, quit it, I told myself. I told myself. She's three years old and you've already got her with three kids of her own, two with ringworm and one r.e.t.a.r.ded. She's three years old and you've already got her with three kids of her own, two with ringworm and one r.e.t.a.r.ded.

'Thank you so much,' Mattie repeated.

'That's okay,' I said, and snubbed the little girl's nose. Although her cheeks were still wet with tears, she grinned at me sunnily enough in response. 'This is a very verbal little girl.'

'Very verbal, and very willful.' Now Mattie did give her child a little shake, but the kid showed no fear, no sign that shaking or hitting was the order of most days. On the contrary, her smile widened. Her mother smiled back. And yes - once you got past the slopped-together look of her, she was most extraordinarily pretty. Put her in a tennis dress at the Castle Rock Country Club (where she'd likely never go in her life, except maybe as a maid or a waitress), and she would maybe be more than pretty. A young Grace Kelly, perhaps.

Then she looked back at me, her eyes very wide and grave.

'Mr. Noonan, I'm not a bad mother,' she said.

I felt a start at my name coming from her mouth, but it was only momentary. She was the right age, after all, and my books were probably better for her than spending her afternoons in front of General Hospital General Hospital and and One Life to Live One Life to Live. A little, anyway.

'We had an argument about when we were going to the beach. I wanted to hang out the clothes, have lunch, and go this afternoon. Kyra wanted - ' She broke off. 'What? What did I say?'

'Her name is Kia? Did - ' Before I could say anything else, the most extraordinary thing happened: my mouth was full of water. So full I felt a moment's panic, like someone who is swimming in the ocean and swallows a wave-wash. Only this wasn't a salt taste; it was cold and fresh, with a faint metal tang like blood.

I turned my head aside and spat. I expected a gush of liquid to pour out of my mouth - the sort of gush you sometimes get when commencing artificial respiration on a near-drowning victim. What came out instead was what usually comes out when you spit on a hot day: a little white pellet. And that sensation was gone even before the little white pellet struck the dirt of the shoulder. In an instant, as if it had never been there.

'That man spirted,' the girl said matter-of-factly.

'Sorry,' I said. I was also bewildered. What in G.o.d's name had that that been about? 'I guess I had a little delayed reaction.' been about? 'I guess I had a little delayed reaction.'

Mattie looked concerned, as though I were eighty instead of forty. I thought that maybe to a girl her age, forty is eighty. 'Do you want to come up to the house? I'll give you a gla.s.s of water.'

'No, I'm fine now.'

'All right. Mr. Noonan . . . all I mean is that nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I was hanging sheets . . . she was inside watching a Mighty Mouse Mighty Mouse cartoon on the VCR . . . then, when I went in to get more pins . . . ' She looked at the girl, who was no longer smiling. It was starting to get through to her now. Her eyes were big, and ready to fill with tears. 'She was gone. I thought for a minute I'd die of fear.' cartoon on the VCR . . . then, when I went in to get more pins . . . ' She looked at the girl, who was no longer smiling. It was starting to get through to her now. Her eyes were big, and ready to fill with tears. 'She was gone. I thought for a minute I'd die of fear.'

Now the kid's mouth began to tremble, and her eyes filled up right on schedule. She began to weep. Mattie stroked her hair, soothing the small head until it lay against the Kmart smock top.

'That's all right, Ki,' she said. 'It turned out okay this time, but you can't go out in the road. It's dangerous. Little things get run over in the road, and you're a little thing. The most precious little thing in the world.'