Beyond the Chocolate War

immediate to him, charging the air, alerting his senses. Now: nothing. Her mother's VW wasn't in the driveway either.

He rapped on the door, not expecting a response now, but having to do something.

Damn it. He ached to see her. Was filled with guilt and loneliness and longing. Felt hounded, his thoughts swirling around like the snowflakes in those glass globes people keep on mantelpieces.

Turning away, walking down the steps, feeling as though he was in retreat from a skirmish he had just lost, he plodded to his car. The merriment of the spring day mocked him. Brilliant sun, whiff of lilac in the air, all of it empty somehow.

This was his second visit to Laurie's house this afternoon. He had come here directly from Trinity, found no response, and driven to Monument High. The campus was deserted. Peering in the front door, he had seen a custodian pushing a mop down the corridor. He was an outsider at her school. As he walked back to his car, he realized how little he knew about her life, her daily existence. She talked sometimes of her girl friends and he had met two or three of them — but their faces were a blur and their names a vague litany of Debbies and Donnas.

Resting his chin on the steering wheel now, disconsolate, he stared at Laurie's house. His vigil seemed hopeless; the house wore an air of vacancy, abandonment.

His mind went to the Vigils meeting and Archie's strange performance. Under ordinary circumstances he would have been figuring out all the angles, pondering the potential meaning of Archie's behavior. But he couldn't concentrate on Archie now. Laurie and his anguish dominated everything else.

Fifteen minutes went by. More frustrated than ever, sighing almost to the point of hyperventilating — he often had trouble drawing a deep breath when he faced tough situations — he started the car, raced the motor. Couldn't stand doing nothing any longer.

There was only one bright spot in the day, not exactly bright but at least not as downbeat, grim, and depressing as everything else: Ray Bannister's deliverance from his assignment on the day of the visit. The project had been canceled and so had Ray's part in it all.

At least he could deliver a bit of good news to someone on this most rotten of all days.

A while later Ray Bannister's mother directed him to the cellar.

'He's working on his secret project, so he might not let you in,' she said good-naturedly. She had the most astonishing tan Obie had ever seen. Deep and rich, like melted caramel. He followed her directions through the house and down the cellar stairs. 'Don't forget to knock,' she called after him.

The door at the bottom of the stairs was closed. Secret project? He knocked.

'Who's there?' Ray's voice was faint on the other side of the door.

'Obie.'

A few moments later Obie confronted the secret project. It looked, for crying out loud, like a guillotine.

Which, as it turned out, was exactly what it was, Ray Bannister said. Then explained: 'Well, not exactly a guillotine. It's an illusion. But one of the best.'

'Did you build it yourself?' Obie asked, both attracted and repulsed by the apparatus, sensing a threat in its presence, ugly in the cellar's dim light.

Ray seemed shy suddenly. 'I always liked working with my hands.' Running his hand over the side of the blade, he said: 'I was just about to test it. Want to help?'

Obie stepped back instinctively, wanted nothing to do with this lethal piece of machinery. Yet he had to admit that he was fascinated. His eyes kept straying to the crossblock with the carved-out groove on which the victim's neck would rest. Victim was the wrong word, of course. After all, this was only fun and games. Illusion, like Ray Bannister said.

Ray walked over to the workbench and picked up a shopping bag. Smiling wickedly at Obie, he pulled out a head of cabbage. 'See, Obie? I'll give a demonstration, just like a regular magician. A real cabbage — my mother got it at the supermarket for forty-nine cents. She's a good egg, didn't even ask me what I needed a head of cabbage for.'

Ray Bannister placed the cabbage in the curved groove, about three feet below the slanted blade. The blade looked menacing, extremely dangerous poised above the cabbage. Suppose it wasn't a head of cabbage but a real head? Obie recoiled from the thought.

'Watch,' Ray Bannister said, drawing out the syllable, letting his voice trail off dramatically. He pressed a button near the top of the guillotine. The blade plummeted, flashing brilliantly for a moment as it caught a ray of light from the ceding bulb, hitting the cabbage, exploding the vegetable into a thousand pieces of moist green and yellow leaves.

'Not as clean as slicing somebody's neck, but you get the idea, don't you, Obie?' Ray asked, chuckling.

'Messy,' Obie said, hiding his queasiness. What a terrible day. And a guillotine demolishing a cabbage to top it all. 'Now,' Ray said, with a flourish, bowing toward the guillotine, assuming the role of Bannister the Great. 'Be my guest.'

'You're kidding,' Obie said.

'Don't you trust me?'

Trust? Obie thought of Archie and Bunting and the attack at the Chasm and now Laurie unapproachable. 'I don't trust anybody,' Obie said.

'Hey, it's only a trick, an illusion,' Ray said, frowning. Frankly, he was a bit nervous about this first demonstration. Knew it was foolproof, nothing to worry about, but edgy. He had been edgy ever since Obie had approached him, plunging him into the strange world of Trinity. 'Look, I'll offer myself as the victim.' Keeping his voice light. 'I'll lay my neck on the line. Literally. And you press the button.'

Obie eyed the deadly blade and the remnants of the demolished vegetable. The smell of raw cabbage filled the air. 'I'd rather not,' Obie said. Then, also trying to keep it light so that Ray Bannister wouldn't think he was chicken, 'I can see the headlines if anything goes wrong: 'Student Loses Head Over Trick.' '

'Come on,' Ray said, stepping smartly to the guillotine. He knelt down and bent over, placing his neck in the groove, facing the floor now. 'All you have to do, Obie, is hit the button.'

'Not me,' Obie protested.

Ray craned his neck to look up at him. 'There's no risk. Do you think I'd be crazy enough to take a chance like that?'

Obie wondered whether he was being ridiculous and paranoid.

'Let's go,' Ray commanded, adjusting himself once more, wriggling his body a bit. 'This isn't the most comfortable position in the world.'

'Are you sure it's foolproof?' Obie asked.

'Is anything really sure in this world?' Ray asked. Then quickly: 'Just fooling, Obie. Come on, push the damn button.'

Obie sighed, accepting his fate, realizing that this was a day in which nothing could go right, and if the trick didn't work, then the hell with it. The hell with everything.

'Well, it's your neck, not mine,' Obie said, stepping up to the guillotine. 'And I'm not kidding.' Glancing down at Ray, he said: 'Ready?'

'Ready.' A bit muffled. Was that a quiver in his voice?

Obie pressed the button.

Nothing happened. For an agonizing moment, the blade remained still, poised dangerously, of course, but unmoving. And then a sudden swish, so startling and unexpected, catching Obie as he drew breath, that he leaped back in surprise. The blade fell so quickly that his eyes could barely follow its descent. The most startling thing of all was the way the blade penetrated Ray's neck — or seemed to penetrate it — and yet did not. Ray's neck was undisturbed, no terrible rending, no blood. The blade now rested below the curved groove as if it had passed through Ray's flesh.

'Jesus,' Obie said, awed.

Ray leaped from the kneeling position, smiling triumphantly, smirking really, immensely pleased with himself. 'Voilа,' he pronounced, waving toward the guillotine and then bowing sweepingly, his arm moving as if doffing a hat.

Obie shook his head in wonder. 'How the hell does that work?' Actually, he was shuddering inside, realizing that for a stunning moment he had wanted the blade to slice through human flesh, imagining that the neck on the