These are the dreams of the witch: She mounts the steps of her childhood house, the yellow one with the blue trim on County Road 67. She stands on the porch and looks around, and the leaves on the trees are golden with fall, the gra.s.s is crisp and healthy green, the corn is dying in the straight, straight rows her father broke his back to make. All is as it should be. Then the porch swing falls, the windows shatter, the corn plants crack and bow as if genuflecting to some terrible G.o.d. And she looks out far over the plain and sees it, a thing that has haunted her dreams ever since her little daughters learned about it in science cla.s.s and explained it to her. It's a trap for light. It's a cancer in the skin of the universe. They call it a black hole. And in that instant, everything melts upward, falling into the gaping mouth of Nothing, and is gone.

These are the dreams of the witch: Inside that nothing, she meets a little girl named Anna. Anna lives in the dark, and Anna is alone.

"Mommy?"

The witch stirs, whimpers. The stench of alcohol and vomit fouls the air. The puke has run down between her dust-bag t.i.ts, but a hand is cleaning it up. The witch feels the brush of a towel on her chest. It's arousing, and a confusing sensation in this dark place. And then, all at once, she's in the light.

And Anna is there. And she's alive!

The witch blinks in uncomprehending joy.

"It's me," Anna says, "Christine."

"Hateful, hateful little-" the witch begins, realizing she's been fooled. She looks for a weapon and finds one. s.n.a.t.c.hing the now-empty gin bottle off the table in front of her, she stands up, full of fury and power, c.o.c.ks back to strike her traitor-child into bleeding, whimpering silence-but the other one, the one she didn't notice, the little neighbor boy, Billy, now somehow a man, grabs her wrist and s.n.a.t.c.hes her weapon from her hand.

"Awww!" she screams in childish frustration.

"Sit down, Mother," says Christine.

"You scrawny little wh.o.r.e," says the witch, drawing herself up in indignation. "You shouldn't have been born, you traitor; it should have just been Anna, my Anna."

The witch is almost spitting fire. Caleb takes a step back, alarmed in spite of himself, but Christine stands her ground.

"You s.l.u.t," the witch hisses. "You little b.i.t.c.h, you-"

Quickly, without warning, Christine c.o.c.ks back and swings her small fist. It catches her mother's face, hard, making a low, sharp "thump" sound.

The great witch falls back into her armchair, staring at her daughter with a dazed, quizzical look as a ribbon of blood slithers from her nose and down over her lips.

"I loved her as much as you did, Mother," says Christine. "It's not my fault she's gone." She rubs her fist gingerly and sighs. To herself, she says: "I should have done that a long time ago."

Christine pauses, perhaps waiting for a response. When she doesn't get one, she tosses the towel she had used to sop up the puke to her mother.

"Cover yourself. For Christ's sake, Mom, have some dignity."

Again, Mrs. Zikry's only response is a bleary-eyed stare, but she does cover her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with the puke-wet towel.

Caleb speaks: "We shouldn't stay here long. They must know we'll be either here or at my old place."

"We're safe here until night, I think," says Christine. "The sleepwalkers won't be out during the day."

"Who are they? The sleepwalkers?"

She just shakes her head, still staring at her mother. "Ones like me," she says. "All I know is what I've figured, and what Anna told me. They're kids from the Dream Center, like I was, and they do the work the ghosts want done. Under the bridge I could hear the spirits urging them-or more like cheering them-on."

"So what's the plan?" asks Caleb. He's clearly antsy, glancing at the door. He doesn't want to be here-but would they really feel safe anyplace else, either?

"First, I have to clean my mother up," says Christine. "Come on, Mom, you're getting in the shower."

She offers a hand to the great witch of Hudsonville, who now seems very old and frail.

"What do we do when night comes?" asks Caleb. "Do we run?"

"Well, we have two choices. We could run," Chrsitine says, gently guiding her mother through the living room and into the bathroom, "or we could stay and fight."

And she disappears into the room and pulls the door shut behind her.

"Yeah, let's fight," mutters Caleb, alone now, surveying the hundreds of hanging dream catchers with contempt. "They've only taken over the whole town."

In the other room the shower springs to life. Apparently, the witch somehow got her interior plumbing fixed.

Caleb paces around the small house, still wearing a sarcastic smirk, still dwelling on how stupid it is to risk your life to fix something that the cops should have taken care of a long time ago, something that should, theoretically, not even be happening in the first place.

But then he thinks of Bean, Christine, his father, Anna, even Mrs. Zikry: all those who've suffered because of what's happened in Hudsonville. And he thinks that maybe they should fight after all; because if they don't, who will?

It's maybe twenty minutes later. Caleb sits on the couch, half dozed off, having finally convinced himself to ignore the filthy upholstery and make himself comfortable. He only sort of hears the shower click off and the sound of water fade to an indistinct drip. He thinks he hears the far-off sound of moaning, like that of the distant wind. It almost seems like it's coming from the trailer itself, from the floor- but it might just as easily be coming from just beyond his conscious mind, where sleep is stalking him relentlessly.

The moaning sound fades as he falls out of consciousness. Fantasies flash through his head: he sees himself drinking the last swig of alcohol from the bottle on the table. He sees himself in the heat of battle, cutting down attacking demons like a swashbuckler in a black-and-white movie. He sees Amber in his head-this is the first time he's thought of her in days-she's wearing a s.e.xy little pair of underwear and a bra, but despite that fact, his mind discards the image. He's outgrown Amber. He's outgrown a lot of things. Next he sees his father. It's an image Caleb has long since forgotten-or at least it sunk to his deep subconscious for many years before being dredged up today.

His father, with his ever-present beard, sits Indian-style in the foyer of the Hudsonville house, wearing a ten-gallon hat, the kind cowboys wear. A child, hardly more than a toddler, runs around the room, yipping and yelling, riding one of those toy horses that's really a broomstick with a stuffed, plush horse head attached to it. Little plastic six-shooters in plastic holsters bob at his waist. A little cowboy hat is c.o.c.ked back on his head. The child is a little Caleb-or a little Billy, as he would have been called in those days. Little Billy dashes around the love seat, laughing as his father, usually a somber man, calls out to him: "You'd better ride, boy! You gotta rope that steer! Catch those Indians! Ride, or that bull is gonna get you!"

Little equestrian Billy gallops around his father as if he were the barrel in a riding compet.i.tion.

He's never seen his dad so excited as he was that Christmas when he gave him that cowboy getup. Of course, the excitement kind of waned when his mother got p.i.s.sed off about the toy guns. But while it lasted, Billy and Dad had a real good time.

As Caleb sees all this, he's transported instantly back to that lost day. He smells the gingerbread cooking. He knows his mother is out at the store, having forgotten some important ingredient for Christmas dinner, and left him with his father for some rare alone time. And Caleb thinks he knows why this memory stuck. Because his father would never have been this silly, this carefree, in front of his mother.

Maybe their relations.h.i.+p had already deteriorated too far for fun to exist between them. Maybe there was some other reason, one Caleb would never know; but this is the only time he can remember having this much fun with his father. He lingers here, savoring the memory, studying the child's laughing face, listening to his beaming father: Ride, boy! Ride!

Then his father looks up, distracted. It's hard to see, from his infant's perspective, as he rides out from behind an armchair: what's his dad looking at? Might be the fireplace. Might be the Christmas tree. Might be the clock on the mantle.

A hammering sound snaps Caleb's reverie.

Back in the trailer.

He's on his feet instantly.

The pounding comes again. He sees the front door rattle on its hinges.

"Christine," he calls, uncertain of what else to do. "We've got company!" He looks around for a weapon. Finally, he runs into the kitchen and grabs a flimsy steak knife off the counter. It doesn't do much to a.s.suage his fears, but it's all he can find.

The pounding again.

"Who is it?" he barks.

"Margie from the restaurant. And the sheriff ain't with me."

Caleb is so relieved he almost laughs. He reaches out to unlock the door, then stops. Maybe the sheriff is with her. Maybe he has a gun to her head making her pretend she's alone. Or maybe she was on his side all along.

Caleb sneaks over to the window and peeks out from behind the curtain. He sees Margie, all right, but she's not alone. A large man is standing next to her. The man's build is very close to that of the sheriff, although he isn't wearing the sheriff 's usual wide-brimmed hat. Caleb moves around as much as he can, but he can't get a good look at the man's face.

"Who's with you?" he yells.

"Man who picked me up and helped me when I was hiding from the sheriff. Says he knows you too," Margie says. There's a slight pause. "Says his name is Ron."

Caleb reaches to unlock the door, then stops again. His first inclination was to trust this Ron guy, but maybe he should rethink that. Look where that got him last time. Ron took him to that creepy quack doctor, and he wound up at the Dream Center.

The House of White Rooms, he thinks, though he doesn't know where the phrase came from. Was that what Christine called it?

"Let me talk to Ron," he says.

"It's me," says a man's voice.

"Why should I trust you?" says Caleb. "You took me to that doctor."

"I also followed you to where he took you and got arrested trying to help get you out," says Ron.

That's certainly what the director wanted me to believe, Caleb thinks.

"Why are you trying to help me?"

"I have a daughter," he says. "Her name is Keisha. She was abducted a few miles from here, years ago. I been trying to find her ever since."

"And you think the people who took my friend took her, too. Is that it?"

"I don't know," he says, "but it's the only thing I've got to go on."

Caleb's hand is on the lock, but he's still not ready to turn it, not yet.

"Margie," he says, "why are you here?"

There's silence on the other side of the door, and for a moment he thinks they've gone. Then he hears Margie clear her throat.

"I thought maybe we could trust the sheriff, until I saw him shooting at poor Christine. Now I know there's no one to trust. No one but us. A lotta kids've turned up gone. Good kids. There ain't but a few of us in Hudsonville left to do anything about it, and I reckoned I might be one of them. Besides," she says, her voice m.u.f.fled from behind the wood, "they say some folks'll burn when Judgment comes around and some won't. Might be too late now, but I'd like to be one of the ones that don't. If I can help it."

"It isn't too late," Ron says quietly to Margie. "Never think it is."

Caleb thinks of Bean and Christine's skepticism about anyone helping the people in Africa. Hundreds of people are missing in Hudsonville, and who's left to stand for them? Only these five people, out of hundreds. Maybe that's how it always happens.

He turns the lock and opens the door. Ron smiles amicably.

"How's the pitching arm, slugger?" Ron says.

Caleb smiles in spite of himself and looks down at the dirty ace bandage on his left arm.

"Fine, as long as I don't move it or shake it or breathe," Caleb says.

"Little Billy, you really have grown up so handsome, I declare!" says Margie, and she gives him a big hug.

Caleb is desperate to free himself, because the wide-open door is terrifying him. He makes himself abide the hug, then shoves the door shut and twists it locked.

Ron picks up on his discomfort. "n.o.body followed us," he says, "I made Margie look behind us the whole way."

"How did you find us?" Caleb asks.

Ron shakes his head, "I don't know," he says darkly.

"Someone told him," Christine says. Caleb hadn't noticed her come in from the hallway. She's washed her face, brushed her hair and traded her filthy hospital gown in for jeans and a tank top. To Caleb, she somehow looks both completely normal and fantastically beautiful.

Despite the ominous connotations her statement might hold, she's smiling.

"What do you mean?" Ron asks. "n.o.body told me, really, I just figured . . . I thought . . . I don't know how I knew," he concludes finally, frowning.

"Somebody did tell you, whether you knew it or not," Christine repeats. "Somebody good. My sister." She looks over at Caleb, who stares back at her.

The witch appears from the hallway on bare, tentative feet, her gray hair dark with moisture and hanging in her face. But she looks better already, Caleb thinks, healthier. The heat of the shower has made her cheeks ruddy, and she wears a timid smile on her face and a white terrycloth robe over her body.

"Margie, you remember my mother," Christine says.

Margie nods at the witch and flashes a guarded smile.

"And this is-what's your name?" Christine says.

"Ron."

" . . . Ron."

The witch nods, her eyes trained on the floor. "Welcome, all," she says. "Make yourselves at home."

Everybody stands silently for a moment. Here they are, brought together somehow in the most G.o.dforsaken town, in the most G.o.dforsaken trailer imaginable, five strangers. Margie looks wired and edgy, Mrs. Zikry gazes at the floor, Ron looks from person to person, stoic but expectant. And Caleb suddenly realizes he's staring at Christine. And Christine is smiling.

"We should all rest while we have the daylight," she says. "Some of you folks haven't slept in a while. I know I haven't. This isn't the most inviting place to sleep, but if we work together maybe we can clean things up enough to find a place for everybody to get some rest. Sound good?"

Everybody murmurs in a.s.sent.

"Who's hungry?" she continues. "I'll make some food."

There are some nods.

"Billy," she says, "will you help me in the kitchen?"

"Sure," Caleb says.

"I'll help out too." Margie says, "I'm a little whipped right now, but this wouldn't be the first time I pulled a double s.h.i.+ft, I'll tell you that."

"Thanks, Margie," says Christine. "Maybe you can help my mom clean things up so everybody has a place to sleep."

"I wouldn't mind at all," Margie says.