It is a sound that began a thousand millennia ago, a red wind that has blown through the ages, finding cracks in the world, a breeze that became a howling sirocco here, in the soul of a killer, in the festering heart of Room 1208.
Chapter 22
Lucy walked down Eighteenth Street in what she had once heard, from one therapist or another, was a fugue state.
She couldn't get that photograph out of her mind.
That couldn't have been her house on Melbourne Road. It wasn't possible. It was just a picture of one of a million bungalows. They all looked alike, didn't they? Especially the crappy ones.
But what about that flag, Luce? Did they all have that raggedy flag hanging off the porch by a rusted nail, that stupid pennant that was supposed to mean Spring? The one you were supposed to change every three months but no one ever did, not once in all the time they lived there? They had all of them — Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, all four seasons, each looking more tattered than the other — but they never changed Spring.
What about that, Luce?
What about the Spring flag?
She didn't have an answer, just as she had no idea what had happened during those twenty minutes she couldn't recall. Somehow she must have talked about the day she disappeared. What did she say? And why didn't Mr. Costa tell her what she'd said? Wasn't that why she went to see him?
It was all part of the process, she guessed. And she had two more visits to go.
From the time she was six or seven years old, Lucy had been an ace mechanic. Not with cars, necessarily, although she could now do basic maintenance on most cars — changing oil, replacing plugs and belts, the occasional brake job if it didn't involve turning the drums or rotors. No, her forte was small appliances. Bring her a stopped tape player, a cold toaster oven, a dimmed lamp — and a lot of the staff of Le Jardin often did — and she would have it up and running by the end of lunchtime.
She had not gone to a vocational training school, or taken any classes, correspondence or otherwise. It was a natural ability, combined with a necessity of life.
When she was small, on the night forays during which she and her mother picked through trash they would often find all kinds of discarded items — toaster ovens, blenders, tape players. Lucy's mother would haul them back to their apartment, giddy with swag, then pretty much forget about them. Weeks later she would throw them out, and Lucy would rescue them a second time. She started with the easy ones, but eventually got better at repair.
Although she didn't know it, she was practicing reverse engineering.
By the time she was ten, Lucy would go out to dumps, finding her own things to repair. She knew every second-hand dealer in their small towns. Where most kids were reading Dick and Jane, Lucy pored over Sam's Photofact.
In addition, on her jaunts into the stores Lucy always stole the same color clothes — sweaters, sweatshirts, skirts. She even replaced some of her mother's clothes. Her mother was always falling down, ripping her clothes. Lucy got it down to a science. She could steal a brand new dress and worry the material just enough so that her mother never knew she was wearing a different garment. Her mother was a proud woman in many ways, and it broke Lucy's heart to see her going around in ratty clothes.
On this day, Lucy found herself in the Macy's near City Hall. She made her way over to the children's section, found a sweater that looked to be the right size. She picked up two of them, carried them around for a while. When she got to the women's section she selected a dress, brought it into the dressing room.
Inside she got out her small toolkit and, with her back to the mirrors — she knew all the tricks — removed the electronic tags from one sweater and the dress, affixing them to the second sweater. She slipped the first sweater and the dress into her bag, left the dressing room, replaced the other sweater on the display rack, tarried a bit to make sure that she wasn't being watched, then walked out of the store.
When she arrived back at Le Jardin, with just a few minutes to spare, Lucy could see that the convention guests — the members of Sociйtй Poursuite — were milling about the lobby. They weren't all guests, of course. It was a convention that attracted a lot of locals, as well as people from all over the tri-state area who drove in for the three days of seminars, lectures and dinners.
In all, over the next few hours there would be ninety-two new guests, and all of them had to be quickly and efficiently processed, greeted with smiles and pleasant repartee, their concerns listened to with rapt attention, their every need anticipated and met, their next three days in the city of Philadelphia — and specifically in Le Jardin — a promised and delivered haven.
Lucy stopped by the Loss Prevention office, picked up her room key.
A door to your subconscious, Mr. Costa had called it. A portal to what happened to you nine years ago.
Lucy finished her last room, room 1214, at 3:45.
She stepped into the closet, closed the door, sat down. In moments, the darkness embraced her. When she closed her eyes she saw the town of Shanksville, Pennsylvania from above, saw the school on Cornerstone Road, Lake Stonycreek, and the church on Main Street.
The Dreamweaver had asked her questions, his silken voice floating above her, behind her, around her, like a warm breeze. Her own voice belonged to a little girl.
What day is it, Lucy?
Tuesday.
Is it morning, afternoon, evening?
It's morning. Tuesday morning.
What time?
Around ten. I didn't go to school.
Why not?
Mama was out the night before, and she didn't get up in time.
Where are you?
I am across the street from the church.
Are you alone?
No. Mama's with me. She is wearing her long leather coat. The one with the rip in the right pocket. She is wearing sunglasses. She asked a lady for a cigarette and the lady gave her one.
What happened then?
There was a big bang. It was loud. Even the ground shook.
What did you do?
I don't remember exactly.
Try to remember. Do you smell anything? Taste anything?
I taste milkshake.
What flavor is it?
Chocolate. But it's warm milkshake. I don't like warm milkshake.
What about smell?
I smell smoke, but not like regular smoke. Not like burning leaves, or logs in a fireplace. More like when people burn their plastic garbage bags.
What happens next?
I stand here for a long time, watching the fire and smoke rise up into the sky.
Where is your mother?
Right beside me. Or maybe not.
What do you mean?
Someone is beside me, but I'm not looking at that person. I can't take my eyes off the smoke over the trees. It is making pretty patterns in the sky.
What kind of patterns?
