Ghost Story

'It is to imagine that your life is a secret,' his friend replied.

'Most particularly, to imagine it a secret between yourself

and a mirror.'

'I see,' Narcissus said. 'It is the illness for

which mirror-gazing is the cure.'

1

Near seven o'clock Ricky Hawthorne rolled over in bed and groaned. Feelings of panic, of emergency, filled him, making the darkness admonitory: he had to get out of bed, get moving, to avert some terrible tragedy. 'Ricky?' Stella uttered beside him. 'Fine, fine,' he answered, and sat up in bed. The window at the far end of the room showed dark gray shot through with lazily falling snow-flakes so big they looked like snowballs. Ricky's heartbeat sounded: doom, doom. Someone was in terrible danger; in the instant before shooting into wakefulness, he'd seen an image and known-rendingly -who it was. Now all he knew was that it was impossible for him to stay in bed. He raised the covers and put one leg over the side.

'Was it your nightmare again, baby?' Stella whispered hoarsely.

'No. No, not that. 'I'll be okay, Stella.' He patted her shoulder and left the bed. The urgency clung. Ricky slid his feet into his slippers, pulled a robe over his pajamas, and padded to the window.

'Honey, you're upset, come back to bed.'

'I can't' He rubbed his face: still that wild feeling, trapped in his chest like a bird, that someone he knew was in mortal danger. Snow transformed Ricky's back yard into a range of shifting and dimpled hills.

It was the snow which reminded him: the snow blowing through a mirror in Eva Galli's house, and a glimpse of Elmer Scales, his face distorted by an obligation to a commanding and cruel beauty, running raggedly through the drifts. Raising a shotgun: turning a small form into a spray of blood. Ricky's stomach savagely bent in on itself, shooting pain down into his bowels. He pressed a hand into the soft flesh below his navel and groaned again. Elmer Scales's farm. Where the last stage of the Chowder Society's agony had begun.

'Ricky, what's wrong?'

'Something I saw in a mirror,' he said, straightening up now that the pain had dissolved, aware that his statement would be nonsense to Stella. 'I mean, something about Elmer Scales. I have to get out to his farm.'

'Ricky, it's seven o'clock on Christmas morning.'

'Makes no difference.'

'You can't. Call him up first.'

'Yes,' he said, already on his way out of the bedroom, going past Stella's white, startled face. 'I'll try that.'

He was on the landing outside the bedroom, still with that wakening emergency sounding along his veins (doom, doom) and was torn for a second between rushing into the wardrobe closet and throwing on some clothes so he'd be ready to leave and running downstairs to the telephone.

A noise from downstairs decided him. Ricky put his hand on the banister and descended.

Sears, fully dressed and with the fur-collared coat over his arm, was just coming out of the kitchen. The look of aggressive blandness which was Sears's lifelong expression was gone: his old friend's face was as taut as he knew his own to be.

'You, too,' Sears said. 'I'm sorry.'

'I just woke up,' Ricky said. 'I know what you're feeling-I want to go with you.'

'Don't interfere,' Sears said. 'All I'm going to do is get out there, have a look around and make sure everything's all right. I feel like a cat on a griddle.'

'Stella had a good idea. Let's try to call him first. Then the two of us will go together.'

Sears shook his head. 'You'll slow me down, Ricky. I'll be safer alone.'

'Come on.' Ricky put a hand on Sears's elbow and steered him back to the couch. 'Nobody's going anywhere until we try the telephone. After that we can talk about what to do.'

'There's nothing to talk about,' Sears said, but sat down anyhow. He twisted his body to watch Ricky lift the phone off its stand and place it on the coffee table. 'You know his number?'

'Of course,' Ricky said, and dialed. Elmer Scales's telephone, rang; and rang again; and again. 'I'll give him more time,' Ricky said, and let it go for ten rings, then twelve. He heard it again: doom, doom, that frantic pulse.

'It's no good,' Sears said, 'I'd better go. Probably won't make it anyhow, on these roads.'

'Sears, it's still early morning,' Ricky said, putting down the phone. 'Maybe nobody heard it ringing.'

'At seven-' Sears looked at his watch. 'At seven-ten on Christmas morning? In a house with five children? Does that sound likely to you? I know something is wrong out there, and if I can get there at all, I might be able to stop it from getting worse. I don't intend to wait for you to get dressed.' Sears stood up and began putting on his coat.

'At least call Hardesty and let him go out there instead. You know what I saw, back in that house.'

'That is a feeble joke, Ricky. Hardesty? Don't be foolish. Elmer won't shoot at me. We both know that.'

'I know he won't,' Ricky said miserably. 'But I'm worried, Sears. This is something Eva's doing-like what she did to John. We should not let her split us up. If we go running in all directions she can get to us- destroy us. We ought to call Don and get him to come with us. Oh, I know something terrible is happening out there, I'm convinced of it, but you'll court something even worse if you try to go there by yourself.'

Sears looked down at pleading Ricky Hawthorne, and the impatience on his face melted. 'Stella would never forgive me if I let you take that wretched cold outside again. And it would take Don half an hour or more to get there. You can't make me wait, Ricky.'

'I could never make you do anything you didn't want to do.'

'Correct,' Sears said, and buttoned his coat.

'You're not expendable, Sears.'

'Who is? Can you name one person you think is expendable, Ricky? I've lost too much time already, so don't make me hang around while you try to justify naming Hitler or Albert de Salvo or Richard Speck or-'

'What in the world are you two talking about?' Stella was in the entrance of the living room, smoothing down her hair with the palms of her hands.

'Nail your husband to the couch and pour hot whiskey into him until I get back,' Sears said.

'Don't let him go, Stella,' Ricky said. 'He can't go alone.'

'Is it urgent?' she asked.

'For heaven's sake,' Sears muttered, and Ricky nodded.

'Then he'd better go. I hope he can get the car started.'

Sears moved toward the hallway, and Stella stepped aside to let him pass. But before he went into the hall, he turned back to look once more at Ricky and Stella. 'I'll be back. Don't fret about me, Ricky.'

'You realize it's probably too late already.'

'It's probably been too late for fifty years,' Sears said. Then he turned and was gone.

2

Sears put on his hat and went outside into the coldest morning he could remember. His ears and the tip of his nose immediately began to sting; a moment later the unprotected part of his forehead was also blazing with cold. He moved carefully down the slippery walk, noticing that the previous night's snow had been the lightest in three weeks-only five or six inches of fresh snow lay on the old, and that meant that he had a good chance of being able to take the big Lincoln out onto the highway.

The key stuck halfway into the lock: cursing with impatience, Sears yanked it out and removed a glove to search his pockets for his cigar lighter. The cold bit and tore at his fingers, but the lighter snapped out its flame; Sears played it back and forth over the key, and just when his fingers felt as though they were about to drop off, slotted the key neatly into the lock. He opened the door and slid himself onto the leather seat.