When he looked up at the summer sky, he said, “Why?” as if there were Someone to answer. “He was so small,” Hatch said. “He was so damned small.”
As he spoke, the burden was heavier than it had ever been in that hospital room, a thousand tons in his empty arms, maybe because he still didn't want to free himself of it as much as he thought he did. But then a strange thing happened — the weight in his arms slowly diminished, and the invisible body of his son seemed to float out of his embrace, as if the flesh had been transmuted entirely to spirit at long last, as if Jim had no need of comforting or consolation any more.
Hatch lowered his arms.
Maybe from now on the bittersweet memory of a child lost would be only the sweet memory of a child loved. And maybe, henceforth, it would not be a memory so heavy that it oppressed the heart.
He stood among the roses.
The day was warm. The late-afternoon light was golden.
The sky was perfectly clear — and utterly mysterious.
Regina asked if she could have some of Lindsey's paintings in her room, and she sounded sincere. They chose three. Together they hammered in picture hooks and hung the paintings where she wanted them — along with a foot-tall crucifix she had brought from her room at the orphanage.
As they worked, Lindsey said, “How about dinner at a really super pizza parlor I know?”
“Yeah!” the girl said enthusiastically. “I love pizza.”
“They make it with a nice thick crust, lots of cheese.”
“Pepperoni?”
“Cut thin, but lots of it.”
“Sausage?”
“Sure, why not. Though you're sure this isn't getting to be a pretty revolting pizza for a vegetarian like you?”
Regina blushed. “Oh, that. I was such a little shit that day. Oh, Jeez, sorry. I mean, such a smartass. I mean, such a jerk.”
“That's okay,” Lindsey said. “We all behave like jerks now and then.”
“You don't. Mr. Harrison doesn't.”
“Oh, just wait.” Standing on a stepstool in front of the wall opposite the bed, Lindsey pounded in a nail for a picture hook. Regina was holding the painting for her. As she took it from the girl to hang it, Lindsey said, “Listen, will you do me a favor at dinner tonight?”
“Favor? Sure?”
“I know it's still awkward for you, this new arrangement. You don't really feel at home and probably won't for a long time—”
“Oh, it's very nice here,” the girl protested.
Lindsey slipped the wire over the picture hook and adjusted the painting until it hung straight. Then she sat down on the stepstool, which just about brought her and the girl eye to eye. She took hold of both of Regina's hands, the normal one and the different one. “You're right — it's very nice here. But you and I both know that's not the same as
The girl lowered her eyes to their interlocked hands. “Well, I guess … sure … that would be okay.”
“And you know what? I realize this is asking more than it's fair to ask yet, before you really know him that well. But do you know what would be the best thing in the world for him right now?”
The girl was still staring at their hands. “What?”
“If somehow you could find it in your heart to call him Dad. Don't say yes or no just now. Think about it. But it would be a wonderful thing for you to do for him, for reasons I don't have time to explain right here. And I promise you this, Regina — he is a good man. He will do anything for you, put his life on the line for you if it ever came to that, and never ask for anything. He'd be upset if he knew I was even asking you for this. But all I'm asking, really, is for you to think about it.”
After a long silence, the girl looked up from their linked hands and nodded. “Okay. I'll think about it.”
“Thank you, Regina.” She got up from the stepstool. “Now let's hang that last painting.”
Lindsey measured, penciled a spot on the wall, and nailed in a picture hook.
When Regina handed over the painting, she said, “It's just that all my life … there's never been anyone I called Mom or Dad. It's a very new thing.”
Lindsey smiled. “I understand, honey. I really do. And so will Hatch if it takes time.”
In the blazing Haunted House, as the cries for help and the screams of agony swelled louder, a strange object appeared in the firelight. A single rose. A black rose. It floated as if an unseen magician was levitating it. Vassago had never encountered anything more beautiful in the world of the living, in the world of the dead, or in the realm of dreams. It shimmered before him, its petals so smooth and soft that they seemed to have been cut from swatches of the night sky unspoiled by stars. The thorns were exquisitely sharp, needles of glass. The green stem had the oiled sheen of a serpent's skin. One petal held a single drop of blood. The rose faded from his dream, but later it returned — and with it the woman named Lindsey and the auburn-haired girl with the soft-gray eyes. Vassago yearned to possess all three: the black rose, the woman, and the girl with the gray eyes.
After Hatch freshened up for dinner, while Lindsey finished getting ready in the bathroom, he sat alone on the edge of their bed and read the article by S. Steven Honell in
As had happened the previous night, his anger erupted into fiery rage with volcanic abruptness. The muscles in his jaws clenched so hard, his teeth ached. The magazine began to shake because his hands were trembling with fury. His vision blurred slightly, as if he were looking at everything through shimmering waves of heat, and he had to blink and squint to make the fuzzy-edged words on the page resolve into readable print.
As when he had been lying in bed last night, he felt as if his anger opened a door and as if something entered him through it, a foul spirit that knew only rage and hate. Or maybe it had been with him all along but sleeping, and his anger had roused it. He was not alone inside his own head. He was aware of another presence, like a spider crawling through the narrow space between the inside of his skull and the surface of his brain.
He tried to put the magazine aside and calm down. But he kept reading because he was not in full possession of himself.
Vassago moved through the Haunted House, untroubled by the hungry fire, because he had planned an escape route. Sometimes he was twelve years old, and sometimes he was twenty. But always his path was lit by human torches, some of whom had collapsed into silent melting heaps upon the smoking floor, some of whom exploded into flames even as he passed them.
In the dream he was carrying a magazine, folded open to an article that angered him and seemed imperative he read. The edges of the pages curled in the heat and threatened to catch fire. Names leaped at him from the pages. Lindsey. Lindsey Sparling. Now he had a last name for her. He felt an urge to toss the magazine aside, slow his breathing, calm down. Instead he stoked his anger, let a sweet flood of rage overwhelm him, and told himself that he must know more. The edges of the magazine pages curled in the heat. Honell. Another name. Steven Honell. Bits of burning debris fell on the article. Steven S. Honell. No. The S first. S. Steven Honell. The paper caught fire. Honell. A writer. A barroom. Silverado Canyon. In his hands, the magazine burst into flames that flashed into his face—
He shed sleep like a fired bullet shedding its brass jacket, and sat up in his dark hideaway. Wide awake. Excited. He knew enough now to find the woman.
