"We don't mind. The old place is a headache. It's given Victor ulcers. Unencumbered, one . . . swims more freely."

Noreen rose. "I've got to get back. It's been lovely seeing you again. Your husband-"

"Any day," Rachel said quickly.

"How nice." Noreen smiled at Rachel. "How very nice."

"Would you take these with you?" Rachel put some of her homemade brownies on a plate and covered them with a gingham napkin. "And please give one to Annie. She keeps promising me she'll come by but-"

"I'll see that she does." Noreen accepted the plate. "Goodbye, dear Rachel."

They touched cheeks; they were that close. Rachel was tempted to confess the creation of Mr. Unger but just couldn't bring herself to do it. It was too ridiculous.

And besides, she was afraid she'd blurt out the rest: the wet sheets and the baths and the sleepwalking; and the trill of the harp and the sussuration of the sea that had begun to whoosh through the walls late at night; inside the walls- "I hope you'll come down to the hotel for a meal or some coffee. As a friend, of course. With us."

"Thank you, I will. Soon," Rachel replied, but realized as she spoke that she never wanted to step foot in the SeaHarp again.

But she had no idea why.

Gradually, neighbors introduced themselves and Rachel in-vited them in to view the restored mansion. The first few offered compliments and praise, though they seemed ill at ease about something. It was Barbara Parker, whose Queen Anne towered three blocks away on Sentinel, who wrinkled her nose and said, "But, Rachel! You must have terrible problems with mildew! That smell."For some reason, Rachel felt a pang of fear. Safe in her pocket, she slipped her ring around her thumb and worried the black stone as she cocked her head and said, "Smell?"

"Don't tell me you don't notice it!" Barbara began open-ing cupboards in the kitchen. "Nope, not in here. You've got a dandy case of mildew somewhere."

She opened the coat closet. "Well, for heaven's sake!"

Harry Simpson's lonely raincoat hung like a slimy piece of decomposed seaweed. Both women stepped away from the odor and Rachel clung more fiercely to her ring.

"I'd think you'd want to toss that out," Barbara said.

Rachel was seconds away from screaming that she had. Instead, she swallowed and shook her head.

"I can't imagine why the workmen didn't."

But she had; she'd done it herself. What, had she gone and dug it back up?

She shook her head. Of course she hadn't dug it up. She'd never buried it. Just laid it on top of the piles of rotted wood for the men to cart away.

Barbara Parker didn't stay long after that. She told Rachel to get some Simple Green-"get rid of that in no time"- and invited her to dinner.

Then she was gone.

The next time, it was Rachel who noticed the smell. She was sitting at the kitchen table balancing her checkbook.

There was a noise- "Ssh, Maxie," she said without thinking.

And then a thick odor pervaded the room, all at once. A sharp, tangy, salt smell that curled under her nose, making her jump up and cry out.

Then a light tapping on the front door.

"Just a minute!" she cried. She searched the kitchen quickly to see what on earth could be making such a terrible stink; finding nothing, she walked to the door and opened it.

Annie stood on the threshold, looking solemn. She was dressed in a pair of baggy jeans and a teal sweater. Her hair was braided down her back.

"I've come." She hesitated on the threshold as if trying to peer around Rachel.

Rachel smiled kindly and opened the door wide. "Well, come in. I've been hoping to see you."

Annie glanced at her, then lowered her gaze to the floor.

"I just made some cookies." Rachel led the way into the kitchen. "Did Noreen . . . Miss Montgomery give you some of the brownies I sent?"

Annie nodded. She sat in the chair Rachel offered, took a cursory look at the opened bank book, and folded her hands on the table. "Thanks," she said belatedly. "They were good."

Rachel bustled around, pouring tea and arranging cookies on a plate. She hadn't seen anyone in four days, except when she went to the market for the Simple Green. The people in Greystone Bay were not a chatty lot; it wasn't like back in Los Angeles, where people greeted strangers on the street and exchanged a few sentences on the weather or politics or the surf or something. Here, folks kept more to themselves.

Annie ate silently, shifting occasionally in the chair. Ra-chel was bursting to talk to her but didn't know how to begin. Instead, it was Annie who started the conversation. "You must get lonely here," she said.

"Well, my husband-"Annie cut her off with a look. She knew. She didn't have to say the words aloud; Rachel cleared her throat and tried to say, "Do you want another cookie?"

Instead, what came out was, "You can't believe how lonely it gets!" and she burst into tears.

Annie watched her cry for at least five minutes. She didn't move while Rachel sobbed. She sat still as a statue and said nothing until Rachel daubed at her eyes and blew her nose.

"I'm sorry. I just got carried away."

Annie nodded. "It will be all right, then." She stood; her hands trembled at her sides and she scrutinized the wall be-hind Rachel so hard that Rachel finally turned around.

"What? Annie?"

Annie moved stiff-legged to the door. She fumbled with the handle, threw the door open and dashed across the thresh-old.

"Mrs. Unger," she began. She chewed her lower lip. Her bony chest rose, fell.

"Annie, what's wrong? Please, I know I've been silly. It just started. I don't why I . . . invented a husband." She could feel her face grow hot. "Everyone was asking me ques-tions. One thing led to another."

Annie shuffled her feet, stared down at her shoes. "I saw," she said.

Rachel took a step back as she touched her turtleneck sweater.

Annie looked at her. "Maxie was the name of his cat. He had her with her."

She flew over the driveway and disappeared down the street.

Rachel watched her. Her mouth worked but no words came out. She thought she was going to faint. She was sinking beneath the surface, sinking downward, where it was harder to think. She was fighting to hold on, fighting- -and she heard a familiar voice behind her saying, "Give it to me, you bitch! It belongs to her! It all belongs to her!"

She lay face down in a pool of water; her body ached and she couldn't breathe. Someone was on top of her, pushing her head under water; her eyes bulged and she was choking, losing consciousness- -but she wouldn't let him have the ring.

That was what he wanted, she knew, as she knew her as-sailant's identity. It was the elevator operator, Annie's young man. He was going to kill her for it. Her hand was clenched around her thumb, where the ring was; and she wondered why he didn't just pull it off. Why did he have to drown her first?

For she was drowning. In a pool of water too shallow to close over her head, she was unable to breathe. There was no air left inside her-no jellyfish, she-yet she doggedly held onto the ring. She was going to die for it; she was going to die-She came to. She was lying on her side on Woodbane Street. It was dark.

A hundred feet from her, the boy lay unmoving. His face was averted, as if he hid in shame; but the moon glistened on pale skin, on stiff skin, bloodless.

Rachel lurched to her hands and knees and began to crawl toward him.

Then lightning cracked through the sky. The night burst apart and through the tears rain showered the ground.

Shards of grey forced Rachel onto her back and she covered her face, crying out. Thunder crescendoed around her; she sat up and wrapped her arms around her head as she got to her knees.

If I don't drown out there, I'll drown in here.

The young man's body shifted into the gutter. The rain pummeled him, ricocheting off the side of his face in silvery discs like rubbery bubbles of oil. He didn't move.

April is not the cruellest month in Greystone Bay; this was a siege of rain, a deluge that flooded the street. Andwould plummet into the bay.

Rachel struggled to her feet, suddenly certain that if she didn't get home, the rain would sweep her into Greystone Bay and she would drown there. She burst into tears and waded down the middle of the street, her clothes wrapped around her, impeding her steps. She wanted to go back for the boy, but there was no time for that; besides, he'd tried to kill her. Why should she waste her strength?

She thought she heard him groan; she flailed and watched as the gutter filled around him and lifted him off the ground. It occurred to Rachel that he might already be dead.

"Oh, Annie, poor Annie," she said. Nausea rose inside her and a sense of urgency propelled her to stagger on down the street to the shelter of her home. She retched as she walked, doubled over. The rain, the goddamn, unending, un-endurable rain, fell harder.

She wondered if Maxie was out in the storm.

And if perhaps she were having some kind of hallucina-tion; if she were sitting in the bathtub with the scrub brush, imagining all this because she had Alzheimer's. She remembered other things now: that a bouquet of flowers had arrived for her yesterday, with a card signed, Ami amet deli pencet. She knew that was what it said because she'd memorized the words, thinking them some kind of code, or puzzle, or joke. Or warning.

She remembered, too, that when she was having her night-mare last night, she awakened to the stench of wet smoke. She screamed aloud, thinking the house was on fire. She found no flames, and no sign that there had been any; but the smell persisted.

But she did discover a series of handprints on the bannister that Noreen Montgomery had caressed so lovingly: large, moldy handprints spaced at regular intervals, as if someone had used the balustrade as an aid to get up the stairs, pulling hard, dragging upward, moldy hands that smelled of smoke- The water swirled around her calves. Then the blessed lights of Rachel's house came into view and she ran toward them, arms outstretched.

She flung herself into the house and slammed the door. The phone was ringing and she picked it up, shouting, "The boy's out there! Please, go help him. He's on-"

"Mrs. Unger, are you all right?" It was Annie. Her voice rose shrill and terrified.

"The boy-"

"Oh, my god." Annie's voice seemed to fall away from the phone. Then she came back on the line. "It's all right, Mrs. Unger. He wanted you to have it. I understand. I'm not angry."

"What are you talking about?" Rachel shouted.

"Mrs. Unger, Miss Unger-"

"Who are you?" Rachel gripped the phone with both hands and shrieked into it. "What is happening?"

"He did it because of the pain he caused you. He's so sorry.

"Who are you?"

Annie hung up. Rachel stood by the phone, screaming, "Who are you?" over and over again.

The lightning snapped; water trickled beneath the kitchen door. The trickle became a steady flow; water dripped down the walls. It fell in a waterfall from the sink onto the tiles and eddied around Rachel's ankles.

Rachel dashed from the kitchen into the parlor. Water shot down the stairs like a waterfall. Had she left the tub running?

She took the stairs two at a time. The hall was becoming a river; by the time she reached her bedroom door, the water reached her knees. She had to fight to open the door; when she pushed it back, more water crashed around her, submer-ging her to her waist.

She staggered back, was flung against the opposite wall. The water kept pouring out of her bedroom. She foughtagainst it, battling toward the bathroom, though she couldn't imagine all this water coming from those two little taps.

And then she remembered something else: there was an inscription on the inside of the ring, and it said the same thing as the card that had accompanied her flowers: Ami amet deli pencet.

The room filled to her chest. She lost her footing and went under, opened her eyes and saw her clothes and furniture bobbing like the things beneath the surface of her dreams; beneath Greystone Bay itself. All the useless things, the junk, the wreckage.

She tried to stand up and realized the water had risen above her head. The room was filled almost to the surface; perhaps a foot of space remained. Rachel fought to reach the sur-face- -a huge wave rose over her head, and something wrapped around her ankle, pulling her down- She opened her mouth, losing her air. The thing that had her turned her around and looked into her eyes.

He was handsome, so very handsome, in his windbreaker and sailor's cap. He had pale skin and large blue eyes, and rich, dark red hair.

He took her in his arms and pulled her clothes off her, slowly, deliberately, while she floundered, her eyes opening and closing as she began to go. All her scars were visible and he touched them with his big hands, no hint of revulsion in his manner or his look.

He opened his mouth and said, "It means, think of a friend who loves you." His voice rumbled through the water toward her; it sounded as sweet to her as the music of Annie's harp.

She began to cry; her tears drifted upward, mingled with the vast space of water around them. Her hair undulated be-hind her like the petals of spring blossoms.

Of course it hadn't been Annie's head- Ami amet deli pencet.

"Oh, do you?" she tried to say, but nothing came out. Shyly, she embraced him and he held her tightly as she went, out with the surge, out with the tide, out with the under-tow.

Into July, the sweetest month in Greystone Bay.

THE CHRONICLERS.

CHET WILLIAMSON is a Pennsylvanian who knows about too many old, bad movies for his own good. He is the author of several highly-acclaimed novels, including ASH WEDNESDAY and DREAMTHORP.

AL SARRANTONIO, from Putnam Valley, New York, is an avid amateur astronomer and likes to fish where you can't catch anything. His latest books are MOONBANE, an sf-horror novel, and COLD NIGHT, a mystery.

ROBERT R. MCCAMMON is twice winner of the Bram Stoker Award and the best-selling author of SWAN SONG and STINGER. He lives in Alabama with his wife, Sally.

BRYAN WEBB is an award-winning non-fiction writer who lives in Georgia where his electricity is constantly threatened by cows that rub up against the telephone polls. He chews gum better than anybody in the state.

STEVE RASNIC TEM lives in Colorado, and made a name for himself in short fiction before doing the same with his first novel, EXCAVATIONS. He is married to poet/short story writer Melanie Tem.

CRAIG SHAW GARDNER is the author of the best-selling six-volume Ebenezum novels; his newest is, honest to god, SLAVES OF THE VOLCANO GOD.

MELISSA MIA HALL once again proves that Texans are different from thee and me, and more weird. Her stories and poetry have appeared in just about every major magazine and anthology in the field.

LES DANIELS lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island, and is the creator of San Sebastian, a truly wonderful and vicious vampire. His latest novel is YELLOW FOG.