'Well, it was just one word--'Return'--but I understood that she wanted me to go back to Oakdale, to my parents' old house.'
'Why?'
'I don't know.'
'You believe this? You think it's real?'
He hesitated only a second. 'Yes.'
Hal thought for a moment. 'Maybe you'd better go.'
Norton was already shaking his head. 'I can't go back there.'
'Why?'
'I just can't.'
'When was the last time--'
'I haven't seen it since I left.'
'How long ago was that?'
'When I went into the army. When I was eighteen.'
'I take it you don't have fond memories of the place.'
'I'm not going back.'
Hal nodded.
They were silent for a moment.
'You get more spiritual as you get older,' Hal said.
'I don't know if it's because you get scared since you're closer to death, or because you're actually wiser than you used to be, but you start thinking about spiritual things, wondering why we're here, what the point of it all is, whether there's anything else. If I were you, I'd probably go. I'd probably do what the ghost said.
There's a reason for it, something we don't understand, and I think I'd have to trust that.'
Norton said nothing.
'We've felt these presences or seen these ghosts because we're supposed to. We're not too far from them ourselves, it's almost our time, and who's to say whether this isn't the way it works. Maybe everybody sees ghosts before they go, only they're like me, they're afraid to mention it, afraid to tell anyone.'
Norton remained silent.
'This might be a warning. About your death. About your afterlife. I don't know if you can afford to ignore it.'
'I can't go back,' Norton repeated.
'Why?'
'Because of what happened.'
'In Oakdale?'
Norton looked at him. 'In the house,' he said.
'What did happen?' Hal asked quietly.
'I don't know,' Norton admitted, and a wave of cold passed through him. 'I can't remember. But it was bad.'
He shivered, rubbed his arms. 'I know it was bad.'
As usual, he was the last person at school save the custodians.
He'd stayed late in the past quite frequently, but it had become a daily routine during the time of Carole's ghost. Now that her spirit was gone, he remained out of habit.
Well, habit and the fact that he wasn't entirely sure she was gone for good.
The ghost had disappeared after that last appearance by the tree, after telling him to return home to Oakdale.
It was as if she had done what she had come here to do, had completed her mission and moved on.
Strangely enough, the house seemed even creepier now that she had left. It had been unnerving to see Carole's nude form suddenly appear in a room, stressful to know that she could show up anywhere in the house at any time, without warning. But it had been an extension of her real presence, and though they hadn't always gotten along, it was somehow comforting and reassuring to know that Carole was still in the house.
Now, though, the house seemed . . . what?
He didn't know, couldn't explain it.
On the one hand, it was empty, completely devoid of any activity other than his own. On the other hand, that seemed to be just a temporary state of affairs. He had the feeling that Carole's ghost could return at any moment.
And that she might bring others.
It was impossible to put into words, this feeling, and it might be simply the mental ravings of a doddering trauma-shocked old man, but he was more afraid of being in the house now than he had been when Carole's ghost was popping up left and right. It was stressful and it made him nervous, and its ripples were infringing on all other aspects of his life. It was even beginning to affect his teaching.
He'd considered selling the place, staying at a boardinghouse or a cheap hotel until he could find a new home or an apartment to rent, but he knew that that would not put an end to it.
There was also Oakdale hanging over his head.
Return.
He'd been thinking a lot about home, about Oakdale lately, but though he had the distinct sense that something horrible had happened there, something that had so alienated him it had kept him away all these years, the only memories he could conjure up were good the ants --and whatever bad memories he had were buried under the layer of years. While he was sure he could uncover those core truths eventually, he was not at all sure he wanted to do so. He'd lived most of his life away from Oakdale, without thinking about it, and he saw no problem with doing the same for whatever years were left to him.
But could he afford to? Whatever was at stake here, it had to be pretty damn important if a ghost had been sent out to harass him.
Sent out by whom?
That was the real question. Although he'd gone to church on and off throughout his life, Norton basically considered himself an agnostic. Well, maybe not exactly an agnostic. A deist, perhaps, like Thomas Jefferson, an adherent to the clockmaker theory. He believed that God had created everything, had set it in motion, but was now on to other projects and other planets, trusting his creation to run in the way he'd intended and not deigning to bother in the affairs of men.
But the appearance of Carole's ghost had thrown him, and for the first time in his life he considered that maybe the fundamentalists were right. Maybe there was a traditional heaven and a traditional hell, and maybe God did take a personal interest in the minutiae of men. Maybe He was an old man with a long white beard who spent all His time monitoring what happened on earth.
Maybe God was trying to communicate with him.
Return.
That was the thought to which he kept coming back, and he had to admit that it frightened him. Hal was right; even if it was not God specifically who was urging him to return to Oakdale, it was some sort of higher power, something able to summon supernatural forces.
And who was he to go argue with that? Who was he to go against the wishes of such a being? For all he knew, the fate of the world was at stake and his hesitation and procrastination might doom the human race for eternity.
What would have happened if Noah had shirked his duty? What if Moses hadn't been in the mood to lead his people out of Egypt?
Egocentric thinking, he knew. Megalomaniacal even.
He wasn't in that kind of position. The world wouldn't end because he refused to go back to Oakdale.
But could he afford to take that chance?
Hal had offered to go back with him, and as simple a gesture as it was, Norton found himself touched by it.
He knew how scared his friend was for him, and he was grateful for the support. It was almost enough to
