it.
'Miles!' The mist formed at the foot of the Jew's bed. 'Open your eyes. Look at me.'
Miles fearfully opened his eyes, looking at the mist. He began silently reciting prayers, recalling them as if he had just stepped out of the synagogue.
Miles tried to speak but found he was voiceless.
'Don't be alarmed.' The mist thrust its silent projection as it began to take shape. 'I can hear your thoughts.'
'Go away!' Miles said. 'Sam? My God—my God! Oh! I think I'm having a heart attack.'
'And I think you're as full of it now as when I knew you years ago.'
'Don't think ugly!' Miles sat up in bed. 'You're too close to Him to take chances.'
'Miles?' Doris stirred by his side. 'What's wrong?'
I should tell you and you'd have an accident in your gown. 'Nothing,' his voice popped from his throat. 'A little gas, is all.'
'Umm,' she said, and then fell into a deep sleep.
'She won't wake up again until I leave,' Sam projected. 'You may speak normally.'
'I wish you had taught me how to do that years ago.'
'I didn't know how years ago.'
'Sam—I'm dreaming all this, right?'
'It is not a dream.'
'I was afraid you'd say that. Sam, I'm an old man, with more than my share of aches and pains: bad circulation … and that other thing, too. Arteriosclerosis. And I got …'
'Not anymore, Miles.'
'What do you mean, Sam?'
'Do your legs hurt you, Miles?'
Miles thought about that for a moment, his hands feeling his thin legs. His legs were not cold, nor did they ache. He looked at the mist and said: 'What did you do, Sam?'
'Corrected a few physical problems. You and Wade will have to be strong, mentally and physically, to make it through this upcoming ordeal.'
'Why am I experiencing this feeling that I am about to get the shitty—excuse me, Sam—end of this handel?'
'I don't speak Hebrew, Miles.'
'Bargain. You really don't? That seems odd.'
'All languages are as one there, Miles. Miles? Am I your friend?'
'Oy! Here it comes; I knew it.'
'Wouldn't you rather go out in a blaze of glory, Miles?'
'If it's all the same with you, Sam, I would rather not go out at all! Sam, old friend, do you realize what you're doing to me? You turned my head all cockeyed more than twenty years ago. I'm a Jew—I don't believe in all this crazy stuff. Now here you come again—no offense meant. Sam, please, it's good to see you; what there is of you. But … oh, Sam! What do you want from this old man? Let me rephrase that: What's gonna happen to me?'
'You're going to meet The Man in nine days.'
'Some friend you are! You fix my legs all up where they don't hurt—first time in five years—then you tell me I'm gonna die in nine days!' He lay back, his head on the pillow. He closed his eyes. 'If I don't see you, don't talk to you, you'll go away.'
He was still for a few moments, until curiosity got the best of him. He opened his eyes. The mist that was Sam Balon was still there, looking at him.
Miles sighed, then said: 'Well, sometimes it works. Okay, Sam … I never could win an argument with you. What do you want me to do?'
'Finish the Clay Man.'
'I knew that was coming, too.'
'I will speak with Wade and Anita. Perhaps Wade only. They will come to stay with you and Doris. The Clay Man will have power for nine days only; for the duration of the siege. When life leaves him, the four of you will go home.'
'How is it, Sam? I mean … where you are. Were. Where you stay.'
'Different. But I don't stay there often. When I'm there, I'm usually in trouble with Him.'
'That, I can believe. Sam? What does this make me? This flies in the face of all that I was taught as a child. Everything I was taught to believe.'
'I cannot say what it makes you. That will be your choice at the end.'
'Wonderful,' Miles said dryly. 'I love a mystery.'
