For a moment no one said anything. The three of us simply looked at those blossoms opening and closing, their scarlet interiors winking. The soft, toothless whispering sound made me feel like clapping my hands over my ears. It was almost words, you see. Almost real talk.

Ah, f.u.c.k. Scratch that. It was real talk.

"Tongues?" Roger asked at last.

"They're widow's tongue," Tina Barfield replied. "Known in some European countries as witch's tongue or crone bane. Do you know what they're talking about, Mr. Kenton?"

"About us," I said. "Can we get out of here? I'm feeling sort of faint."

"Actually, I am too," Roger said.

"Leaving would be wise." She swept her arm around, as if to encompa.s.s that whole world of dank plants and powerful smells. "This is a thin place, always has been. Now it's thinner than ever. Quite dangerous, in fact. But you needed to see it in order to understand. The Dark Powers have been loosed. The fact that it was a brainless a.s.shole like Carlos who loosed them makes no difference. He'll pay, of course. Meanwhile, it's unwise to tempt certain forces too far. Come on, boys."

I didn't like being called her boy, but I was willing enough to follow her, believe me. She lead us back quickly and with no hesitation. Once I clearly saw an earth-clotted root come snaking out of the foliage at the left side of THERE Street and slither around her shoe. She gave her foot an impatient jerk, snapping the root without even looking down. And all the time we could hear that low, whispering, smacking sound behind us. Tongues, wagging.

I looked down for the crumpled b.a.l.l.s of paper I'd dropped, but they were gone. Something had grabbed them just as the root had grabbed Tina Barfield's shoe and whisked my markers away into the undergrowth.

I wasn't surprised. At that point if John F. Kennedy had come strolling out of the bushes arm-in-arm with Adolf Hitler, I don't think I would have been surprised.

My espresso's gone. I promised myself I'd stay away from the booze tonight, but I've got a bottle of Scotch out in the kitchen and I need a little, after all. Right now. For medicinal purposes. If it does nothing else, perhaps it'll stop the shaking in my hands. I'd like to finish this before midnight.

(later) There. Given the restorative powers of Dewers, I will finish by midnight. And there's no prolixity here, believe me. I'm writing as fast as I can, sticking to what feels like the absolute essentials...and writing it down feels oddly good, like recapturing some emotion you thought was gone forever. I'm still reeling from the events of the day, and there is a sense of having been torn free of a thousand things I always took for granted-a whole way of thinking and perceiving-but there's also an undeniable exhilaration. If nothing else, there's this to be grateful for: the thought of Ruth Tanaka has hardly crossed my mind. Tonight when I think of Ruth, she seems very small, like a person glimpsed through the wrong end of a telescope. That, I find, is a relief.

We were back in the office area in no time at all, following closely on Tina Barfield's heels. It felt warm in the office area after coming in from outside, but after returning from the greenhouse the office felt positively frigid. Roger slipped back into his overcoat, and I did the same.

The old man was sitting exactly where he had been, only with the paper once more raised in front of his face. Barfield lead us past him (I crabbed by in a kind of sideways scuttle, remembering that horror movie where the hand suddenly shoots out the grave and grabs one of the teenagers) and into a smaller office.

This room contained a desk, one metal folding chair, and a bulletin board. The top of the desk was empty except for a jar-top with a couple of mashed-out cigarette b.u.t.ts in it and an IN/OUT basket with nothing in either tray. The bulletin board was empty except for a little cl.u.s.ter of thumbtacks in the lower corner. There were a few picture-hooks spotted around, each located in a vaguely brighter square of cream-colored wallpaper. Sitting by the door were three smart suitcases of the same cranberry shade as the woman's suit, but I hardly needed to look at them to know that Tina Barfield was not long for the House of Flowers...or Central Falls, for the mater. I guess there's just something about old "p.o.o.p-s.h.i.t" Kenton that makes people want to put on their boogie shoes and get out of town. This is a trend that began with Ruth, now that I think of it.

Barfield sat down in the chair beside the desk and rummaged in the pocket of her jacket for her cigarettes. "I'd ask you boys to sit down," she said, "but as you can see, seating accommos are limited." As she tapped a cigarette out of the pack, she looked critically at Roger. "You look like s.h.i.t, Mr...I didn't catch your name."

"Roger Wade. I feel like s.h.i.t."

"Not really going to pa.s.s out, are you?"

"I don't think so. Could I have one of your cigarettes?"

She considered it, then held the pack out. Roger took one with a hand that was far from steady. She offered the pack to me. I started to decline it, then took one. I smoked like a chimney in college-it seemed to be the thing to do if you were creative, like growing your hair long and wearing jeans-but not since then. This seemed to be a good time to start again. As H.P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon might put it, When Tongues wag, behold, the lapsed smoker will return to his evil ways; even unto three packs a day will he return. And while I'm on this subject, I might as well confess that double espresso wasn't all I got at the little Korean deli around the corner; I scored a pack of Camels, as well. The unfiltered ones. Do not pa.s.s Go, do not collect two hundred dollars, go directly to Lung Cancer.

Carlos's former boss eased a book of matches from under the cigarettepack cellophane, struck one, then lit John's cigarette and my own. That done, she shook the match out, dropped it in the jar-top, scratched another, and lit her own cigarette.

"Never three on a match," she said. "Bad luck. Especially when you're travelling. When you're travelling, boys, you need all the luck you can get."

I took a deep drag, expecting my head to swim. It didn't. I didn't even cough. It was as if I had never been away. That may say everything that needs to be said about my state of mind and emotion.

"Where are you going?" Roger asked her.

She looked at him coolly. "You don't need to know that, my friend. What you do need to know I can tell you in five minutes or so. Which is good." She glanced at her watch. "It's quarter past one right now-"

Startled, I looked at my own watch. She was right. Only an hour since we'd stepped off The Pilgrim. A lot had happened since then. We were older and wiser men. Also more frightened men.

"-and I told the cab company to have someone here promptly at onethirty. When that horn blows, boys, the conference is over."

"You're a witch, aren't you?" I said. "You're a witch, Carlos is a warlock, and there really is some sort of coven at work in Central Falls. This is like..." But the only thing I could think of was Rosemary's Baby, and that sounded stupid.

She waved her hand impatiently, leaving a trail of blue-gray smoke behind. "We're not going to waste our time bandying words, are we? That'd be primo stupid. If you want to call me a witch, fine, yeah, I'm a witch. And if you want to call a bunch of people who mostly got together to use the Ouija board and eat deviled ham sandwiches a coven, be my guest. But don't make the mistake of calling Carlos a warlock. Carlos is an idiot. But he's a dangerous idiot. A powerful idiot. Luckily for you boys, he's also a kind of golden goose. Or could be. Carlos is like some of the stuff out there in the greenhouse. Foxglove, for instance. You eat it in the woods, it can stop your heart like a cheap pocket-watch. But if you process it and inject it-"

"Presto, digitalis," Roger said.

"Give that boy the kewpie-doll," she said, nodding. "I don't have time to give you fellas a complete history of the Dark Arts and Powers, and wouldn't even if I did have time. Except for geeks and dweebs, it's as boring as anything else. Besides, you wouldn't believe the half of it."

"After what we saw in there, I'd believe anything," Roger muttered.She puffed her cigarette, flared her nostrils, and blew out twin jets of smoke. "Bolsheveky! People always say stuff like that, but it ain't true. Ain't true a minute. Take it from me, big boy, you wouldn't believe the half of it. But you believe enough right now, maybe, to pay attention to what I'm telling you. Which is why I brought you here, okay?"

She mashed her cigarette out in the jar-top and peered at us through the rising smoke.

"Lesson one, chilluns: whatever Carlos told you, take it as the literal truth. He's too dumb to lie. Whatever you saw in those pictures he sent you, take that as the literal truth, too. As for the plant he sent...use it! Why the f.u.c.k not? You should have something out of this, if only for the inconvenience he's caused you. Use it, be careful of it, and don't let it get grow too far. Ouija says SAFE-I asked-so you're okay for now. There'll be bloodshed, that's unavoidable, but unless they have help, the dark forces can only take their own. As long as your new houseplant doesn't get any innocent blood, everything is jake...in the short run, at least. Ouija says SAFE. Of course if you play tag around the buzz-saw too long, sooner or later someone is gonna get cut. Just a fact of life. Point is this: when you've got what you need, give that plant a nice DDT shower. Don't be greedy. Adios ivy. Adios Carlos."

"There is no plant," I said. "I mean, he wrote me a letter promising to send one, but he used a rather pitiful alias which I saw through at once. I sent Riddley, he's our mail-room guy, a memo telling him to dump it down the incinerator, if it came. So far as I know, it never did."

"It came," Roger said quietly.

"It did? When? It must have been after Riddley left for his mother's fu-"

"Nope," Roger said. "It came before. Riddley's got it set up in its own little pot, which it has almost entirely outgrown. d.a.m.n thing's growing like a weed." He glanced at Tina Barfield. "If you'll pardon the term."

"Why not? It is a weed. A rather special form of ivy imported from... well, from another place. Let's leave it at that, boys, what do you say?"

"In the interest of speedy discourse, I guess b.u.t.twheat say otay," Roger replied, and I gave a hearty, surprised guffaw of laughter. A moment or two later, Tina Barfield joined in. It didn't make us friends, good G.o.d no, but it eased the atmosphere a little bit. Restored a sense of rationality, no matter how false that sense might have been.

Roger turned to me, looking slightly apologetic. "That was what I was going to show you this morning," he said. "The plant in Riddley's cubicle. I got curious about Herb and Sandra's memos...the good smells they reported coming from in there...and I walked down to take a look. I-"

"Maybe you boys could catch up on all that stuff going back to New York on the Metropolitan," Barfield said. "I'm sure it will make the miles just fly by. Myself, I could care less. And tempus continues to fugit. Anyone want to freebase a little more nicotine?"

We both took a cigarette; so did she. There followed the ritual of the two matches.

"How'd you know we're going back on the train?" I asked her. "OUIJA?"

"I read those Windhover books," she said, apparently apropos nothing. "Romance is okay, but what I really like is the rough s.e.x." She surveyed us with gleaming eyes, perhaps trying to decide if either of us might be capable of rough s.e.x. "Anyway, I don't need the Ouija board to know a couple of guys working for the company that publishes those probably wouldn't be flying."

"Thanks a pantload, sweetheart," Roger said. He didn't sound amused; he sounded genuinely angry.

"What I want to know," I said, "is why you're giving us all this help."

"Good point," Roger said. "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts and all that. If anything, you should be p.i.s.sed at us. After all..." He looked around the bare office. "...it looks like all of this has kind of changed your lifestyle."

"Yep," she agreed, and showed two rows of tiny but sharp-looking teeth in a smile. "Let me out of jail, that's what you did. What I'm trying to do is to thank you. Also to try and make myself safe from Carlos. Whose obituary you'll soon be reading, by the way. I'm surprised he's not dead already. He's stepped out of the protective circle. There are things out there-" She jabbed her cigarette toward the greenhouse... also, I suspect, to some horrible place beyond it. "-and they're all hungry. When Carlos sent you those pictures, and his idiotic ma.n.u.script, and finally the plant, he opened himself up to those things. But dead or alive, he can still get me. Unless, that is, I do a genuine Good Turn." I clearly heard the capital letters in her voice. So did Roger; I asked him later. "Which I'm trying to do."

She glanced at her watch again.

"Listen to me, boys, and don't ask questions. Carlos's power came to him from his mother, who wasn't an idiot...except in her blind love for her son, which finally got her killed. Since 1977, when that happened, the group here-the coven, if you like, although we never called ourselves that-has been in Carlos Detweiller's power. There's a story by a man named Jerome Bixby called 'It's a Good Life.' Read it. The situation in that story was our situation. Carlos killed his mother-by accident, I'm almost sure, but he killed her, all right. He killed Don, my husband, and that was no accident. Neither was what happened to Herb Hagstrom. Herb was supposedly Carlos's best friend, but he crossed him and there was a car accident. Herb was decapitated."

Roger winced. I could feel my face doing the same thing.

"The rest of us survived by kowtowing to Carlos...going along with his so-called sacred seances, although they were more and more dangerous...and we survived. But survival isn't the same thing as living, boys. Never was, never will be."

"The old fellow out there doesn't look like he's even surviving," Roger said. "Norville," she agreed. "Carlos's last victim. Sounds like something out of the books you publish, don't it? He had the living heart torn right out of his chest, and do you know why? Do you know what his biggest sin against Carlos was? Norv had a little wine one night-this was around the turn of the year-and beat Carlos three times running at Crazy Eights. Carlos likes to win at Crazy Eights. He...took offense."

"Mr. Keen's really dead," I murmured. I mean, I knew he was, I think I knew it from the instant he lowered his newspaper and looked at us with those awful dusty eyes, but rationality dies hard. At least in the daytime. Now, after five hours at this Olivetti, I find I have no trouble believing it at all. When the sun comes up again that may change, but as for now I have no trouble whatsoever believing it.

"He's undead," she corrected. "He's a zombie. What's keeping him at least partly alive is my psychic force. When I'm gone, he'll fall over. Not that he'll know or care, G.o.d bless him."

"And the plants in the greenhouse?" Roger asked. "What about them?"

"Rhode Island Electric will eventually turn off the electricity for nonpayment. When the lights go, the heat goes. Everything out there will die, and good riddance. I'm tired of selling magic mushrooms to a bunch of bikers and aging hippes, anyway. f.u.c.k them and the pink horses they ride in on."

From outside came the long blat of a horn. Tina Barfield got up immediately, briskly b.u.t.ting the remains of her cigarette in the jar-top.

"I'm off!" she said. "The wide open s.p.a.ces await. Just call me Buckaroo Banzai."

"You can't go yet!" Roger said. "We have questions-"

"Yeah-yeah-right-right," she said. "If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear it, does it make any noise? If G.o.d made the world, who made G.o.d? Did John Kennedy really f.u.c.k Marilyn Monroe? Help me with my bags and maybe you'll get a few more answers."

I took one and Roger took two. Tina Barfield opened the door and swept out into the office. Norville Keen, the Undead Florist of Central Falls, had lowered his newspaper again and was staring straight ahead. No, his chest wasn't moving. Not at all. Looking at him hurt my mind in some deep place that has never been hurt before today, at least that I can remember.

"Norv," she said, and when he didn't look at her she said something short and gutteral. Uhlahg! is what it sounded like. Whatever it was, it worked. He stared around. "Open your shirt, Norv."

"No," Roger said uneasily. "That's okay, we don't need to-""I think you do," she said. "Going back on the train, your normal way of thinking is going to rea.s.sert itself and you'll start doubting everything I just told you. This, though...this'll stick to your ribs." Then, even more sharply: "Uhlahg!"

Mr. Keen unb.u.t.toned his shirt, slowly but steadily. He pulled it open, exposing his gray tideless chest. Running down the center of it was a horrifying bloodless wound like a long vertical mouth. In it we could see the gray and bony bar of his sternum.

Roger turned away, one hand raised to his mouth. From behind it came a dry coughing sound. As for me, I just looked. And believed everything.

"b.u.t.ton up," Tina Barfield said, and Norville Keen began to comply, his long fingers moving just as slowly as they had before. The woman turned to Roger and said, with just a hint of malicious humor in her curiosity: "Now you're going to pa.s.s out, yeah?"

Very slowly, Roger straightened up. He dropped his hand from his mouth. His face was white but composed. There was no tremble to his lips. I was proud of him just then. I had been stunned beyond such a reaction, you see; Roger hadn't been, but had managed to hold onto his coffee and bagel just the same.

"I'm not," he said, "but thank you for your concern." He paused, then added: "b.i.t.c.h."

"The b.i.t.c.h is trying to be your fairy G.o.dmother," she said. "Can you carry those, chum?"

Roger picked up the two suitcases, then staggered. I took one of them and he gave me a grateful, sickish smile. We followed her onto the porch. The air was damp and chilly-no more than forty-five degrees-but I never tasted air that was sweeter. I took great breaths of it, smelling only the usual odors of industrial pollution. After the greenhouse, a few hydrocarbons smelled wonderful. At the curb, a Red Top Cab was idling.

"Just a couple of other things," Barfield said. She was every bit as sharp and pointed as a big executive-Sherwyn Redbone himself, perhaps-clos ing a business deal. As she talked she made her way first down the saltstained steps and then along the cracked concrete path. "First, when you hear Carlos is dead, go on behaving as if he's alive...because for awhile he will be. As a tulpa."

"Like the one that infested Richard Nixon," I said.

"Right, right-" She stopped at the head of the three steps leading down to the sidewalk and looked at me very sharply indeed. "How'd you know about that?" And before I could answer, she answered herself. "Carlos, of course. When he was alive, Norv used to tell him, 'Carlos, you'll talk yourself dead if you don't watch out.' Which is d.a.m.ned near what he's done.

"Anyway, Carlos won't hang around long; he won't be able to. Two months, maybe three at the outside. Because he's stupid. Brains tell, even on the Other Side."

Once again I heard the capitals. She went down the steps to the sidewalk. The cab driver got out and opened his trunk. We stowed the bags inside next to several boxed VCRs that looked, to my admittedly inexperienced eye, as if they might have been stolen.

"Pop back into the car, big boy," Tina told the cabbie. "I'll be with you shortly."

"Time's money, lady."

"No," she said, "time ain't nothin but time. Still, drop your flag if it makes you feel better."

The cabbie retired to the driver's seat of the Red Top. Tina turned once more to us-a neat little woman, small but broad in the hip and shoulder, dressed in her best travelling suit and her smart suede beret.

"Treat him like he's still alive," she said. "As for the plant, it will soon begin its work-"

"It's already begun it," I said, because now I understood a lot. I hadn't even seen it, but I understood a lot. Herb gets a whiff of it and thinks up The Devil's General. Sandra gets a whiff and comes up with the idea for a book of scabrous jokes.

Barfield c.o.c.ked one carefully plucked eyebrow at me. "Like the man said, 'Son, you ain't seen nothing yet.' It needs blood to really get rolling, but don't worry. The blood it will draw is the blood of evil or the blood of insanity. Unlike our f.u.c.ked-up courts, the powers of darkness don't distinguish between the two. And any innocent blood it drinks can only come from you guys. So don't give it any."

"What do you take us for?" Roger asked.

She gave him a cynical look but said nothing...on that subject, at least. Instead, she turned back to me.

"It's going to grow like a sonofab.i.t.c.h. And it's going to grow everywhere, but no one will see it except for those who are already in its circle. To anyone else, it'll look like nothing but an innocent little ivy in a pot, not very healthy. You have to keep people away from it. If you have a reception area, rub garlic all over the door between there and the editorial offices. That should keep the d.a.m.n thing where it belongs. People who want to go further into your offices than the reception area should be discouraged. Unless you don't like 'em, of course; in that case invite 'em in and give 'em a beer."

"An invisible plant," Roger said. He seemed to be tasting it.

"An invisible psychic plant," I said, thinking of General Hecksler.

"Right on both counts," she said. "And now, boys, I'm going to put an egg in my shoe and beat it. Have a nice day, have a nice life and...oh, almost forgot." She turned to me again. "OUIJA says stop wasting your time. The one you're looking for is in the purple box on the bottom shelf. Way in the corner. Okay? Got it?"

She was around to the back door of the cab and opening it before either of us could say anything else. I don't know about Roger, but I felt as if I had at least a thousand questions. I just didn't know what any of them were.

She turned back one final time. "Listen, boys. Don't f.u.c.k around with that thing. When you've got enough, kill it. And be careful. It can read minds. When you come for it, it'll know."

"How in G.o.d's name are we supposed to know when we've got enough?" I blurted. "That's not exactly something people are good at figuring out for themselves."

"Good question," she said. "I respect you for asking it. And you know what? I may actually have an answer for you. OUIJA says LISTEN RIDDLEY. That's Riddley with two d's. Maybe the spelling's a mistake, but the board rarely-"

"It's not a mistake," I said, "he's-"

"Riddley's the janitor, Ms. Barfield," Roger finished.

"I told you I hate that politically correct s.h.i.t," she told him. "Don't you listen?" And then she was into the cab. She poked her head out the window and said, "I don't care if he's the janitor or Chester the Molester. When he tells you it's time to quit, you boys do yourselves a big favor and quit." Her head drew back inside. A moment later she was out of our lives. At least I think she is.