Night Journey

3

LATER, LONG AFTER the others were gone and while I was dressing for work, she took me by the arm, swung me around, and looked into my eyes with fierce intensity.

“Melinda?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Can you do something for her, Paul? Really do something for her, or is it all wishful dreaming brought on by what you saw last night?”

I thought of Coffey’s eyes, of Coffey’s hands, and of the hypnotized way I’d gone to him when he’d wanted me. I thought of him holding out his hands for Mr. Jingles’s broken, dying body. While there’s still time, he had said. And the black swirling things that turned white and disappeared.

“I think we might be the only chance she has left,” I said at last.

“Then take it,” she said, buttoning the front of my new fall coat. It had been in the closet since my birthday at the beginning of September, but this was only the third or fourth time I’d actually worn it. “Take it.”

And she practically pushed me out the door.