"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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sistant Professor Roger Dashmiel, aka the southern-fried chickens.h.i.t, 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 gla.s.s 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 ma.s.sing 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 m.u.f.fler, 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 b.u.mper-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 b.u.mpersticker...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 lackl.u.s.ter 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 currentlyincommunicado, 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 c.o.ke- 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 sonofab.i.t.c.h 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. h.e.l.l, 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 s.h.i.te sticks to a blanket. Do you remember how Dandy used to say that sometimes, Manda? Just as sure as s.h.i.te sticks to a blanket? And when Good Ma yelled at him, he said s.h.i.te was like drat, s.h.i.te 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 pa.s.sed. 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 b.u.t.tons could be swallowed. Amanda with the matching green ribbon in her hair and the oceans in her eyes.

For a moment Lisey was a.s.sailed 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 p.o.o.p 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 belatedunderstanding; 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 c.o.ke or an RC, the thing had said, Be quiet. We want to watch the hollyhocks. Lisey had a.s.sumed 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 s.h.i.tty 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 gra.s.s, 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 d.a.m.ned papers and ma.n.u.scripts. 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 pa.s.s 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 s.h.i.tty 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, b.i.t.c.h? stare...and then flipping her the bird.