Lucy heard him let himself in and her heart leaped up fiercely. She told it to stop, that he was probably only coming back for his things, but it would not stop. He picked me, picked me, was the thought that hammered into her brain, driven there by her heart's triphammer beat. He picked was the thought that hammered into her brain, driven there by her heart's triphammer beat. He picked me me - - In spite of her excitement and hope, which she was helpless to control, she lay stiffly on her back on the bed, waiting and watching nothing but the ceiling. She had only told him the truth when she had said that, for her and for girls like her friend Joline, the only fault was too much need to love. But she had always been faithful. She was no cheater. She hadn't cheated on her husband and she had never cheated on Larry, and if in the years before she had met them she hadn't exactly been a nun ... time past was time past. You just couldn't get hold of the things you had done and turn them right again. Such power might be given to the gods, but it was not given to men and women, and that was probably a good thing. Had it been otherwise, people would probably die of old age still trying to rewrite their teens.

If you knew that past was out of reach, maybe you could forgive.

Tears were stealing down her cheeks.

The door clicked open and she saw him in it, just a silhouette.

"Lucy? You awake?"

"Yes."

"Can I put on the lamp?"

"If you want."

She heard the minute hiss of gas and then the light came on, turned down to a thread of flame, revealing him. He looked pale and shaken.

"I have to say something."

"No you don't. Just come to bed."

"I have to say it. I ..." He pressed his hand against his forehead and ran it through his hair.

"Larry?" She sat up. "Are you all right?"

He spoke as if he hadn't heard her, and he spoke without looking at her. "I love you. If you want me, you got me. But I don't know if you're getting much. I'm never going to be your best bet, Lucy."

"I'll take the chance. Come to bed."

He did. And they did. And when the love was over she told him she loved him, it was true, God knew that, and it seemed to be what he wanted, needed, to hear, but she didn't think he slept for a long time. Once in the night she came awake (or dreamed she did) and it seemed to her that Larry was at the window, looking out, his head cocked in a listening posture, the lines of light and shadow giving his face the appearance of a haggard mask. But in the light of day she was more sure that it must have been a dream; in the light of day he seemed to be his old self again.

It was only three days later that they heard from Ralph Brentner that Nadine had moved in with Harold Lauder. At that, Larry's face seemed to tighten, but it was only for a moment. And although Lucy disliked herself for it, Ralph's news made her breathe a little easier. It seemed it must be over.

She went home only briefly after seeing Larry. She let herself in, went to the living room, and lit the lamp. Carrying it high, she went to the back of the house, pausing for just a moment to let the light spill into the boy's room. She wanted to see if she had told Larry the truth. She had.

Leo lay asprawl in a tangle of bedclothes, dressed only in his under-shorts ... but the cuts and scratches had faded, disappeared altogether in most cases, and the all-over tan he had gotten from going practically naked had also faded. But it was more than that, she thought. Something in his face had changed-she could see the change even though he was asleep. That expression of mute, needful savagery had gone out of it. He was not Joe anymore. This was just a boy sleeping after a busy day.

She thought of the night she had been almost asleep and had come awake to find him gone from her side. That had been in North Berwick, Maine-most of the continent away now. She had followed him to the house where Larry lay sleeping on the porch. Larry sleeping inside, Joe standing outside, brandishing his knife with mute savagery, and nothing between them but the thin and sliceable screen. And she had made him come away.

Hate pounced on Nadine in a surging flash, striking up brilliant sparks as if from flint and steel. The Coleman lamp trembled in her hand, making wild shadows leap and dance. She should have let him do it! She should have held the door for Joe herself, let him in so he could stab and rip and cut and puncture and gut and destroy. She should have- But now the boy turned over and moaned in his throat, as if waking. His hands came up and batted the air, as if warding off a black shape in a dream. And Nadine withdrew, a pulse beating thickly at her temples. There was still something strange in the boy, and she didn't like the way he had moved just now, as if he had picked up her thoughts.

She had to go ahead now. She had to be quick.

She went into her own room. There was a rug on the floor. There was a single narrow bed-an old maid's bed. That was all. There was not even a picture. The room was totally devoid of character. She opened the closet door and rummaged behind her hanging clothes. She was on her knees now, sweating. She drew out a brightly colored box with a photograph of laughing adults on the front, adults who were playing a party-game. A party-game that was at least three thousand years old.

She had found the planchette in a downtown novelty shop, but she dared not use it in the house, not with the boy here. In fact, she had not dared use it at all ... until now. Something had impelled her into the shop, and when she had seen the planchette in its gay party box, a terrible struggle had gone on inside her-the sort of struggle psychologists call aversion/compulsion. She had been sweating then as now, wanting two things at the same time: to hurry out of that shop without looking back, and to snatch the box, that dreadful gay box, and carry it home with her. The latter wish frightened her the more, because it did not seem to be her own wish.

At last, she had taken the box.

That had been four days ago. Each night the compulsion had grown stronger until tonight, half insane with fears she didn't understand, she had gone to Larry wearing the blue-gray dress with nothing on underneath. She had gone to put an end to the fears for good. Waiting on the porch for them to get back from the meeting, she had been sure she had finally done the right thing. There had been that feeling in her, that lightly drunk, starstruck feeling, that she'd not properly had since she had run across the dew-drenched grass with the boy behind her. Only this time the boy would catch her. She would let him catch her. It would be the end.

But when he had caught her, he hadn't wanted her.

Nadine stood up, holding the box to her chest, and put out the lamp. He had scorned her, and didn't they say that hell hath no fury-? A scorned woman might well traffic with the devil ... or his henchman.

She paused only long enough to get the large flashlight from the table in the front hall. From deeper inside the house, the boy cried out in his sleep, freezing her for a moment, making the hair prickle on her scalp.

Then she let herself out.

Her Vespa was at the curb, the Vespa she had used some days ago to motor up to Harold Lauder's house. Why had she gone there? She hadn't passed a dozen words with Harold since she'd gotten to Boulder. But in her confusion about the planchette, and in her terror of the dreams that continued to come to her even after everyone else's had stopped, it had seemed to her that she must talk about it to Harold. She had been afraid of that impulse, too, she remembered as she put the Vespa's ignition key in its slot. Like the sudden urge to pick up the planchette (Amaze Your Friends! Brighten Up Your Get-togethers! (Amaze Your Friends! Brighten Up Your Get-togethers! the box said), it had seemed to be an idea that had come to her from outside herself. the box said), it had seemed to be an idea that had come to her from outside herself. His His thought, maybe. But when she had given in and gone to Harold's, he hadn't been at home. The house was locked, the only locked house she had come upon in Boulder, and the shades were drawn. She had rather liked that, and she'd had a moment's bitter disappointment that Harold was not there. If he had been, he could have let her in and then locked the door behind her. They could have gone into the living room and talked, or made love, or have done unspeakable things together, and no one would have known. thought, maybe. But when she had given in and gone to Harold's, he hadn't been at home. The house was locked, the only locked house she had come upon in Boulder, and the shades were drawn. She had rather liked that, and she'd had a moment's bitter disappointment that Harold was not there. If he had been, he could have let her in and then locked the door behind her. They could have gone into the living room and talked, or made love, or have done unspeakable things together, and no one would have known.

Harold's was a private place.

"What's happening to me?" she whispered to the dark, but the dark had no answer for her. She started the Vespa, and the steady burping pop of its engine seemed to profane the night. She put it in gear and drove away. To the west.

Moving, the cool night air on her face, she felt better at last. Blow away the cobwebs, night wind. You know, don't you? When all the choices have been taken away, what do you do? You choose what's left. You choose whatever dark adventure was meant for you. You let Larry have his stupid little twist of tail with her tight pants and her single-syllable vocabulary and her movie-magazine mind. You go beyond them. You risk ... whatever there is to be risked.

Mostly you risk yourself.

The road unrolled before her in the baby spotlight of the Vespa's headlamp. She had to switch to second gear as the road began to climb; she was on Baseline Road now, headed up the black mountain. Let them have their meetings. They were concerned with getting the power back on; her lover was concerned with the world. world.

The Vespa's engine lugged and strained and somehow carried on. A horrible yet sexy kind of fear began to grip her, and the vibrating saddle of the motorbike began to heat her up down there (why, you're horny, Nadine, (why, you're horny, Nadine, she thought with shrill good humor, she thought with shrill good humor, naughty, naughty, NAUGHTY) naughty, naughty, NAUGHTY). To her right was a straight dropoff. Nothing but death down there. And up above? Well, she would see. It was too late to turn back, and that thought alone made her feel paradoxically and deliciously free.

An hour later she was in Sunrise Amphitheater-but sunrise was still three or more hours away. The amphitheater was close to the summit of Flagstaff Mountain, and nearly everyone in the Free Zone had made the trip to the camping area at the top before they had been in Boulder very long. On a clear day-which was most days in Boulder, at least during the summer season-you could see Boulder, and I-25 stretching away south to Denver and then off into the haze toward New Mexico two hundred miles beyond. Due east were the flatlands, stretching away toward Nebraska, and closer at hand was Boulder Canyon, a knife-gash through foothills that were walled in pine and spruce. In summers gone by, gliders had plied the thermals over Sunrise Amphitheater like birds.

Now Nadine saw only what was revealed in the glow of the six-cell flashlight which she put on a picnic table near the dropoff. There was a large artist's sketchpad turned back to a clean sheet, and squatting on it the three-cornered planchette like a triangular spider. Protruding from its belly, like the spider's stinger, was a pencil, lightly touching the pad.

Nadine was in a feverish state that was half-euphoria, half-terror. Coming up here on the back of her gamely laboring Vespa, which had most decidedly not been made for mountain climbing, she had felt what Harold had felt in Nederland. She could feel him. him. But while Harold had felt this in a rather precise and technological way, as a piece of steel attracted by a magnet, a But while Harold had felt this in a rather precise and technological way, as a piece of steel attracted by a magnet, a drawing toward, drawing toward, Nadine felt it as a kind of mystic event, a border-crossing. It was as if these mountains, of which she was even now only in the foothills, were a no-man's-land between two spheres of influence-Flagg in the West, the old woman in the East. And here the magic flew both ways, mixing, making its own concoction that belonged neither to God nor to Satan but which was totally pagan. She felt she was in a haunted place. Nadine felt it as a kind of mystic event, a border-crossing. It was as if these mountains, of which she was even now only in the foothills, were a no-man's-land between two spheres of influence-Flagg in the West, the old woman in the East. And here the magic flew both ways, mixing, making its own concoction that belonged neither to God nor to Satan but which was totally pagan. She felt she was in a haunted place.

And the planchette ...

She had tossed the brightly marked box, stamped MADE IN TAIWAN MADE IN TAIWAN, away indifferently for the wind to take. The planchette itself was only a poorly stamped piece of fiber-board or gypsum. But it didn't matter. It was a tool she would only use once-only dared to use once-and even a poorly made tool can serve its purpose: to break open a door, to close a window, to write a Name.

The words on the box recurred: Amaze Your Friends! Brighten Up Your Get-togethers! Amaze Your Friends! Brighten Up Your Get-togethers!

What was that song Larry sometimes bellowed from the seat of his Honda as they rode along? Hello, Central, what's the matter with your line? I want to talk to Hello, Central, what's the matter with your line? I want to talk to- Talk to who? But that was the question, wasn't it?

She remembered the time she had used the planchette in college. That had been more than a dozen years ago ... but it might as well have been yesterday. She had gone upstairs to ask someone on the third floor of the dorm, a girl named Rachel Timms, about the assignment in a remedial reading class they shared. The room had been filled with girls, six or eight of them at least, giggling and laughing. Nadine remembered thinking that they acted as if they were high on something, smoke or maybe even blow.

"Stop it!" Rachel said, giggling herself. "How do you expect the spirits to communicate if you're all acting like a bunch of donkeys?"

The idea of laughing donkeys struck them as deliciously funny, and a fresh feminine gale blew through the room for a while. The planchette had set then as it sat now, a triangular spider on three stubby legs, pencil pointing down. While they giggled, Nadine picked up a sheaf of oversized pages torn from an artist's sketchbook and shuffled through those "messages from the astral plane" which had already come in.

Tommy says you have been using that strawberry douche again.

Mother says she's fine.

Chunga! Chunga!

John says you won't, fart so much if you stop eating those CAFETERIA BEANS!!!!!

Others, just as silly.

Now the giggles had quieted enough so they could start again. Three girls sat on the bed, each with her fingertips placed on a different side of the planchette. For a moment there was nothing. Then the board quivered.

"You did that, Sandy!" Rachel accused.

"I did not!"

"Shhhh!"

The board quivered again and the girls hushed. It moved, stopped, moved again. It made the letter F.

"Fuh ..." the girl named Sandy said.

"Fuck you, too," someone else said, and they were off and giggling again.

"Shhhh!" Rachel said sternly.

The planchette began to move more rapidly, tracing out the letters A, T, H, E, and R.

"Father dear, your baby's here," a girl named Patty something-or-other said, and giggled. "It must be my father, he died of a heart attack when I was three."

"It's writing some more," Sandy said.

S, A, Y, S, the planchette spelled laboriously.

"What's going on?" Nadine whispered to a tall, horse-faced girl she didn't know. The horse-faced girl was looking on with her hands in her pockets and a disgusted look on her face.

"A bunch of girls playing games with something they don't understand, " the horse-faced girl said. "That's "That's what's going on." She spoke in an even lower whisper. what's going on." She spoke in an even lower whisper.

"FATHER SAYS PATTY," Sandy quoted. "It's your dear old dad, all right, Pats."

Another burst of giggles..

The horse-faced girl was wearing spectacles. Now she took her hands out of the pockets of the overalls she was wearing and used them to remove the spectacles from her face. She polished them and explained further to Nadine, still in a whisper. "The planchette is a tool used by psychics and mediums. Kinestheologists-"

"What ologists?"

"Scientists who study movement, and the interaction of muscles and nerves."

"Oh."

"They claim that the planchette is actually responding to tiny muscle movements, probably guided by the subconscious rather than the conscious mind. Of course, mediums and psychics claim that the planchette is moved by entities from the spirit world-"

Another burst of hysterical laughter came from the girls clustered around the board. Nadine looked over the horse-faced girl's shoulder and saw the message now read, FATHER SAYS PATTY SHOULD STOP GOING.

"-to the bathroom so much," another girl in the circle of spectators suggested, and everyone laughed some more.

"Either way, they're just fooling with it," the horse-faced girl said with a disdainful sniff. "It's very unwise. Both mediums and scientists agree that automatic writing can be dangerous."

"The spirits are unfriendly tonight, you think?" Nadine asked lightly.

"Perhaps the spirits are always always unfriendly," the horse-faced girl said, giving her a sharp look. "Or you might get a message from your subconscious mind which you were totally unprepared to receive. There are documented cases of automatic writing getting entirely out of control, you know. People have gone mad." unfriendly," the horse-faced girl said, giving her a sharp look. "Or you might get a message from your subconscious mind which you were totally unprepared to receive. There are documented cases of automatic writing getting entirely out of control, you know. People have gone mad."

"Oh, that seems awfully farfetched. It's just a game." game."

"Games have a way of turning serious sometimes."

The loudest burst of laughter yet tacked a period to the horse-faced girl's comment before Nadine could reply. The girl named Patty something-or-other had fallen off the bed and lay on the floor, holding her stomach and laughing and kicking her feet weakly. The completed message read, FATHER SAYS PATTY SHOULD STOP GOING TO THE SUBMARINE RACES WITH LEONARD KATZ.

"You did that!" Patty said to Sandy as she finally sat up again. did that!" Patty said to Sandy as she finally sat up again.

"I didn't, Patty! Honest!"

"It was your father! From the Great Beyond! From Out There!" another girl told Patty in a Boris Karloff voice which Nadine thought was actually quite good. "Just remember that he's watching you the next time you take off your pants in the back seat of Leonard's Dodge."

Another loud outburst greeted this sally. As it tapered off, Nadine pushed forward and twitched Rachel's arm. She meant to ask for the assignment and then make a quiet escape.

"Nadine!" Rachel cried. Her eyes were sparkling and gay. Her cheeks had bloomed with roses. "Sit down, let's see if the spirits have a message for you!"

"No, really, I only came to get the assignment in remedial r-"

"Oh, poop poop on the assignment in remedial reading! This is on the assignment in remedial reading! This is important, important, Nadine! This is big-time! You've got to have a try. Here, sit down next to me. Janey, you take the other side." Nadine! This is big-time! You've got to have a try. Here, sit down next to me. Janey, you take the other side."

Janey sat down opposite Nadine, and at the repeated urging of Rachel Timms, Nadine found herself with the eight fingers of her hands touching the planchette lightly. For some reason she looked over her shoulder at the horse-faced girl. She shook her head at Nadine once, deliberately, and the overhead fluorescent bounced off the lenses of her spectacles and turned her eyes into a pair of large white flashes of light.

She had felt a moment of fear then, she remembered as she stood looking down at another planchette in the glow of a six-cell flashlight, but her remark to the horse-faced girl had recurred-it was just a game, a game, for heaven's sake, and what horrible thing could possibly happen in the middle of a gaggle of giggling girls? If there was a more hostile atmosphere for the production of genuine spirits, hostile or otherwise, Nadine didn't know what it would be. for heaven's sake, and what horrible thing could possibly happen in the middle of a gaggle of giggling girls? If there was a more hostile atmosphere for the production of genuine spirits, hostile or otherwise, Nadine didn't know what it would be.

"Now everybody be quiet," Rachel commanded. "Spirits, do you have a message for our sister and Brownie-in-good-standing Nadine Cross?"

The planchette didn't move. Nadine felt mildly embarrassed.

"Eenie-meenie-chili-beanie," the girl who had done Boris Karloff said in an equally successful Bullwinkle Moose voice. "The spirits are about to speak!" speak!"

More giggles.

"Shhhh!" Rachel commanded.

Nadine decided that if one of the other two girls didn't start moving the planchette soon so it would spell out whatever silly message they had for her, she would do it herself-slide it around to spell out something short and sweet, like BOO!, so she could get her assignment and leave.

Just as she was about to try doing this, the planchette jerked rudely under her fingers. The pencil left a dark black diagonal slash on the fresh page.

"Hey! No fair yanking, spirits," Rachel said in a vaguely uneasy tone of voice. "Did you do that, Nadine?"