of the dream, but he was still shaky, fearful--and worried about
Toby.
He left the master bedroom, intending to check on his son. Falstaff
was in the shadowy upstairs hall, staring intently through the open
door of the bedroom next to Toby's, where Heather had set up her
computers. An odd, faint light fell through the doorway and glimmered
on the dog's coat. He was statue-still and tense. His blocky head was
held low and thrust forward. His tail wasn't wagging. As Jack
approached, the retriever looked at him and issued a muted, anxious
whine.
The soft clicking of a computer keyboard came from the room. Rapid
typing.
Silence. Then another burst of typing.
In Heather's makeshift office, Toby was sitting in front of one of the
computers. The glow from the monitor, which faced away from Jack, was
the only source of light in the former bedroom, far brighter than the
reflection that reached the hallway, it bathed the boy swiftly changing
shades of blue and green and purple, a sudden splash of red, orange,
then blue and green.
At the window behind Toby, the night remained deep because the gray
insistence of dawn could not yet be seen from that side of the house.
Barrages of fine snow flakes tapped the glass and were briefly
transformed into blue and green sequins by the monitor light.
Stepping across the threshold, Jack said, 'Toby?' The boy didn't
glance up from the screen. His small hands flew across the keyboard,
eliciting a furious spate of muffled clicking. No other sound issued
from the machine none of the usual beeps or burbles. Could Toby
type?
No. At least, not like this, not with such ease and speed. The boy's
eyes glimmered with distorted images of the display on the screen
before him: violet, emerald, a flicker of red.
'Hey, kiddo, what're you doing?'
He didn't respond to the question.
Yellow, gold, yellow, orange, gold, yellow--the light .. shimmered not
as if it radiated from a computer screen but as if it was the
glittering reflection of summer sunlight bouncing off the rippled
surface of a pond, spangling his face.
Yellow, orange, umber, amber, yellow . . .
At the window, spinning snowflakes glimmered like gold dust, hot
sparks, fireflies. Jack crossed the room with trepidation, sensing
that normality had not returned when he'd awakened from the
nightmare.
The dog padded behind him.
Together, they rounded one end of the L-shaped work area and stood at
Toby's side. A riot of constantly changing colors surged across the
computer screen from left to right, melting into and through one
another, now fading, now intensifying, now bright, now dark, curling,
pulsing, an electronic kaleidoscope in which none of the ceaselessly
transfigured patterns had straight edges. It was a full-color
