A sign just outside named it: Tempest.

Robert wept, standing a few paces from the sea. I never knew her, he thought. Not even Daddy knew her. Did she know herself?

He stepped back, thought he'd seen something. The rain came down in great drifts. He peered at the ocean, the rain washing over his face, and thought he saw something disturbing the boiling sea. The water trembled, shook, and near the sh.o.r.e an object broke the surface, then another. And another, until he could see ten of these circular objects, perhaps fifteen. Seconds pa.s.sed, and he tried to make them out, but couldn't. For a moment, he thought they were crowns, heads wearing thick, wet hair. But that couldn't be, so he stepped closer.

But it was true.

The sea receded slowly, washing over these heads; he saw that their number was far greater than he had imagined. There were rows of them; they stretched back to the horizon. The water was draining away, and faces pushed through the surface. All were bearded; thick eyebrows sheathed eyes that appeared hollow and sightless.

The sea continued to slink away and the horizon enlarged, silhouetting the nude bodies, which were either emerging from the water or the water was simply falling away from them. They stood motionless, hands by their sides, faces turned into the rain, each identical to the next, each with their black mouths open. The rain cascaded down their skins. The ocean pooled at their feet now, and Robert backed away. For the first time since he'd arrived, he wondered if he hadn't lost his mind back at Monty's. Could he be sleeping fitfully in an asylum right now? Might men in coats be feeding him anti-psychotics through a drip-tube?

They weren't wearing the T-shirt and the ripped jeans, but they were the same man. All of them. Every one of them was the vagrant he'd seen at school.

He continued to back away, and just then the first rank of these things lifted their feet in eerie unison, took a step forward. He turned, set to sprint down the beach away from this madness, but a black hole gaped where the beach had been. He snapped back, screaming hysterically for the men to get away from him, to move back. Their beards streamed in the rain, and he thought he caught one of them smiling.

That was when he heard it.

A sound flared behind them, a sound somehow separate from the weather. It was like a waterfall, the sound, and Robert snapped to as a stream of water swirled into the sea before the clones. The thing, which looked something like a waterspout, thrashed from the sea to the sky. It twirled in the clouds, but within it he made something out.

"Oh my G.o.d," he whispered.

The spout, twisting and twirling, slowed, began to fall away, to wash over a figure clothed in skin like alabaster. It hung against the sky like a statue, an icon, and he suddenly understood that his mother had finally found him. He couldn't make out her eyes, but the face turned, and he knew she was looking at him. She reached out.

At that moment, everything shifted, went out of focus. All began to vanish, and he yelled out, telling his mother that she had to go, she had to return, and as the earth reappeared all around him, she stretched out her arms and turned her face up to the heavens.

Part Four: Coming Home.

"And what about that world that I glimpsed, that I almost entered? I think about it often."

The Ignored, Bentley Little.

Chapter Twenty-Six: The River's Edge.

1.

Robert stood in a dark and musty room. The noise of the ocean and the vision of his mother was gone. All was quiet now.

The room was black but for a halo of light a few feet away. He inched forward. Approaching the light, he saw that it reached up a staircase. I came back where I left, he thought, feeling his sense of things realign.

He stopped at the top of the stairs, thought of the cliff overlooking the beach. Now back, he was uncertain of his experience. Could he have been hypnotized? Was it at least possible? He knew it was, and the more he thought about it the more likely it seemed. Perhaps he'd spoken of the dream during hypnosis, and Monty the Wonderful f.u.c.king Wizard had seized on it.

He started down the stairs, and as he neared the bottom he heard nothing. The place was silent. As he moved around the banister he saw bare walls and floors. No furniture, no bookshelves. The house seemed abandoned. His heart boomed, and he suddenly felt as if he hadn't returned at all, but had made yet another leap across time and s.p.a.ce. The home was barren, dusty, and he started thinking about the night he had lost several hours. What if he had returned to where he had left, only later? Or much, much earlier. He started for the door, then paused. His heart trip hammered, and he chilled.

"s.h.i.t," he said, thinking of Mary and his daughter, both of whom hadn't known where he was headed. h.e.l.l, he hadn't known before arriving at Dan's . . . yesterday? Could it be yesterday? The day before? A few hours ago?

If it had been a single day Mary and Jenn would have been sick with worry. What would Mary have done? "She would have called her parents for help," he told himself, his hand on the door. Then he looked down. "Oh, for G.o.d's sake," he said.

He was nude.

Robert searched the place for clothes, but found none. The only object in the home was the chair in which he'd spent the last few hours (he hoped).

Now, he stood in the middle of the bare living room, wondering how he would escape this place without a st.i.tch of fabric on. After a while, he figured there was nothing to do but leave. He might be arrested, but it didn't really matter now. He had to check on his daughter, a.s.sure her that she had not lost both parents. And that's when he noticed that he was no longer gaunt, and that since he'd returned he'd felt none of the customary pain. He slapped a hand on his thigh: solid again. He reached under his chin, along his neck: his lymph nodes had returned to normal.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned," he said.

He crossed the room, turned the doork.n.o.b, and flung open the door. He gasped. What had been a white fence was a drab gray. The paint was flaking off. Below this, the gra.s.s was brown and withered; weeds shot up. Piles of sand signified ant hills run riot. The road beyond appeared desolate. He peeked out from under the roof, found the sun, figured the time of day around mid-afternoon. It was hard to tell in Florida sometimes.

Utterly confused, he left the house, strolled down the path between the fences, which now showed significant termite damage, and kept on, looking both ways once he reached the main road. He turned left and headed toward the Straights, a naked man wandering through a dead town.

He'd been walking for a couple of hours before anyone saw him. Ca.s.sadaga had proved a ghost town, and though it lay more than an hour behind him, he couldn't stop thinking about it. He didn't trust his senses, wasn't certain if he was awake or dreaming. Or still hypnotized.

Other than the severe time lapse, nothing he came up with justified the town's drastic change. Unless- He shuddered, recalling the desolate and dead world of The Stand. He hoped it was only Ca.s.sadaga that had dried up.

He had taken a side road out of the town, a deeply rutted two-laner lined on either side by trees. The day was overcast.

Suddenly, he heard a shriek. It came from behind him. He jumped, whirled around.

An elderly woman faced him. She was holding onto a leash. At her side, a tiny mutt strained against its leash, yapping. "Oh," she said, placing a hand over her mouth. "You scared me."

He glanced down, felt his skin grow warm, his face redden. "I swear, ma'am, I'm not just strolling around in the buff for fun." He noticed he had his hands out, as if for protection.

The woman averted her eyes. Quietly, she began to laugh. "Don't have to apologize to me, young man." She shook with silent laughter.

"You wouldn't happen to know where I might find some-"

"There's a trail to my place through here," she said, waving a hand in the direction of the tree line. She stood, yanked on the yipping mutt's leash and left the road, and headed off in the indicated direction. She yelled for him to follow.

In seconds, he found himself cut and sc.r.a.ped by bushes, running through Spanish moss and low-hanging twigs. He tried to bat it all out of his way, which only served to allow his forearms to take the cuts. The lady was wearing a red blouse, and he found it far ahead. Her speed belied her age.

When he caught up to her he saw a trailer squatting on cinder blocks. The old woman climbed the steps surely and held open the door.

"I'd tell you it was cool in here, but I'm not sure you, uh. . ." She broke into a bout of roaring laughter this time, making no effort to conceal her glee. She laughed so hard tears sprang to her eyes and streamed down her withered cheeks.

He was about to ask her what was so funny (other than the obvious) when he felt a weight around his waist. Looking down, he saw the joke: A clump of Spanish moss hung from his genitals like pubic hair growing like weeds. He was embarra.s.sed only briefly, then joined the woman. He dropped his face into his hands and shook with laughter.

They were both crying and red-faced, when he followed her up the steps.

"I'm Louise," she said, disappearing down the hall. "And that's Patty."

Patty was licking Robert's dirty bare feet. The dog lapped at his toes, then looked up at him appreciatively.

"Tasty, eh?" Robert said.

"What's that?" called Louise. He heard hangers clattering around.

"Nothing!" he yelled back, his eyes still on the mutt, who was just finishing up. The dog lapped a paw on top of his foot, then turned tail, and hopped up on the love seat against the wall. On the coffee table beside it, a photograph of an old but handsome man was propped up on a Bible.

"And that's Joseph," said Louise, reappearing in the living room holding three hangers. "These are his. I think they'll fit."

"Joseph won't mind?" He stood with hands cupped over his genitals. Louise was pretending not to notice, but her mouth was twitching mischievously.

"I doubt it," she said, in a way that told him all he needed to know about Joseph.

"Okay," he said, nodded and took the hangers.

"I'll give you a minute," she said, turning.

He was on his way in less than an hour. Louise hadn't a clue about what had happened in Ca.s.sadaga "There was an article about the disappearances in the local rag, sure, but I think they all just left. A sign in the stars or something. It's been some while." After this offering, Robert found he had little to say. He thanked her again for the clothes and hospitality, a.s.sured her that he didn't have far to go, and left.

He was nearing downtown Simola Straight by nightfall. He slowed, crossed the street toward the river, and stopped when he found the moon. It glistened on the water, wavered, its solidity breaking and coalescing. The wind rustled his hair. It was beautiful, all of it; he took it in slowly, staying for a while, listening to cars pa.s.s behind him and the river's life before him.

When he finally moved on, he trolled the waterfront until he found The House of Socrates. As usual, it was the only thing lit after dark. They roll the sidewalks up at night, he thought, glad he'd come here first. Dan would know how long he'd been gone, and what had destroyed Ca.s.sadaga.

He grabbed the door's handle, pulled it and strolled in. "h.e.l.lo?" he called out, and a voice he recognized yelled back.

Dan stood up in the Books Written While Their Authors Were Either Drugged, High, or Highly Depressed aisle. He scratched his belly, chuckled, and cracked a grin. "Wondering when you might get back."

"Get back? Do you even know where I went?"

Dan strolled around his bookshelves, opened his arms and embraced him. "I have an idea." He let go and stepped back, his smile kind, his eyes caring. "You have questions."

Robert nodded.

Dan turned him around, pointed him in the direction of the door. "It's a nice evening out," he said, and they went outside. He waited approximately half a second before lighting up.

"Still got the habit, eh?"

"Hope you have better questions than that," said Dan, dragging heavily on his Camel.

Robert sighed, looked at the sky, thought of the purple and orange clouds in that other world. "Where was I?"

Smoke plumed from Dan's mouth and nostrils. "I don't know," he answered. "None of us know where or when any of those places are. Alternate dimensions, mirror worlds, types of purgatory or in-between places. Doesn't matter what you call them. They certainly don't care. All I know is this: When a door is opened, things can get out as well as in, and I've come into contact with some of those things." Dan looked over, and for the first time Robert could remember, he saw fear in the man's eyes. "They hunt you."

"I'll keep an eye out," said Robert, wanting to move on, but then he remembered the rows and lines of man-things rising from the sea, and how he'd seen them here. He shook his head, hoped they hadn't followed, and continued. "If Sarah was my mother, what does that make me?"

Dan looked over, smiling. "One of us, Robert. One of us."

"And what is that?" He stopped. "Wait. What? You?"

Dan nodded, not without some pride. "G.o.d's first clay. Methusulah was one of us. So was Noah. We're what He made before the Garden. We're just different. A little blessed, a little cursed. Your mother handled it the best she could.

"What about Greer?"

Dan leaned back, took a long, appreciative drag, then said, "A good man, a good son."

Robert stiffened. Had he heard Daniel right? A good son? Montague had appeared ancient, but Daniel did not. Just how old was he? He considered asking, but thought better of it. "What happened to Ca.s.sadaga?"

Dan tossed his cigarette into the air, it spiraled and sparks trailed after it, flittering against the night sky, the orange bulge of the moon. Then, at the apogee of its course, it winked into nothingness without a sound. Robert gaped.

Dan rose. "That you'll have to discover for yourself," he said. He turned his back.

Robert stared, understanding the gesture to be symbolic. There would be no more talk. "One more question."

Daniel lifted his head, wearily antic.i.p.ating.

"How long have I been gone?"

Slowly, his friend turned. "It's been-" he began, then took a deep breath before finishing. "It's been seven years."

Seven years. Seven years?

His heart was beating wildly, he felt woozy and faint and terrified for his daughter. Seven years. Where was she?

You've got to calm down, he told himself, taking a deep breath. You've got to think this through.

He was nearly to the hotel when he realized he hadn't a dime on him. They weren't even his clothes. He rifled through the pockets, and stopped cold when he felt it. He pulled out the wad, thinking of Louise. She'd given him her dead husband's clothes, and in these garments she'd secreted a wad of bills. She'd known he wouldn't accept them. He turned his face to the heavens, nearly felt his grip on things loosen for good, but knew that somewhere out there, he hoped to G.o.d, a teenage girl missed her father. She would be angry, mad as h.e.l.l, but if mercy existed she would also be healthy.

He began counting the bills under a street light. When his count pa.s.sed one hundred, he stopped for a moment, sighed, then continued.

Louise had gifted him well over two hundred dollars.

He checked in, tried to sleep, but ended up pacing most of the night, running it all through his mind again and again, refocusing on certain things he'd seen, on people's behavior, searching for a clue as to his present situation, the missing time, his sudden health, the disappearance of his daughter. And Mary. He had left Jenn with Mary. G.o.d, what would she have thought? That the little girl's dad had just up and bolted? Right after the death of his wife? And what would she have done with his little girl? Jesus, what would I have done, in her shoes?

Around four in the morning Robert decided to visit her father, George, at the bank, hoping against all hopes that he still worked there, and with that settled he sat on the bed. His eyes began to get heavy. He leaned back, told himself he could think just as well here, and thought of nothing else for hours.