Rochester. These vacations did little but make the loneliness worse after separation. By 1914 they had restricted communication to the occasional letter.
Populations were exploding near both homes. The St. Louis neighborhood, especially, was in the grip of a building boom. It seemed wise to retreat from public view lest too many questions be asked about their apparent agelessness.
Fiala invested that summer in concealing Fian's machine with a wall and beneath a new basement floor. For several months that kept her too busy and too tired to be lonely.
An attack, a week following Fial's final visit, came closer than ever to destroying her. Her haunt did seize control for a few minutes, driving her body into the street, where she shrieked for help in Bohemian German. Her Irish neighbors decided she was insane, but took no action.
The thing, fortunately, had no strategy for maintaining control. Fiala fought her way back.
Now it was she who lived in terror. The next episode, or the one following, might be her last. She was certain she could not destroy her unwanted companion. The thing had made itself invulnerable. She was much less confident of the reverse. Each assault educated the Other a little more, highlighting her weaknesses. She feared that, if it successfully supplanted her, she would suffer the fate of the spirits that once had occupied the bodies now inhabited by Fian and Fial.
Once the Other had been an ignorant peasant girl with severely restricted horizons. Barbarically ignorant. But it was smart, savagely crafty, and making full use of its advantages.
It had complete access to Fiala's memories, thoughts, and emotions-while revealing none of its own. It knew what Fiala knew, could do what Fiala could do. Fiala, on the other hand, had gotten almost nothing from it since leaving Bohemia.
One thing she did know. The need to break out, to reassert control, to extract a revenge, had driven her mind-companion completely mad.
It was like living in the same head with a Colonel Neulist.
And someday, if she didn't make it home first, the Other would win the one victory it needed to reach its goals.
XVII. On the Y Axis;
1975
It began to move. Monday morning Cash called his New York friend.
'Come on, Frank. You owe me. Big. The Jackson brothers last fall? I wore out a pair of shoes on your account. Come on, don't try to snow me. What about that bond-skipper? Branson.'
Frank seemed to be a one-way favor man. He argued.
'Hey, I know Rochester's out of town. But it ain't in Poland. I ain't got time-or the evidence-to go through channels. And you're my only connection back there. Why don't you get your state police to check it?'
Frank bitched and moaned. Cash remained adamant, going so far as to show a little temper. 'Look, One-way, you owe me clear back to the Gallo War. And you're going to want something again someday.'
As soon as the man folded, Cash yelled, 'Beth, be a darling and see if you can't get ahold of somebody in Immigration who knows their history and record-keeping.'
The woman materialized in his doorway. 'The Groloch thing again?'
'Yeah. Still. You look sexy this morning.'
'Well. You're getting frisky, old folks. Good weekend?'
'I guess. Matthew turned up. We had a barbecue… Yeah. It was okay. Made it to the ballgame too. I think they're going to start winning, they keep playing that good. What'd you do?'
'Cleaned house and watched TV.'
'Thought you and Tony would-'
'He had something else come up.'
Cash thought her fiance was a first-class prick. The only time he came round was when he couldn't get screwed anywhere else.
'Beth?'
'Uhn?'
'Oh, never mind. I keep my mouth shut, I won't have to taste my dirty sock.'
'Oh.' She smiled weakly. 'You might as well say it, Norm. Everybody else has. My mother… God. Must've spent an hour yesterday trying to get me to move back home. It don't hurt anymore. Much. I know I'm a fool.'
One more minute and the tears would start.
'You deserve better.'
Beth was extremely shy, and, apparently, subconsciously convinced that whatever happened to her was the result of her own shortcomings. She was extremely vulnerable to the Tony-type of predator, who knew all the right things to do and all the right things to say to snare the shy ones. He was so arrogantly self-certain that girls like Beth surrendered even while aware of what was happening. The man's complete lack of self-doubt was, even more than his lack of concern for the feelings of others, the reason Cash loathed him. Cash envied that certitude.
He had seen Beth get dumped on before. He had been her crying shoulder more than once. In one way she was right. It
