Mr. X

    'He's sound asleep. That noise is the wind in the attic.' She perched on the other chair and tilted the contents of the thimble into her mouth. I did the same. The sherry, which was not sherry, burned down my throat like kerosene.

    'Homemade,' Joy said. 'According to my bad, mad daddy's recipe. I don't have but a little bit left, but I wanted you to have some.'

    'The ambrosia of the Dunstans,' I said. “I guess you've seen him, too.'

    'So what did my sisters say? That I made it all up? I didn't, though. My daddy, Howard Dunstan, stood right in front of me, same as he did with you. Wasn't hefunny?Wasn't he allimpressive andunhappy?'

    'He didn't seem to think he had any reason to go on living,' I said.

    'According to Daddy, we were washed up a long lime ago. He appeared to me because I was a true Dunstan, like him, but he didn't enjoy the condition. He wanted us all to go away.'

    'He told you I would see him, too?'

    'Because you were avrai Dunstan, like me. He didn't like you, though. Daddy didn't like anybody, especially Dunstans. He didn't even like his daughters, because they reminded him of his futility. That is the conclusion I have come to.'

    'Aunt Joy,' I said, 'how could you and I talk to your father? It wasn't like seeing a ghost, it was like being there with him.'

    'My daddy couldn't be aghost,' Joy said, amused. 'Someone like that could never be an ordinaryold fantome. Time made that happen.'

    'Time?'

    “It's all around us. You can use time, if you're able. I don't see why you're sostupide about it. According to my daddy, you keep on bothering him over and over. That's what hesaid.'

    “I don't understand,' I said. 'What do you mean, use it?'

    'You saw my daddy, didn't you? You were in his study, and he was alive, he had to be alive, because he could talk to you.'

    I realized what she meant. 'Oh.'

    'You went into his time, that's all,' Joy said.'C'est simple.'

    I stared at her for a moment, trying to reconcile the memory of what I had experienced with my instinct to deny Joy's version of the simple.

    “I had this feeling of . . .'

    'Of what?' Her voice had an impatient edge.

    'Falling.'

    'Well, of course.C'est normal. I don't know why I should have toexplain it to you. When you gobackwards, it feels likeyou're falling. How else could it feel? I hope you know how lucky you are. Hardly anybody can ever do that. Some can do it once but never again. Queenie couldn't, and Nettie can't do it, and for sureMay never could. There was Daddy, and then me, when I had the strength, and now there's you. You know what Daddy used to say?'

    I shook my head.

    'He used to say heate time. He didn't like it, but he ate it anyhow, because an ability like that has a reason behind it, and if you have the ability, you have to find the reason. He said once he saw Omar and Sylvan Dunstan robbing dead soldiers on a battlefield, and he thought maybe that was the reason he had the ability.'

    'What's the reason you had it?'

    'Maybe so Howard Dunstan could make me unhappy. Maybe so I could talk to you. I hope your reason is better than mine.'

    'Howard made your mother unhappy,' I said.

    'Yes.' Joy nodded. “Ina great many ways.'

    'He had other women.'

    'Didn't he, though! Up and down, and hither and yon, and there's the car, I'll be going, don't wait up.'

    'Did he have children by any of his other women?'

    She looked at me with a show of interest. 'Would you care to hear a funny story?'

    I nodded.

    'One day, I finished my lesson with our French tutor, which I had alone because I was gifted in French, and Queenie and Nettie, who were not, came in for their lesson. May was sick in bed. She wouldn'teat, you see, my sister May hardly ate a speck all through her childhood. I was all alone with nothing to do. Well, I got up the courage to slip into my father's study, which was a room I loved but was not supposed to entersans permission. Can you guess what especially fascinated me in that room?'

    'The fox,' I said.

    Joy clapped her hands. “I loved that fox! I thought if I looked at him long enough, old Reynard would forget I was there and finish that step he was taking. I wanted to see him moveune fois seulement. I was kneeling in front of the fireplace, and the telephone rang. Oh! I nearly fainted. Daddy came walking to the study door, boom, boom, boom. I ran around the back of his couch. In he marched, boom, boom. Slammed the door. I saw the bottom of his legs going toward his desk. He picked up the receiver and did not speak for quite a while. Then it was 'Ellie. Please calm down.' Iknew he was talking toune autre femme. He said, 'All will be well. He will think it's his.' When he hung up, he said, 'An excess of cannon smoke.' Then he walked out, not stamping at all.'

    'You never knew who Ellie was?'

    'We never met any Ellies,' Joy said. 'We never met anybody.'

    She peered at the dark hallway. “I should be attending to my duties.' Joy showed me out with more dispatch than I would have thought her capable.

 •88

 •A metal brick pushed into the small of my back when I got behind the wheel. I undipped the holster and put Toby's pistol on the passenger seat. It was about 9:30 on a Monday night in June. The lamps cast yellow circles like spotlights on the sidewalk. Cherry Street looked improbably beautiful, and the world seemed motionless. All I had to do was get to the Brazen Head and catch up on my sleep. This schedule felt almost sinfully luxurious. I decided to drive along the streets I had walked after my first visit with Joy, to erase the impressions made when I had seen them through a veil of grief and rage.

    I turned left at the end of the block, and a pair of headlights sped toward me from down the street. The cab of a pickup flew past in a gray blur. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the truck swerve into Cherry Street.

    I took the next right and saw green light shining above the intersection of Pine Street and Cordwainer Avenue, three blocks ahead. I didn't care if I got there before it changed; I was enjoying the journey. Frame houses like Nettie's rolled past my windows. As I coasted down another block, the light stayed green, and I nudged the foot pedal. A white dazzle of light burst in my mirror. I looked up and saw, half a block away, the gray pickup speeding toward me with its beams on high.

    My stomach jumped into my throat. Mountry had come again to Cherry Street. I flattened the accelerator. The pickup's lights doubled in size while my little car swam forward. With a clank that shook the chassis like a wet dog, it dropped into a lower gear and shot ahead.

    The light changed to yellow when I was about thirty feet from the intersection. It was still on yellow as I blasted my horn and barreled out into Cordwainer Avenue. In my rearview mirror, the headlights of the pickup kept coming.

    On the far side of the median, two cars jolted to a halt a moment before I flew past them. In the mirror, I