Lisey's Story

XII. Lisey at Greenlawn

(The Hollyhocks)

1

She glanced at the clock on the nightstand as she peeled off her soaked shorts and smiled, not because there was anything intrinsically funny about ten minutes to twelve on a morning in June, but because one of Scrooge's lines from A Christmas Carol had occurred to her: "The spirits have done it all in one night." It seemed to Lisey that something had accomplished a great deal in her own life in a very short period of time, most of it in the last few hours.

But you have to remember that I've been living in the past, and that takes up a surprising amount of a person's time, she thought…and after a moment's consideration let out a great, larruping laugh that probably would have sounded insane to anyone listening down the hall.

That's okay, keep laughin, babyluv, ain't nobody here but us chickadees, she thought, going into the bathroom. That big, loose laugh started to come out of her again, then stopped suddenly when it occurred to her that Dooley might be here. He could be holed up in the root cellar or one of this big house's many closets; he might be sweating it out this late morning in the attic, right over her head. She didn't know much about him and would be the first to admit it, but the idea that he had gone to ground here in the house fit what she did know. He'd already proved he was a bold sonofabitch.

Don't worry about him now. Worry about Darla and Canty.

Good idea. Lisey could get to Greenlawn ahead of her older sisters, that wouldn't be much of a horse-race, but she couldn't afford to dawdle, either. Keep your string a-drawing, she thought.

But she couldn't deny herself a moment in front of the fulllength mirror on the back of the bedroom door, standing with her hands at her sides, looking levelly and without prejudice at her slender, unremarkable, middle-aged body—and at her face, which Scott had once described as that of a fox in summer. It was a little puffy, nothing more. She looked like she'd slept exceptionally hard (maybe after a drink or three too many), and her lips still turned out a little, giving them a strangely sensual quality that made her feel both uneasy and a tiny bit gleeful. She hesitated, not sure what to do about that, and then found a tube of Revlon Hothouse Pink at the back of her lipstick drawer. She touched some on and nodded, a little doubtfully. If people were going to look at her lips— and she thought they might—she'd do better giving them something to look at than trying to cover up what couldn't be hidden.

The breast Dooley had operated on with such lunatic absorption was marked with an ugly scarlet ditch that circled up from beneath her armpit before petering out above her ribcage. It looked like a fairly bad cut that might have happened two or three weeks ago and was now healing well. The two shallower wounds looked like no more than the sort of red marks that resulted from wearing too-tight elastic garments. Or perhaps— if you had a lively imagination—rope burns. The difference between this and the horror she had observed upon regaining consciousness was amazing.

"All the Landons are fast healers, you sonofabitch," Lisey said, and stepped into the shower.

2

A quick rinse was all she had time for, and her breast was still sore enough to make her decide against a bra. She put on a pair of carpenter's pants and a loose tee-shirt. She slipped a vest over the latter to keep anyone from staring at her nipples, assuming guys bothered scoping out the nipples of fifty-year-old women, that was. According to Scott, they did. She remembered his telling her, once upon a happier time, that straight men stared at pretty much anyone of a female persuasion between the ages of roughly fourteen and eightyfour; he claimed it was a simple hardwired circuit between eye and cock, that the brain had nothing to do with it.

It was noon. She went downstairs, glanced into the living room, and saw the remaining pack of cigarettes sitting on the coffee table. She had no craving for cigarettes now. She got a fresh jar of Skippy out of the pantry instead (steeling herself for Jim Dooley lurking in the corner or behind the pantry door) and the strawberry jam out of the fridge. She made herself a PB&J on white and took two delicious, gummy bites before calling Professor Woodbody. The Castle County Sheriff's Department had taken "Zack McCool"'s threatening letter, but Lisey's memory for numbers had always been good, and this one was a cinch: Pittsburgh area code at one end, eighty-one and eighty-eight at the other. She was as willing to talk to the Queen of the Incunks as the King. An answering machine, however, would be inconvenient. She could leave her message, but would have no way of being sure it would reach the right ear in time to do any good.

She need not have worried. Woodbody himself answered, and he did not sound kingly. He sounded chastened and cautious. "Yes? Hello?"

"Hello, Professor Woodbody. This is Lisa Landon."

"I don't want to talk to you. I've spoken to my lawyer and he says I don't have to—"

"Chill," she said, and eyed her sandwich with longing. It wouldn't do to talk with her mouth full. On the upside, she thought this conversation was going to be brief. "I'm not going to make any trouble for you. No trouble with the cops, no trouble with lawyers, nothing like that. If you do me one teensy favor."

"What favor?" Woodbody sounded suspicious. Lisey couldn't blame him for that.

"There's an off-chance your friend Jim Dooley may call you today—"

"That guy's no friend of mine!" Woodbody bleated.

Right, Lisey thought. And you're well on your way to persuading yourself he never was.

"Okay, drinking buddy. Passing acquaintance. Whatever. If he calls, just tell him I've changed my mind, would you do that? Say I've regained my senses. Tell him I'll see him this evening, at eight, in my husband's study."

"You sound like someone preparing to get herself into a great deal of trouble, Mrs. Landon."

"Hey, you'd know, wouldn't you?" The sandwich was looking better and better. Lisey's stomach rumbled. "Professor, he probably won't call you. In which case, you're golden. If he does call, give him my message and you're also golden. But if he calls and you don't give him my message—just 'She's changed her mind, she wants to see you tonight in Scott's study at eight'—and I find out…then, sir, oy, such a mess I'm making for you."

"You can't. My lawyer says—"

"Don't listen to what he says. Be smart and listen to what I'm saying. My husband left me twenty million dollars. With that kind of money, if I decide to ass-fuck you, you'll spend the next three years shitting blood from a crouch. Got it?"

Lisey hung up before he could say anything else, tore a bite from her sandwich, got the lime Kool-Aid from the fridge, thought about a glass, then drank directly from the pitcher instead.

Yum!

3

If Dooley phoned during the next few hours, she wouldn't be around to take his call. Luckily, Lisey knew which phone he'd ring in on. She went out to her unfinished office in the barn, across from the shrouded corpse of the Bremen bed. She sat in the plain kitchen-style chair (a nice new desk-chair was one of the things she'd never gotten around to ordering), pushed the RECORD MESSAGE button on the answering machine, and spoke without thinking too much. She hadn't come back from Boo'ya Moon with a plan so much as with a clear set of steps to follow and the belief that, if she did her part, Jim Dooley would be forced to do his. I'll whistle and you'll come to me, my lad, she thought.

"Zack—Mr. Dooley—this is Lisey. If you're hearing this, I'm visiting my sister, who's in the hospital, up in Auburn. I spoke to the Prof, and I'm so grateful this is going to work out. I'll be in my husband's study tonight at eight, or you can call me here at seven and arrange something else, if you're worried about the police. There may be a Sheriff's Deputy parked out front, maybe even in the bushes across the road, so be careful. I'll listen for messages."

She was afraid that might be too much for the outgoing-message tape to handle, but it wasn't. And what would Jim Dooley make of it, if he called this number and heard it? Given his current level of craziness, Lisey couldn't begin to predict. Would he break radio silence and call the Professor in Pittsburgh? He might. Whether or not the Professor would actually pass on her message if Dooley did was also impossible to predict, and maybe it didn't matter. She didn't much care if Dooley thought she was actually ready to deal or just jacking him around. She only wanted him nervous and curious, the way she imagined a fish felt when it was looking up at a lure skipping along the surface of a lake.

She didn't dare leave a note on her door—it was all too likely Deputy Boeckman or Deputy Alston would read it long before Dooley had a chance to—and that was probably taking things a step too far, anyway. For the time being, she had done all she could.

And do you really expect him to show up at eight o'clock tonight, Lisey? To just come waltzing up the stairs to Scott's office, full of trust and belief?

She didn't expect him to come waltzing, and she didn't expect him to be full of anything but the lunacy she had already experienced, but she did expect him to come. He would be as careful as any feral thing, casting about for a trap or a setup, possibly sneaking in from the woods as early as midafternoon, but Lisey believed he would know in his heart that this wasn't some trick that she'd worked out with the Sheriff's Department or the State Police. He'd know from the eagerness to please he heard in her voice, and because after what he'd done to her, he had every reason to expect her to be one cowed cow. She played the message back twice and nodded. Yeah. On the surface she sounded like a woman who was merely eager to finish some troublesome piece of business, but she thought Dooley would hear the fright and pain just beneath. Because he expected to hear them, and because he was crazy.

Lisey thought there was something else at work here, as well. She had gotten her drink. She had gotten her bool, and it had made her strong in some primal way. It might not last long, but that didn't matter, because a little of that strength—a little of that primal weirdness—was now on the answering machine tape. She thought that if Dooley called, he would hear and respond to it.

4

Her cell phone was still in the BMW and now fully charged. She thought of going back to the little office in the barn and redoing the message on the answering machine, adding the mobile number, then realized she didn't know it. I so rarely call myself, darling, she thought, and unloosed the big, larruping laugh again.

She drove slowly out to the end of the driveway, hoping that Deputy Alston would be there. He was, looking bigger than ever and rather primal himself. Lisey got out of her car and gave him a little salute. He did not call for backup or run screaming from the sight of her face; he merely grinned and tipped the salute right back at her.

It had certainly crossed Lisey's mind to spin a tale if she found a deputy on duty, something about "Zack McCool" calling her up and telling her he'd decided to get his li'l ole self back to his li'l ole holler in West Virginny and forget all about the writer's widder-woman; jest too many Yankee po-lice around. She'd do it without the Deliverance accent, of course, and she thought she could be fairly convincing, especially in her current state of baptismal grace, but in the end she had decided against it. Such a story might end up putting acting Sheriff Clusterfuck and his deputies even more on their guard— they might think Jim Dooley was trying to lull them to sleep. No, much better to leave matters as they were. Dooley had found his way to her once; he could probably do it again. If they caught him, her problems would be solved…although in truth, seeing Jim Dooley caught was no longer her solution of choice.

In any case, she didn't like the idea of lying to either Alston or Boeckman any more than she had to. They were cops, they were doing their best to protect her, and on top of that they were a couple of likeable lummoxes.

"How's it going, Mrs. Landon?"

"Fine. I just stopped to tell you I'm going up to Auburn. My sister's in the hospital up there."

"I'm very sorry to hear that. CMG or Kingdom?"

"Greenlawn."

She wasn't sure he'd know it, but from the little wince that tightened his face, she guessed that he did. "Well, that's too bad…but at least it's a pretty day for a drive. You just want to get back before late afternoon. Radio says there's gonna be big thunderstorms, especially here in the western."

Lisey looked around and smiled, first at the day, which was indeed summery-gorgeous (at least so far), and then at Deputy Alston. "I'll do my best. Thanks for the heads-up."

"Not a problem. Say, the side of your nose looks kinda swelled. Did something bite you?"

"Mosquitoes do that to me sometimes," Lisey said. "There's one beside my lip, too. Can you see it?"

Alston peered at her mouth, which Dooley had beaten back and forth with his open hand not long ago. "Nope," he said. "Can't say that I do."

"Good, the Benadryl must be working. As long as it doesn't make me sleepy."

"If it does, pull over, okay? Do yourself a favor."

"Yes, Dad," Lisey said, and Alston laughed. He also blushed a little.

"By the way, Mrs. Landon—"

"Lisey."

"Yes, ma'am. Lisey. Andy called. He'd like you to drop by the Sheriff's Office when it's convenient and make an official report on this business. You know, something you can sign for the record. Would you do that?"

"Yes. I'll try to stop in on my way back from Auburn."

"Well, I'll tell you a little secret, Mrs. Lan—Lisey. Both our secretaries are apt to clear out early on days when it comes on to hard rain. They live out Motton way, and those roads flood if you look at em crosseyed. Need new culverts."

Lisey shrugged. "We'll see," she said. She made a show of looking at her watch. "Whoa, look at the time! I really have to run. Help yourself to the toilet if you have to go, Deputy Alston, there's—"

"Joe. If you're Lisey, I'm Joe."

She gave him a thumbs-up. "Okay, Joe. There's a key to the back door under the porch step. If you feel around a little, I think you'll find it."

"Ayuh, I'm a trained investigator," he said with a straight face.

Lisey burst out laughing and held up her hand. Deputy Joe Alston, now grinning himself, high-fived her there in the sunshine near the mailbox where she'd found the dead Galloway barncat.

5

Driving to Auburn, she mused for a little while on how Deputy Joe Alston had looked at her as they stood talking at the end of the driveway. It had been a little while since she'd attracted a honey, you look so good stare from a man, but she'd gotten one today, slightly swollen nose and all. Amazing. Amazing.

"The Get-Beat-Up-By-Jim-Dooley Beauty Treatment," she said, and laughed. "I could hawk it on high-channel cable TV."

And her mouth had the most wonderfully sweet taste. If she ever wanted another cigarette, she would be surprised. Maybe she could hawk that on high-channel cable, too.

6

By the time Lisey got to Greenlawn, it was twenty minutes past one. She didn't expect to see Darla's car, but still let out a sigh of relief when she had made sure it wasn't one of the dozen or so scattered around the visitors' parking lot. She liked the idea of Darla and Canty well south of here, well away from the dangerous craziness of Jim Dooley. She remembered helping Mr. Silver grade potatoes when she was a little girl (well, twelve or thirteen—not so little at that) and how he'd always cautioned her to wear pants and keep her sleeves rolled up when she was around the potato grader in the back shed. You get caught in that baby, she'll undress ya, he'd said, and she had taken the warning to heart because she'd understood old Max Silver hadn't been talking about what his hulk of a potato-grader would do to her clothes but what it would do to her. Amanda was a part of this, had been since the day she'd shown up as Lisey was halfheartedly beginning the job of cleaning out Scott's study. Lisey accepted that. Darla and Canty, however, would be an unnecessary

complication. If God was good, He would keep them at the Snow Squall, eating Lazy Lobster and drinking white wine spritzers, for a long time. Like until midnight.

Before she got out of her car, Lisey touched her left breast lightly with her right hand, wincing in advance at the bright lance of pain she expected. All she felt was a faint throb. Amazing, she thought. It's like touching a week-old bruise. Any time you get to doubting the reality of Boo'ya Moon, Lisey, just remember what he did to your breast, not even five hours ago, and what it feels like now.

She got out of the car, locked it with the SmartKey, then paused for a moment to look around, trying to fix the spot in her mind. She had no clear reason for doing this; nothing she could have put her finger on, even if she'd wanted to. It was just more of that step-by-step thing, almost like baking bread for the first time from a cookbook recipe, and that was fine by her.

Freshly tarred and lined, the Greenlawn visitors' parking lot reminded her strongly of the parking lot where her husband had fallen eighteen years ago, and she heard the ghostly voice of Assistant Professor Roger Dashmiel, aka the southern-fried chickenshit, saying We'll proceed on across yondah parkin lot to Nelson Hall—which is mercifully air-conditioned. No Nelson Hall here; Nelson Hall was in the Land of Ago, as was the man who had gone there to dig a spadeful of earth and inaugurate construction of the Shipman Library.

What she saw looming over the neatly trimmed hedges wasn't an English Department building but the smooth brick and bright glass of a twenty-first-century madhouse, the sort of clean, well-lighted place where her husband might well have finished up if something, some spore the doctors in Bowling Green had eventually elected to call pneumonia (no one wanted to put Unknown causes on the death certificate of a man whose demise would be reported on the front page of the New York Times), had not finished him first.

On this side of the hedge was an oak tree; Lisey had parked so that the BMW would be in its shade, although—yes—she could see clouds massing in the west, so maybe Deputy Joe Alston was right about those afternoon thunderstorms. The tree would make a perfectly lovely marker if it had been the only one, but it wasn't. There was a whole row of them along the hedge, to Lisey they all looked the same…and what the smuck did it matter, anyway?

She started for the path to the main building, but something inside—a voice that didn't seem like any of the variations of her own mental voice—nagged her back, insisting that she look at her car and its place in the parking lot again. She wondered if something wanted her to move the BMW to a different spot. If so, it wasn't making its wants known very clearly. Lisey settled for a walk-around instead, as her father had told her you should always do before setting out on a long trip. Only then you were looking for uneven tire-wear, a bust' taillight, a sagging muffler, things of that sort. Now she didn't know what she was looking for.

Maybe I'm just putting off seeing her. Maybe that's all it is.

But it wasn't. It was more. And it was important.

She observed her license plate—5761RD, with that stupid loon— and a very faded bumper-sticker, a joke gift from Jodi. It read JESUS LOVES ME, THIS I KNOW, THAT IS WHY I DON'T DRIVE SLOW. Nothing else.

Not good enough, that voice nagged, and then she spied something interesting in the far corner of the parking lot, almost beneath the hedge. An empty green bottle. A beer bottle, she was almost sure. Either the maintenance crew had missed it or hadn't gotten to it yet. Lisey hurried over and picked it up, getting a certain sour agricultural whiff from the neck of the thing. On the label, slightly faded, was a snarling canine. According to the label, this bottle had once held Nordic Wolf Premium Beer. Lisey brought the bottle back to her car and set it on the pavement directly beneath the loon on her license plate.

Cream-colored BMW, not good enough.

Cream-colored BMW sitting in the shadow of an oak tree, still not good enough.

Cream-colored BMW sitting in the shadow of an oak tree with an empty Nordic Wolf beer bottle under Maine Loon license plate 5761RD and slightly to the left of the joke bumpersticker…good enough.

Just barely.

And why?

Lisey didn't give a sweet smuck.

She hurried for the main building.

7

There was no trouble getting in to see Amanda, even though afternoon visiting hours did not officially commence until two, which was still half an hour away. Thanks to Dr. Hugh Alberness—and Scott, of course—Lisey was something of a star at Greenlawn. Ten minutes after giving her name at the main desk (dwarfed by a gigantic New Age-y mural of children with linked hands staring raptly up into the night sky), Lisey was sitting with her sister on the little patio outside Amanda's room, sipping lackluster punch from a Dixie cup and watching a game of croquet on the rolling back lawn for which the place had no doubt been named. Somewhere out of sight, a power-mower blatted monotonously. The duty-nurse had asked Amanda if she wouldn't also like a cup of "bug-juice," and took Amanda's silence for consent. It now sat untouched beside her on the table while Amanda, dressed in a mint-green pajama set and with a matching ribbon in her freshly washed hair, looked blankly off into the distance—not at the croquet players, Lisey thought, but through them. Her hands were clasped in her lap, but Lisey could see the ugly cut that looped around the left one, and the gleam of fresh salve. Lisey had tried three different conversation-openers and Amanda had uttered not so much as a single word in response. Which, according to the nurse, was par for the course. Amanda was currently

incommunicado, not taking messages, out to lunch, on vacation, visiting the asteroid belt. All her life she had been troublesome, but this was a new high, even for her.

And Lisey, who was expecting company in her husband's study only six hours from now, didn't have time for it. She took a sip of her largely flavorless drink, wished for a Coke— verboten here because of the caffeine—and set it aside. She looked around to make sure they were alone, then leaned forward and plucked Amanda's hands out of her lap, trying not to wince at the slimy feel of the salve and the lumpy lines of the healing slashes just beneath. If it hurt Amanda to be held so, she didn't show it. Her face remained a smooth blank, as if she were sleeping with her eyes open.

"Amanda," Lisey said. She tried to make eye-contact with her sister, but it was impossible. "Amanda, listen to me, now. You wanted to help me clean up what Scott left behind, and I need you to help me do that. I need your help."

No answer.

"There's a bad man. A crazy man. He's a little like that sonofabitch Cole in Nashville—a lot like him, actually—only I can't take care of this one on my own. You have to come back from wherever you are and help me."

No answer. Amanda stared out at the croquet players. Through the croquet players. The power-mower blatted. The paper cups of bug-juice sat on a patio table that had no corners, in this place corners were as verboten as caffeine.

"Do you know what I think, Manda-Bunny? I think you're sitting on one of those stone benches with the rest of the gorked-out goners, staring at the pool. I think Scott saw you there on one of his visits and said to himself, 'Oh, a cutter. I recognize cutters when I see em because my Dad was a member of the tribe. Hell, I'm a member of the tribe.' He said to himself, 'There's a lady who's going to take early retirement here, unless somebody puts a spoke in her wheel, so to speak.' Does that sound about right, Manda?"

Nothing.

"I don't know if he foresaw Jim Dooley, but he foresaw you ending up in Greenlawn, just as sure as shite sticks to a blanket. Do you remember how Dandy used to say that sometimes, Manda? Just as sure as shite sticks to a blanket? And when Good Ma yelled at him, he said shite was like drat, shite wasn't swearing. Do you remember?"

More nothing from Amanda. Just a vacant, maddening gape.

Lisey thought of that cold night with Scott in the guest room, when the wind thundered and the sky burned, and put her mouth close to Amanda's ear. "If you can hear me, squeeze my hands," she whispered. "Squeeze just as hard as you can."

She waited and the seconds passed. She had almost given up when there came the faintest twitch. It could have been an involuntary muscle spasm or just imagination, but Lisey didn't think so. She thought that somewhere far away, Amanda heard her sister hollering her name. Hollering her home.

"All right," Lisey said. Her heart was pounding so hard she felt it might choke her. "That's good. That's a start. I'm going to come get you, Amanda. I'm going to bring you home and you're going to help me. Do you hear? You have to help me."

Lisey closed her eyes and once more tightened her grip on Amanda's hands, knowing she might be hurting her sister, not caring. Amanda could complain later, when she had a voice to complain with. If she had a voice to complain with. Ah, but the world was made of if, Scott had told her that once.

Lisey summoned her will and concentration and created the clearest version of the pool she could, seeing the rocky cup in which it lay, seeing the clean white arrowhead of beach with the stone benches stepped above it in mild curves, seeing the break in the rock and the secondary path, something like a throat, that led to the graveyard. She made the water a brilliant blue, sparkling with thousands of sunpoints, she made it the pool at midday, because she'd had her fill of Boo'ya Moon at dusk, thank you very much.

Now, she thought, and waited for the air to turn and the sounds of Greenlawn to fade. For a moment she thought those sounds did fade, then decided that really was her imagination. She opened her eyes and the patio was still rah-cheer, with Amanda's cup of bug-juice on the round table; Amanda remained in her deep catatonic placidity, so much breathing wax within her mint-green pajamas, which closed with Velcro because buttons could be swallowed. Amanda with the matching green ribbon in her hair and the oceans in her eyes.

For a moment Lisey was assailed with terrible doubt. Perhaps the whole thing had been nothing but her madness—all except for Jim Dooley, that was. There were no screwed-up families like the Landons outside of V. C. Andrews novels, and no places like Boo'ya Moon outside of children's fantasy tales. She had been married to a writer who died, that was all. She had saved him once, but when he got sick in Kentucky eight years later there had been nothing she could do, because you couldn't swat a microbe with a shovel, could you?

She began to relax her hold on Amanda's hands, then tightened it again. Every bit of her strong heart and considerable will rose up in protest. No! It was real! Boo'ya Moon is real! I was there in 1979, before I married him, I went there again in 1996, to find him when he needed finding, to bring him home when he needed bringing, and I was there again this morning. All I have to do is compare how my breast felt after Jim Dooley finished with it to what it feels like now, if I start to doubt. The reason I can't go—

"The african," she murmured. "He said the african was holding us there like an anchor, he didn't know why. Are you holding us here, Manda? Is some scared, stubborn part of you holding us here? Holding me here?"

Amanda didn't answer, but Lisey thought that was exactly what was happening. Part of Amanda wanted Lisey to come get her and bring her back, but there was another part that wanted no rescue. That part really did want to be done with all the dirty world and the dirty world's problems. That part would be more than happy to continue taking lunch through a tube, and shooting poop into a diaper, and spending warm afternoons out here on the little patio, wearing pajamas with Velcro closures, staring at the green lawns and the croquet players. And what was Manda really looking at?

The pool.

The pool in the morning, the pool in the afternoon, the pool at sunset and glimmering by starshine and moonlight, with little trails of vapor rising from its surface like dreams of amnesia.

Lisey realized her mouth still tasted sweet, as it usually did only first thing in the morning, and thought: That's from the pool. My prize. My drink. Two sips. One for me and one—

"One for you," she said. All at once the next step was so beautifully clear that she wondered why she had wasted so much time. Still holding Amanda by the hands, Lisey leaned forward so that her face was in front of her sister's. Amanda's eyes remained unfocused and far-seeing beneath her straight-cut, graying bangs, as if she were looking right through Lisey. Only when Lisey slid her arms up to Amanda's elbows, first pinning her in place and then putting her mouth against her sister's mouth, did Amanda's eyes widen in belated

understanding; only then did Amanda struggle, and by then it was too late. Lisey's mouth flooded with sweetness as her last sip from the pool reversed itself. She used her tongue to force Amanda's lips open, and as she felt the second mouthful of water she had drunk from the pool flow from her mouth to her sister's, Lisey saw the pool with a perfect daytime clarity that beggared her previous efforts at concentration and visualization, fierce and driven though they had been. She could smell frangipani and bougainvillea mingled with a deep and somehow sorrowful olive smell that she knew was the daytime aroma of the sweetheart trees. She could feel the packed hot sand beneath her feet, her bare feet because her sneakers hadn't traveled. Her sneakers hadn't but she had, she had made it, she had gotten over, she was

8

She was back in Boo'ya Moon, standing on the warm packed sand of the beach, this time with a bright sun beating down overhead and making not thousands of points of light on the water but what seemed like millions. Because this water was wider. For a moment Lisey looked at it, fascinated, and at the great old hulk of a sailing ship that floated there. And as she looked at it, she suddenly understood something the revenant in Amanda's bed had told her.

What's my prize? Lisey had asked, and the thing—which had somehow seemed to be both Scott and Amanda at the same time— had told her that her prize would be a drink. But when Lisey asked if that meant a Coke or an RC, the thing had said, Be quiet. We want to watch the hollyhocks. Lisey had assumed the thing was talking about flowers. She had forgotten there had been a very different meaning for that word, once upon a time. A magical one.

That ship out there in all that blue and shining water was what Amanda had meant…for that had been Amanda; Scott would almost surely not have known about that wonderful childhood dreamboat.

This was no pool she was looking at; this was a harbor where only one ship rode at anchor, a ship made for brave pirategirls who dared to go seeking treasure (and boyfriends). And their captain? Why, the brave Amanda Debusher, to be sure, for once upon a time, had not yonder sailing ship been Manda's happiest fantasy? Once upon a time before she had become so outwardly angry and so inwardly afraid?

Be quiet. We want to watch the Hollyhocks.

Oh, Amanda, Lisey thought—almost mourned. This was the pool where we all came down to drink, the very cup of imagination, and so of course everyone saw it a little bit differently. This childhood refuge was Amanda's version. The benches were the same, however, which led Lisey to surmise that they, at least, were bedrock reality. Today she saw twenty or thirty people sitting on them, looking dreamily out at the water, and roughly the same number of shrouded forms. In daylight these latter bore a sickening resemblance to insects wrapped in silk by great spiders.

She quickly spied Amanda, a dozen or so benches up. Lisey skirted two of the silent gazers and one of the scary shrouded things in order to reach her. She sat down beside her and once more took Manda's hands, which weren't cut or even scarred over here. And, as Lisey held them, Amanda's fingers closed very slowly but definitely upon hers. A queer certainty came to Lisey then. Amanda didn't need the other sip from the pool Lisey had taken, nor did she need Lisey to coax her down to the water for a healing dip. Amanda did indeed want to come home. A large part of her had been waiting to be rescued like a sleeping princess in a fairy tale…or a brave pirate-girl cast into durance vile. And how many of these other unshrouded ones might be in the same situation? Lisey saw their outwardly calm faces and distant eyes, but that didn't mean some of them weren't screaming on the inside for someone to help them find their way back home.

Lisey, who could only help her sister—maybe—shuddered away from this idea.

"Amanda," she said, "we're going back now, but you have to help."

Nothing at first. Then, very faint, very low, as if spoken out of sleep: "Lee-sey? Did you drink…that shitty punch?"

Lisey laughed in spite of herself. "A little. To be polite. Now look at me."

"I can't. I'm watching the Hollyhocks. I'm going to be a pirate…and sail…" Her voice was fading now. "…the seven seas…treasure…the Cannibal Isles…"

"That was make-believe," Lisey said. She hated the harshness she heard in her own voice; it was a little like drawing a sword to kill an infant that lay placidly on the grass, hurting no one. Because wasn't that what a childhood dream was like? "What you see is just this place's way of catching you. It's just…just a bool."

Surprising her—surprising her and hurting her, Manda said: "Scott told me you'd try to come. That if I ever needed you, you'd try to come."

"When, Manda? When did he tell you that?"

"He loved it here," Amanda said, and fetched a deep sigh. "He called it Boolya Mood, or something like that. He said it was easy to love. Too easy."

"When, Manda, when did he say that?" Lisey wanted to shake her.

Amanda appeared to make a tremendous effort…and smiled. "The last time I cut myself. Scott made me come home. He said…you all wanted me."

Now so much seemed clear to Lisey. Too late to make any difference, of course, but it was still better to know. And why had he never told his wife? Because he knew that little Lisey was terrified of Boo'ya Moon and the things—one thing in particular—that lived here? Yes. Because he sensed she would find out in time for herself? Again, yes.

Amanda had once more turned her attention to the ship floating in the harbor that was her version of Scott's pool. Lisey shook her shoulder. "I need you to help me, Manda. There's a lunatic who wants to hurt me, and I need you to help me put a spoke in his wheel. I need you to help me now!"

Amanda turned to look at Lisey with an almost comical expression of wonder on her face. Below them, a woman wearing a caftan and holding a snapshot of a smiling, gap-toothed child in one hand looked back and spoke in slow, drifting remonstrance. "Be…quiet…while…I think of…why…I…did it."

"Mind your beeswax, Betty," Lisey told her briskly, and then turned back to Amanda. She was relieved to see Amanda was still looking at her.

"Lisey, who…?"

"A crazy man. One who showed up because of Scott's damned papers and manuscripts. Only now what he's interested in is me. He hurt me this morning and he'll hurt me again if I don't…if we don't…" Amanda was turning once more toward the ship riding at anchor in the harbor and Lisey took her head firmly in her hands so they were looking at each other again. "Pay attention, Beanpole."

"Don't call me Bean—"

"Pay attention and I won't. You know my car? My BMW?"

"Yes, but Lisey…"

Amanda's eyes were still trying to drift toward the water. Lisey almost turned her head back again, but some instinct told her that was a quick fix at best. If she really meant to get Amanda out of here, she had to do it with her voice, with her will, and ultimately because Amanda wanted to come.

"Manda, this guy…never mind just hurting, if you don't help me I think there's a chance he might kill me."

Now Amanda looked at her with amazement and perplexity. "Kill— ?"

"Yes. Yes. I promise I'll explain everything, but not here. If we stay here long, I'll end up doing nothing but gawking at the Hollyhocks with you." Nor did she think this was a lie. She could feel the pull of the thing, how it wanted her to look. If she gave in, twenty years might pass like twenty minutes and at the end of them she and big sissa Manda-Bunny would still be sitting here, waiting to board a pirate ship that always beckoned but never sailed.

"Will I have to drink any of that shitty punch? Any of that…" Amanda's brow furrowed as she struggled for memory. Then the lines smoothed out. "Any of that bug-juuuuuice?"

The childish way she drew the word out surprised Lisey into another laugh, and once more the woman wearing the caftan and holding the photograph looked around. Amanda gladdened Lisey's heart by giving the woman a haughty Who you lookin at, bitch? stare…and then flipping her the bird.

"Will I, little Lisey?"

"No more punch, no more bug-juice, I promise. For now, just think of my car. Do you know the color? Are you sure you remember?"

"Cream." Amanda's lips thinned a little and her face took on its Just A Little Home Truth Whether You Like It Or Not expression. Lisey was absolutely delighted to see it. "I told you when you bought it that no color shows the dirt quicker, but you wouldn't listen."

"Do you remember the bumper-sticker?"

"A joke about Jesus, I think. Sooner or later some pissed-off Christian is going to key it off. And probably put a few scratches in your finish for good luck."

From above them came a man's voice, heavily disapproving: "If you need to talk. You should go. Somewhere else."

Lisey didn't even bother turning around, let alone shooting him the bird. "The sticker says JESUS LOVES ME, THIS I KNOW, THAT IS WHY I DON'T DRIVE SLOW. I want you to close your eyes now, Amanda, and see my car. See it from the back, so the bumper-sticker's showing. See it in the shade of a tree. The shade's moving because it's breezy. Can you do that?"

"Ye-e-es…I think so…" Her eyes cut sideways, taking one final longing glance at the ship in the harbor. "I guess so, if it will keep someone from hurting you…although I don't see what it can have to do with Scott. He's been dead over two years now…although…I think he told me something about Good Ma's yellow afghan, and I think he wanted me to tell you. Of course I never did. I forgot so much about those times…on purpose, I suppose."

"What times? What times, Manda?"

Amanda looked at Lisey as though her baby sister were the stupidest thing going. "All the times I cut myself. After the last time—when I cut my belly-button—we were here." Amanda put a finger to her cheek, creating a temporary dimple. "It was something about a story. Your story, Lisey's story. And the afghan. Only he called it the african. Did he say it was a boop? A beep? A boon? Maybe I only dreamed it."

This, coming so unexpectedly out of left field, jolted Lisey but did not derail her. If she was going to get Amanda out of here—and herself—it had to be now. "Never mind all that, Manda, just close your eyes and see my car. Every damn detail you can manage. I'll do the rest."

I hope, she thought, and when she saw Amanda close her eyes, she did the same and gripped her sister's hands tightly. Now she knew why she'd needed to see her car so clearly: so they could return to the visitors' parking lot rather than to Amanda's room in what was your basic locked ward.

She saw her cream BMW (and Amanda was right, that color had been a disaster), then left that part to her sister. She concentrated on adding 5761RD to the license plate, and the pièce de résistance: that Nordic Wolf beer bottle, standing on the asphalt just a bit to the left of the JESUS LOVES ME, THIS I

KNOW bumper-sticker. To Lisey it looked perfect, and yet there was no change in the uniquely perfumed air of this place, and she could still hear a faint rippling sound that she realized must be slack canvas in a slight breeze. There was still the feel of the cool stone bench beneath her, and she felt a touch of panic. What if this time I can't get back?

Then, from what seemed to be a great distance, she heard Amanda murmur in a tone of perfect exasperation: "Oh, booger. I forgot the fucking loon on the license plate."

A moment later, the rippling twack of canvas first merged with the blat of the power-mower, then disappeared. Only now the sound of the mower was distant, because—

Lisey opened her eyes. She and Amanda were standing in the parking lot behind her BMW. Amanda was holding Lisey's hands and her eyes were tightly closed, her brow furrowed in a frown of deep concentration. She was still wearing the mint-green pajamas with the Velcro closures, but now her feet were bare, and Lisey understood that when the duty-nurse next visited the patio where she had left Amanda Debusher and her sister Lisa Landon, she would find two empty chairs, two Dixie cups of bug-juice, one pair of slippers, and one pair of sneakers with the socks still in them.

Then—and then wouldn't be long—the nurse would raise the alarm.

In the distance, back toward Castle Rock and New Hampshire beyond, thunder rumbled. A summer storm was coming.

"Amanda!" Lisey said, and here was a new fear: what if Amanda opened her eyes and there was nothing in them but those same empty oceans?

But Amanda's eyes were perfectly aware, if slightly wild. She looked at the parking lot, the BMW, her sister, then down at herself. "Stop holding my hands so tight, Lisey," she said. "They hurt like hell. Also, I need some clothes. You can see right through these stupid pajamas, and I'm not wearing any underpants, let alone a bra."

"We'll get you some clothes," Lisey said, and then, in a kind of belated panic, she slapped at the right front pocket of her carpenter's pants and let out a sigh of relief. Her wallet was still there. Relief was short-lived, however. Her SmartKey, which she'd put in her left front pocket—she knew she had, she always did—was gone. It hadn't traveled. It was either lying on the patio outside Amanda's room with her sneakers and socks or—

"Lisey!" Amanda cried, clutching her arm.

"What? What!" Lisey wheeled around, but so far as she could tell, they were still alone in the parking lot.

"I'm really awake again!" Amanda cried in a hoarse voice. There were tears standing in her eyes.

"I know it," Lisey said. She couldn't help smiling, even with the missing key to worry about. "It's pretty smucking wonderful."

"I'll get my clothes," Amanda said, and started toward the building. Lisey barely grabbed her arm. For a woman who had been catatonic only minutes ago, big sissa Manda-Bunny was now just as lively as a trout at sundown.

"Never mind your clothes," Lisey said. "You go back in there now and I guarantee you you'll be spending the night. Is that what you want?"

"No!"

"Good, because I need you with me. Unfortunately, we may be reduced to taking the city bus."

Amanda nearly screamed: "You want me to get on a bus looking like a fucking pole-dancer?"

"Amanda, I no longer have my car key. It's either on your patio or one of those benches…do you remember the benches?"

Amanda nodded reluctantly, then said: "Didn't you used to keep a spare key in a magnetic thingamabobby under the back bumper of your Lexus? Which, by the way, was a sane color for a northern climate?"

Lisey barely heard the gibe. Scott had given her the "magnetic thingamabobby" as a birthday present five or six years ago, and when she traded for the Beemer, she had transferred the Beemer's spare key to the little metal box almost without thinking about it. It should still be under the back bumper. Unless it had fallen off. She dropped to one knee, felt around, and just when she was starting to despair, her fingers happened on it, riding as high and snug as ever.

"Amanda, I love you. You're a genius."

"Not at all," Amanda said with as much dignity as a barefoot woman in flimsy green pajamas could manage. "Just your older sister. Now could we get in the car? Because this pavement is very warm, even in the shade."

"You bet," Lisey said, unlocking the car with the spare key. "We have to get out of here, only jeez, I hate to—" She paused, gave a brief laugh, shook her head.

"What?" Amanda asked in that special tone that really demands What now?

"Nothing. Well…I was just remembering something Daddy told me after I got my license. I drove a bunch of kids back from White's Beach one day, and…you remember White's, don't you?" They were in the car now, and Lisey was backing out of the shady space. So far this part of the world was still quiet, and that was the way she wanted to leave it.

Amanda snorted and buckled her seatbelt, doing it carefully because of her wounded hands. "White's! Huh! Nothing but an old gravel pit that happened to have a coldspring in the bottom!" Her look of scorn melted into an expression of longing. "Nothing at all like the sand at Southwind."

"Is that what you called it?" Lisey asked, curious in spite of herself. She stopped at the mouth of the parking lot and waited for a break in traffic so she could make a left onto Minot Avenue and start the journey back to Castle Rock. Traffic was heavy and she had to fight the impulse to make a right instead, just so she could get them away from here.

"Of course," Amanda said, sounding rather put-out with Lisey. "Southwind is where the Hollyhocks always came to pick up supplies. It's also where the pirate-girls got to see their boyfriends. Don't you remember?"

"Sort of," Lisey said, wondering if she would hear an alarm go off behind her when they discovered Amanda was gone. Probably not. Mustn't scare the patients. She saw a small break in traffic and scooted the BMW into it, earning herself a honk from some impatient driver who actually had to slow down five miles an hour to let her in.

Amanda flipped this motorist—almost certainly a man, probably wearing a baseball cap and needing a shave—a double bird, raising her fists to shoulder height and pumping the middle fingers briskly without looking around.

"Great technique," Lisey said. "Someday it'll get you raped and murdered."

Amanda rolled a sly eye in her sister's direction. "Big talk for someone in the soup." Then, with hardly a pause for breath: "What did Dandy tell you when you came back from White's that day? I bet it was foolish, whatever it was."

"He saw me get out of that old Pontiac with no sneakers or sandals on and said it was against the law to drive barefoot in the state of Maine." Lisey glanced briefly, guiltily, down at her toes on the accelerator as she finished saying this.

Amanda made a small, rusty sound. Lisey thought she might be crying, or trying to. Then she realized Amanda was giggling. Lisey began to smile herself, partly because just ahead she saw the Route 202 bypass that would take her around the worst of the city traffic.

"What a fool he was!" Amanda said, getting the words out around further bursts of giggles. "What a sweet old fool! Dandy Dave Debusher! Sugar for brains! Do you know what he once told me?"

"No, what?"

"Spit, if you want to know."

Lisey pushed the button that lowered her window, spat, and wiped her still slightly swollen lower lip with the heel of her hand. "What, Manda?"

"Said if I kissed a boy with my mouth open, I'd get pregnant."

"Bullshit, he never!"

"It's true, and I'll tell you something else."

"What?"

"I'm pretty sure he believed it!"

Then they were both laughing.