The Face of Death

things into the big black pool. I've been spending a lot of time, lately, dropping things into it. I think I've just about got everything now. I want to be an empty room, with white walls. I'm almost there. The black death-bees have almost become the light.

I'm writing this story because it might be the last chance I have to get this all down before I drop myself into the big black pool, forever. I don't really want to go there, but it's harder and harder to keep moving every day, and The Crazy, it seems to want to come up from the watering hole a lot more often. There's something, though, a small, stubborn part of me that still remembers being six. It talks to me less and less, but when it does, it tells me to write things down, and to find a way to give it to you. I don't think you're going to be able to save me, Smoky Barrett. I'm afraid I've spent too much time at the watering hole, too much time writ- ing stories I set on fire. But maybe, just maybe--you can get him.

And drop him into the real big black pool.

That's about it. The last sprint on the white and crinkly. A Ruined Life?

Pretty close, I guess.

I don't dream of my mom and dad anymore. I did have a dream about Buster the other night. It caught me by surprise. I woke up and I almost thought I could feel where his head had been, lying on my tummy.

But Buster's dead, along with the rest of them. The biggest change is the deepest change:

I don't hope anymore.

THE END?

I finish this last line of Sarah's diary, and I put a hand to my eyes and this time I find my tears. Bonnie comes over to me and takes my other hand in hers and rubs it, offering comfort. I wipe my eyes after a moment.

'Sorry, babe,' I say. 'I read something that made me sad. Sorry.'

She gives me one of those smiles that says, It's okay, we're alive, I'm just happy you're here with me.

'Okay,' I say, forcing a smile. I still feel pretty bleak. Bonnie catches my eye again. She taps her head. This one I know without having to think about it.

'You had an idea?'

She nods. Points to the wall, where a picture of Alexa hangs. Points at the ceiling above our heads. It takes me a moment.

'You had an idea about what to do with Alexa's room?'

She smiles, nods. Yes.

'Tell me, sweetheart.'

She indicates herself, mimes sleeping, shakes her head.

'You don't want to sleep there.'

Quick nod. Right.

She mimes holding something, moving it up and down in brushing motions, and, as sometimes happens, I get her full meaning in a flood and a flash.

When Bonnie had first made it clear to me that she wanted some watercolors, I was overjoyed. The therapeutic possibilities were obvious; Bonnie was mute, but perhaps she'd speak through her brush. She painted scenes bright and scenes dark, beautiful moonlit nights, days washed through with rain and grays. There was no trend in her imagery beyond the fact that all were vivid, regardless of subject. My favorite, a depiction of the desert under a blazing sun, was a mix of stark beauty. There was hot, bright, yellow sand. There was blue, forever, cloudless sky. There was a single cactus, standing alone in all that emptiness, straight and strong and tall. It didn't seem to need comfort or company. It was a confident, aloof cactus. It could take the sun and the heat and lack of water and it was fine, thank you very much, just fine. I had to wonder if it represented Bonnie. She'd since graduated from watercolors to oils and acrylics. She spent a day each week painting, intense, her concentration almost furious. I had watched her without her knowing it, and I'd been struck by her total immersion. I could tell that the world disappeared when she painted. Her focus narrowed to the canvas in front of her, the shouting in her mind, the motion of her hand. She generally painted without stopping, a continuous dead run.

Maybe it was the act that was therapeutic. Perhaps the paintings were secondary. Maybe it was just the doing that was important. Whatever the truth, the paintings were good. Bonnie was no Rembrandt, but she had talent. Her work had a vitality, a boldness that suffused each painting with agelessness.

'You want to turn Alexa's room into a studio?'

Bonnie has been painting in the library, and it's beginning to overflow with paper and canvas and mess. She nods, happy but cautious. She reaches over to me, takes my hand, gives me a look of concern. Again, understanding, that flash and flood.

'But only if it's okay with me, huh?'

Her smile is soft. I give her one in return, touch her cheek.

'I think it's a great idea.'

She lets the caution drop away from her smile. The shine of it starts to work its way into my darker recesses.

She indicates the TV and gives me an inquisitive look. She's been watching the cartoon channel.

Want to watch with me? she's asking.

That sounds about right.

'You bet.'

I open up my arms so she can snuggle into me, and we watch together, and I try to let her sunshine banish all that internal rain. Be the cactus, I think. We got sun. To hell with the sand.

47

IT'S MORNING AND I'M TRYING TO CALM SARAH DOWN. She'd met Elaina, and a new look of horror and terror had crossed her face. She'd started to back away, toward the door.

'No,' she says, her eyes wide, shining with unspent tears. 'No way. Not here.'

I understand what's happening. She's recognized the goodness of Elaina, understood it in a flash, and she sees Desiree and her mother and deaths yet to come.

'Sarah. Honey. Look at me,' I say, my voice soothing. She continues to stare at Elaina.

'No way. Not her. I can't be responsible for that.'

Elaina steps forward, brushing me aside. The look on her face is a mix of compassion and pain. Her voice, when she speaks, is gentle, so gentle.

'Sarah. I want you here. Are you listening to me? I know the risks, and I want you here.'

Sarah continues to stare at Elaina, no longer speaking, but shaking her head, back and forth, back and forth. Elaina points at her own baldness.

'See that? That was cancer. I beat cancer. And you know what else?

Six months ago a man came and he grabbed me and Bonnie and he meant to kill us. We beat him too.' She indicates the group that's here, me, Alan, Bonnie, herself. 'We beat him together.'

'No,' Sarah moans.

Now it is Bonnie who strides forward. She looks up at me, she points to herself. I frown at her, puzzled, trying to understand. She points at herself again, and then points at Sarah. Everyone watches, transfixed. It takes me a moment, and then I get it.

'You want me to tell her about you?'

A nod.

'You sure?'

A nod.

I face Sarah. 'Bonnie's mother, Annie, was my best friend. A man--

the same one who later tried to kill Elaina and Bonnie--killed Annie, right in front of Bonnie. Then he tied