"What happened?" Caleb asks.

"It was at the prom-well over a year ago, I guess. She went with the Davis boy, Zachary, though they wasn't going as boyfriend and girlfriend-there's a lot of folks that think Zach Davis ain't the type who likes girls at all, but I don't believe it. Anyhow, she was sitting in a chair-so they say-I wasn't there, so I don't know nothin' for sure-you know how rumors can run like locusts once they get goin'. Anyway, they held the dance in the gym. They say she fell asleep in a chair above the dance floor, up top of the bleachers, where they keep the punch bowl and where the concessions are during basketball games, and they say she stood up while she was still sleeping and started walking with her eyes still shut, then started running-still sleeping, mind you, not sleepwalking but sleeprunning-and they say she run herself right off the bleachers. Landed on the dance floor, 'bout twenty or so feet down, and broke both her legs. After that, her momma sent her to the Dream Center."

"Dream Center?" Caleb asks.

"Big-shot doctor from Chicago or someplace-I don't know him, I never met the man-came into town a while ago and started it up. He's supposed to be very good. He's got all kinds of new methods, but I guess he's mainly just another kind of shrink. That's what Sheriff Johnson says, anyway. Gets a lot of business, though. You'd be surprised how many folks don't sleep right, especially nowadays. Seems like everything's corrupted now, even folks' dreams. Not like when I was a girl. We used to-"

"Where is this Dream Center?" Caleb interrupts.

Margie looks surprised. "Why, it's right behind your house, Billy. They renovated the old mental hospital."

The sky is a blue canvas, accented by a few huge, billowing, black-laced clouds. The air is still. As they turn down the drive, the hum of insects rises, an infectious clamor. This is not as he remembers it. There are palm trees, for one thing. They line the drive. And flowers stand row upon row in perfect, neat beds where there used to be only tangled weeds and moist clumps of rotting pine needles. The half-gra.s.sed-over dirt drive has been replaced by an arc of clean, black pavement, which cuts its way through the vivid green of the neat-trimmed lawn before disappearing amongst the trees. The driveway is long. The day is getting hot, but somehow rolling the windows up and turning on the air-conditioning would dampen the spirit of exploration.

Bean has both of his bare feet up on the dash and is patting one of them at superhuman pace.

"So what do you think the deal is? You think this chick, Christine, is a nut-job, or what?"

"I don't know. From her letter, it sounded like there was something else going on, like she was being held against her will or something," says Caleb.

"Yeah, but that's what everybody who's nuts says," Bean is quick to point out. "They all think the world is out to get them or something. My aunt had a nervous breakdown and she thought my uncle was secretly becoming a Republican behind her back. They almost got divorced because of it. Later on, they did get divorced, but that was because she screwed two sailors and-holy s.h.i.+tburger . . ."

As they pa.s.s from the cover of trees into a clearing, the Dream Center rises before them.

It's an imposing place. There are six stories if you count the windows, but that's deceiving-it's much taller than six stories, because it was built in probably the 1920s, with high ceilings. But the height of the building isn't as impressive as its length. It has to be at least six hundred yards long. The windows are simple squares, but there are thousands of them, many of them covered with bars. The facade of the building is painted a stark off-white. It reminds Bean of the t.i.tanic. Far away, at either end of the building, there are gla.s.s sun porches on every level. A banner is hung from the roof that proclaims dream center in red letters. The driveway curves around and they stop near the front entrance. Caleb shuts off the car and they get out, their heads tilted upward, taking the place in.

Bean tries to determine what makes the Dream Center so remarkable. Certainly, he's seen much bigger buildings; when he was a kid his dad had an office in the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, and there are plenty of buildings in Los Angeles that dwarf this one too. But now it comes to him: it's not the size of the place, it's the stillness. Nothing moves. There's no lawn mower, no sound of laughter, no dog barking, no radio playing, n.o.body poking their head out the window to see who's pulled up out front. There's only the stir of insects in the dark of the forest all around, and the huge, silent edifice.

The hairs on the back of Caleb's neck are standing up too. He fights the urge to jump back into the car and lock the door. He had thought when he came back here it would be different, that his childhood fears would have been shed along with the Tonka trucks and the LEGOs. He realizes now, it doesn't always work like that. Looking around, he had thought everything had changed. Flowers supplanted the weeds, pavement smoothed the approach. The gnarled, clawing branches had been trimmed back from the driveway; but now he sees that a fresh coat of paint, like makeup on the face of a wh.o.r.e, changes nothing. This is the asylum, the same as it was when he was a kid. A broken place. A ruined place. Abandoned. Maybe even haunted.

You shouldn't play there, everyone said. They were right.

"Alright, let's go visit your buddy," Bean says.

He's halfway up the walkway, so Caleb has no choice but to follow him.

They pa.s.s large pots of pretty flowers stationed on either side of the heavy, polished-wood and gla.s.s doors, before stepping into the cool of the foyer. The floor is made of brown and white tiles, alternating, and is polished to such a sheen it seems almost clean enough to eat off of. There's a window to the left of the door, like a ticket booth at a movie theater. A lean, middle-aged man with a shaved head and a white, b.u.t.ton-up s.h.i.+rt stands behind the gla.s.s and greets them.

"h.e.l.lo, and welcome to the Dream Center," he chirps.

"Hi," says Bean.

"How can I help you today?" the man asks. His voice sounds a little canned from behind the window.

"Well," says Bean, "my buddy here is looking for a friend of his who we think is being treated here."

"Of course," the man says. "The patient's name?"

"Christine Zikry," says Caleb.

"Of course," says the man behind the gla.s.s. He turns and disappears into a back room, emerging a moment later with a file in his hand.

"This isn't really a visiting day," he says apologetically. "Are you a relative of the patient?"

"Yes," says Caleb before Bean can speak. "I'm her brother."

"Okay," says the man, flipping through the file.

"Just tell her Billy's here to see her," Caleb says.

"It . . . doesn't look like she has a brother listed as an authorized visitor, only her mother," the man says.

"What," says Bean in mock bewilderment, "your mom didn't put you on there?"

"I thought she did," says Caleb. "I guess she forgot."

"Huh," says Bean. "You see, ol' Bill here has been off at college- he's a freshman this year-"

"Soph.o.m.ore," Caleb corrects.

"Right," Bean agrees. "Sorry, soph.o.m.ore. Anyway, he's been very busy with school and he has to make it back for summer school, so this is the only time he can see her."

"Sorry," the man behind the gla.s.s says. "We don't make exceptions."

Caleb has an idea. "Here," he says, "I can prove it. I have a letter from her. See?" He pulls the folded-up envelope out of his back pocket, triumphant.

"Patients here aren't allowed to send correspondence."

"I a.s.sure you, it's from her," Caleb says. "It even has a Hudsonville postmark."

The man raises the gla.s.s window and nimbly grabs the envelope out of Caleb's hands.

By the time this registers in Caleb's head, it's too late: the man in white has already dropped the window again and is unfolding the letter.

"I don't think-um-that's a private letter. I don't think you should-" Caleb stutters.

The man's eyes are already scanning, line by line.

Caleb casually moves forward to the window and tries to pull it up without being noticed so he can s.n.a.t.c.h the letter back, but the window is now locked in place and won't budge. He glances at Bean, helpless.

The man in white finishes reading, and his eyes flick back up to Caleb. He folds the letter and puts it in the front pocket of his s.h.i.+rt.

"Please wait here," he says, his voice bleached of any emotion, and he disappears into another room.

"s.h.i.+t," says Caleb in an explosive whisper.

"What?" asks Bean.

"What? He took the letter!" says Caleb.

"So what?" Bean says, looking confused.

"What if she's telling the truth, and they're doing some twisted things to her? Now they'll know she told somebody. They might do even worse things now," says Caleb.

Bean actually smiles. "Come on, man. All that letter proves is that she's crazy, which they obviously already know, or she wouldn't be in here. Who knows, maybe it'll actually be good. They can talk about it in their next therapy session and break down some walls or something. Chill out."

But the black hole Caleb feels deep in his stomach tells him otherwise. He is about to voice this doubt to Bean when the man in white steps out of a door he hadn't noticed before, to the right of the little booth.

"I'll take you to the visiting room now," the man says, handing Christine's letter back to Caleb. But despite the good news, his words come out flat and bereft of goodwill. "It turns out we were expecting you after all."

They walk down a long hallway amid the echoes of their footfalls, pa.s.sing door after door after door. Some of the thick wooden slabs have little plaques with labels like janitorial closet, or medicine room, but most only bear numbers. The air is stale, sterile. Occasionally, they pa.s.s a hallway running perpendicular to their course. Looking down one of them, to the right, Caleb sees light spilling in from exit doors with frosted-gla.s.s windows and heavy bars.

Their walk feels interminable, but finally the walls of the hallway fall away, and they enter a large gallery with a high, vaulted ceiling. The floors are wood, newly refinished (he can still smell the sweet, chemical smell of the varnish) and covered with row upon row of cafeteria-style tables with benches. There is some artwork, childish stuff mostly, taped up along one white-tiled wall. The other wall is plastered with posters bearing messages like: Perseverance:

The wings on which

dreams soar

It reminds Bean of his days in public elementary school, and the cafeteria/gym/auditorium where they used to hold a.s.semblies. The princ.i.p.al (Jenson was his name; Mr. Jenson) used to raise his hand and everyone was supposed to shut up. Of course, Bean was incapable of doing that. Sometimes, he would just make up stuff to keep rattling on about, to no one in particular, until the other little kids would try to hush him, desperately hissing, terrified he was going to get them all in trouble, as he often did. G.o.d, he had hated that school. And those boring antidrug a.s.semblies. And that cafeteria, which was just like this place, an inst.i.tutional joint with windows too high to look out of and nothing fun to do and lame, colorful c.r.a.p on the wall, all to distract you from the fact that you were basically in a prison.

"Christine will be down in a moment," says the man in the white s.h.i.+rt. "Please have a seat."

The guys comply, and the man turns and walks away, disappearing through a set of double doors at the far end of the room.

"Well," says Bean, "here we are. Only with you . . . I pack for the beach, expecting a vacation of broads and booze, and we wind up in the loony bin. Good times."

Caleb is about to respond when he hears footsteps coming from the same door he and Bean entered. At first, he thinks several people are coming-probably some burly orderlies arriving to say they know Caleb isn't really anybody's brother and to escort the two young imposters out of the building, Caleb guesses.

But instead only one shadow spills through the doorway, growing larger as the footsteps approach, and only one person enters the room. A little girl.

She comes closer, and Caleb realizes she's not quite a little girl, but not quite a woman either, really. So pale . . .

Closer.

She wears a white gown, like a nightgown. Her long, dark hair is a knotted mess.

Closer.

She's very pet.i.te. Her arms are tiny and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s barely show through the baggy gown. Her bare feet make a patting sound on the wood floor.

Closer.

She's biting her lip. Her features are small, exquisite, like those of a china doll. Her dark blue eyes are big and arrestingly beautiful, but ringed with unhealthy-looking circles. They flit back and forth between her two visitors.

Caleb rises.

"Christine?" he says. There's a mistake. This isn't the little girl he knew.

Suddenly, so fast that Bean and Caleb both jump, the girl jerks her shaking hands to her face to cover her mouth as tears fill her eyes.

"Billy?" she whispers through trembling lips. Before Caleb can answer, she slowly reaches out to him, her arms spread wide, and takes a few small, uncertain steps forward. She grabs his s.h.i.+rt in her surprisingly strong fists, buries her face in his chest, wraps her arms around him, pressing her body hard against his, and begins sobbing so loud and shaking so hard Caleb is afraid she must be terribly injured. He looks down and sees no blood, only tears and a little snot, so he brushes her hair out of her face and hugs her back.

"It's okay," he says. "I'm here."

And she squeezes him so hard it hurts.

They sit at one of the long cafeteria tables.

"So," says Caleb.

"Shhh," whispers Christine. She points to her ear, then all around the room. She is much calmer now, but to Caleb she still has the aspect of a squirrel that might dart away up a tree at the slightest sound.

He thinks back to the Christine he knew. The memories he has are scattered, but the few he's able to pick out don't seem to correspond with this strange person sitting across from him. Little Christine laughed loud and freely. She could burp at will (this was an impressive trait at the time) and run faster than Caleb. He remembers one event vividly-Dave Kimble, the neighborhood bully, had stolen Caleb's (Billy's) bike, and they, the inseparable three, Billy, Christine, and her sister, Anna, give chase. Anna fell out of the race first; she was p.r.o.ne to bouts of wheezing when she exerted herself too much and was usually the first to give up in such contests. Billy and Christine were neck and neck, until Billy stepped on a sand burr and had to stop instantly and dig the painful little thorn out of his foot. But Christine finished like an Olympic champ. She caught up with Dave and jammed a stick in the spinning front wheel of the bike, sending the bike to the hardware shop for repairs and Dave, who soared impressively over the handlebars, straight home, crying (and, Caleb imagines, to the doctor's office in Bristol). That was the Christine Caleb remembers. She loved dirt and boogers and singing and ice cream. She was loud and happy and fearless.

The girl before him, though bearing a physical resemblance, will hardly raise her eyes to his.

"I've missed you so much, Billy, you have no idea; it's been terrible. But how have you been?" Her voice is a soft Southern drawl.

"I've been pretty good. Just graduated, out in California," he says.

Christine nods. "I'd have graduated-near the top of my cla.s.s too, if it wasn't for the accident."

"I heard about that," says Caleb. "Seems like you're walking okay now, though."

Christine nods jerkily and adds a distant, "Yeah."

"So what's with this place?" says Bean. "Are you okay here, or what?"

Her eyes become wide and dark, and she shakes her head and keeps shaking it, to the point where she looks like some kind of machine gone haywire.

"Why don't you like it?" says Bean.

Christine snaps an index finger to her lips and shushes him so fiercely that he's instantly brought back to the a.s.sembly days again.

The sensation is distasteful, and he shuts up.

"So you had the accident," says Caleb, trying to walk the minefield without getting shushed himself. "Why did you end up here?"