She supposed it was even possible that the dog had been spooked by some noisea branch knocking against an upstairs window, say. She liked that one the best, because it suggested a kind of rough justice that the dog had also been spooked by some imaginary intruder, and its barks were intended to frighten this nonexistent newcomer away from its pariahs supper. Yes, say any of those things, Goody suddenly begged her, and even if you cant believe any of them yourself, make me believe them. But she didnt think she could do that, and the reason was standing in the corner beside the bureau. There was someone there. It wasnt a hallucination, it wasnt a combination of winddriven shadows and her own imagination, it wasnt a holdover from her dream, a momentary phantom glimpsed in the perceptual nomans land between sleeping and waking. It was a (monster its a monster a boogeymonster come to eat me up) man, not a monster but a man, standing there motionlessly and watching her while the wind gusted, making the house creak and the shadows dance across its strange, halfglimpsed face. This time the thoughtMonster! Boogeymonster!rose from the lower levels of her mind to the more brightly lit stage of her consciousness. She denied it again, but she could feel her terror returning, just the same. The creature on the far side of the room might be a man, but even if it was, she was becoming more and more sure that there was something very wrong with its face. If only she could see it better! You wouldnt want to, a whispery, ominous UFO voice advised her. But I have to talk to ithave to establish contact, Jessie thought, and immediately responded to herself in a nervous, scolding voice that felt like Ruth and Goody mixed together Dont think of it as an it, Jessiethink of it as a he. Think of it as a man, someone whos maybe been lost in the woods, someone whos as scared as you are. Good advice, perhaps, but Jessie found she couldnt think of the figure in the corner as a he, any more than she was able to think of the stray as a he. Nor did she think the creature in the shadows was either lost or frightened. What she felt coming from the corner were long, slow waves of malevolence. Thats stupid! Talk to it, Jessie! Talk to him! She tried to clear her throat and discovered there was nothing to clearit was as dry as a desert and as smooth as a soapstone. Now she could feel her heart pounding in her chest, its beat very light, very fast, very irregular. The wind gusted. The shadows blew whiteandblack patterns across the walls and the ceiling, making her feel like a woman trapped inside a kaleidoscope for the colorblind. For just a moment she thought she saw a nosethin and long and whitebelow those black, motionless eyes. Who At first she could manage only that one tiny whisper which couldnt have been heard on the far side of the bed, let alone across the room. She stopped, licked her lips, and tried again. She was aware that her hands were clamped into painfully tight balls, and she forced her fingers to loosen. Who are you? Still a whisper, but a little better than before. The figure didnt answer, only stood there with its narrow white hands dangling by its knees, and Jessie thought Its knees? Knees? Not possible, Jesswhen a persons hands are hanging at his sides, they stop at the upper thighs. Ruth responded, her voice so hushed and fearful Jessie almost didnt recognize it. A normal persons hands stop at the upper thighs, isns that what you mean? But do you thinka normalperson would creep into someones house in the middle of the night, then just stand in the corner, watching, when he finds the lady of the manor chained to the bed? Just stand there and nothing more? Then it did move one leg ... or perhaps it was only the distracting motion of the shadows again, this time picked up by the lower quadrant of her vision. The combination of shadows and moonlight and wind lent a terrible ambiguity to this entire episode, and again Jessie found herself doubting the visitors reality. The possibility that she was still sleeping occurred to her, that her dream of Wills birthday party had simply veered off in some strange new direction ... but she didnt really believe it. She was awake, all right. Whether or not the leg actually did move (or even if there was a leg), Jessies gaze was momentarily drawn downward. She thought she saw some black object sitting on the floor between the creatures feet. It was impossible to tell what it might be because the bureaus shadow rendered that the darkest part of the room, but her mind suddenly returned to that afternoon, when she had been trying to persuade Gerald that she really meant what she was saying. The only sounds had been the wind, the banging door, the barking dog, the loon, and ... The thing sitting on the floor between her visitors feet was a chainsaw. Jessie was instantly sure of this. Her visitor had been using it earlier, but not to cut firewood. It was people he had been cutting up, and the dog had run because it had smelled the approach of this madman, who had come up the lake path swinging his bloodspattered Stihl saw in one gloved hand Stop it! Goody shouted angrily. Stop this foolishness right this minute and get a grip on yourself! But she discovered she couldnt stop it, because this was no dream and also because she had become increasingly sure that the figure standing in the corner, as silent as Frankensteins monster before the lightningbolts, was real. But even if it was, it hadnt spent the afternoon turning people into porkchops with a chainsaw. Of course notthat was nothing but a movieinspired variation of the simple, gruesome summercamp tales that seemed so funny when you were gathered around the fire, roasting marshmallows with the rest of the girls, and so awful later on, when you lay shivering in your sleeping ig, believing that each snapping twig signalled the approach of the Lakeview Man, that legendary brainblasted survivor of the Korean War. The thing standing in the corner wasnt the Lakeview Man, and it wasnt a chainsaw murderer, either. There was something on the floor (at least she was pretty sure there was), and Jessie supposed it could be a chainsaw, but it could also be a suitcase ... a backpack ... a salesmans sample case ... Or my imagination. Yes. Even though she was looking right at it, whatever it was, she knew she couldnt rule out the possibility of imagination. Yet in some perverse way this only reinforced the idea that the creature itself was real, and it was becoming harder and harder to dismiss the feeling of malevolence which came crawling out of the tangle of black shadows and powdery moonlight like a constant low snarl. It hates me, she thought. Whatever it is, it hates me. It must. Why else would it just stand there and not help me? She looked back up at that halfseen face, at the eyes which seemed to glitter with such feverish avidity in their round black sockets, and she began to weep. Please, is someone there? Her voice was humble, choked with tears. If there is, wont you please help me? Do you see these handcuffs? The keys are right there beside you, on top of the bureau ... Nothing. No movement. No response. It only stood thereif it was there at all, that waslooking out at her from behind its feral mask of shadows. If you didnt want me to tell anyone I saw you, I wouldnt, she tried again. Her voice wavered, blurred, swooped and slid. I sure wouldnt! And Id be so ... so grateful ... It watched her. Only that and nothing more. Jessie felt the tears rolling slowly down her cheeks. Youre scaring me, you know, she said. Wont you say something? Cant you talk? lf youre really there, cant you please talk to me? A thin, terrible hysteria seized her then and flew away with some valuable, irreplaceable part of her caught firmly in its scrawny talons. She wept and pleaded with the fearful figure standing motionless in the corner of the bedroom; she remained conscious throughout but sometimes wavered into that curious blank place reserved for those whose terror has become so great it approaches rapture. She would hear herself asking the figure in a hoarse, weepy voice to please let her out of the handcuffs, to please oh please oh please let her out of the handcuffs, and then she would drop back into that weird blank spot. She knew her mouth was still moving because she could feel it. She could also hear the sounds that were coming out of it, but while she was in the blank place, these sounds were not words but only loose blabbering torrents of sound. She could also hear the wind blowing and the dog barking, aware but not knowing, hearing but not understanding, losing everything in her horror of the halfseen shape, the awful visitor, the uninvited guest. She could not cease her contemplation of its narrow, misshapen head, its white cheeks, its slumped shoulders ... but more and more it was the creatures hands to which her eyes were drawn those dangling, longfingered hands that ended much farther down on the legs than normal hands had any right to do. Some unknown length of time would pass in this blank fashion (twelvetwelvetwelve, the clock on the dresser reported; no help there) and then she would come back a little, would start thinking thoughts instead of experiencing only an endless rush of incoherent images, would start hearing her lips speaking words instead of just babbling sounds. But she had moved on while she was in that blank space; her words now had nothing to do with the handcuffs or the keys on the dresser. What she heard instead was the thin, screamy whisper of a woman reduced to begging for an answer ... any answer. What are you? she sobbed. A man? A devil? What in Gods name are you? The wind gusted. The door banged. Before her, the figures face seemed to change ... seemed to wrinkle upward in a grin. There was something horribly familiar about that grin, and Jessie felt the core of her sanity, which had borne this assault with remarkable strength until now, at last begin to waver. Daddy? she whispered. Daddy, is that you? Dont be silly! the Goodwife cried, but Jessie could now feel even that sustaining voice wavering toward hysteria. Dont be a goose, Jessie! Your father has been dead since 1980! Instead of helping, it made things worse. Much worse. Tom Mahout had been interred in the family crypt in Falmouth, and that was less than a hundred miles from here. Jessies burning, terrified mind insisted upon showing her a hunched figure, its clothes and rotted shoes caked with bluegreen mold, slinking across moondrenched fields and hurrying through tracts of scruffy woods between suburban housing developments; she saw gravity working on the decayed muscles of its arms as it came, gradually stretching them until the hands were swinging beside the knees. It was her father. It was the man who had delighted her with rides on his shoulders at three, who had comforted her at the age of six when a capering circus clown frightened her into tears, who had told her bedtime stories until she was eightold enough, he said, to read them on her own. Her father, who had cobbled together homemade filters on the afternoon of the eclipse and held her on his lap as the moment of totality approached, her father who had.said, Dont worry about anything... dont worry, and dont look around. But she had thought maybe he was worried, because his voice had been all thick and shaky, hardly like his usual voice at all. In the corner, the things grin seemed to widen and suddenly the room was filled with that smell, that flat smell that was halfmetallic and halforganic; a smell that reminded her of oysters in cream, and how your hand smelled after youd been clutching a fistful of pennies, and the way the air smelled just before a thunderstorm. Daddy, is it you? she asked the shadowy thing in the corner, and from somewhere came the distant cry of the loon. Jessie could feel the tears trickling slowly down her cheeks. And now something exceedingly odd was happening, something she never would have expected in a thousand years. As she became increasingly sure that it was her father, that it was Tom Mahout standing in the corner, twelve years gone in death or not, her terror began to leave her. She had drawn her legs up, but now she let them slip back down and fall open. As she did, a fragment of her dream recurredDADDYS LITTLE GIRL printed across her breasts in Peppermint YumYum lipstick. All right, go ahead, she told the shape. Her voice was a little hoarse but otherwise steady. Its why you came back, isnt it? So go ahead. How could I stop you, anyway? Just promise youll unlock me afterward. That youll unlock me and let me go. The figure made no response of any kind. It only stood within its surreal jackstraws of moonlight and shadow, grinning at her. And as the seconds passed (twelvetwelvetwelve, the clock on the dresser said, seeming to suggest that the whole idea of time passing was an illusion, that time had in fact frozen solid), Jessie thought that perhaps she had been right in the first place, that there was really no one in here with her at all. She had begun to feel like a weathervane in the grip of those prankish, contradictory gusts of wind that sometimes blow just before a severe thunderstorm or a tornado. Your father cannot come back from the dead, Goodwife Burlingame said in a voice that strove to be firm and failed miserably. Still, Jessie saluted her effort. Come hell or high water, the Goodwife stayed right in there and kept pitching. This isnt a horror movie or an episode of The Twilight Zone, Jess; this is real life. But another part of hera part which was perhaps the home of those few voices inside which were the real UFOs, not just the wiretaps her subconscious had patched into her conscious mind at some pointinsisted that there was a darker truth here, something that trailed from the heels of logic like an irrational (and perhaps supernatural) shadow. This voice insisted that things changed in the dark. Things especially changed in the dark, it said, when a person was alone. When that happened, the locks fell off the cage which held the imagination, and anythingany thingsmight be set free. It can be your Daddy, this essentially alien part of her whispered, and with a chill of fear Jessie recognized it as the voice of madness and reason mingled together. It can be, never doubt it. People are almost always safe from ghosts and ghouls and the living dead in daylight, and theyre usually safe from them at night if theyre with others, but when a person is alone in the dark, all bets are off. Men and women alone in the dark are like open doors, Jessie, and if they call out or scream for help, who knows what dread things may answer? Who knows what some men and women have seen in the hour of their solitary deaths? Is it so hard to believe that some of them may have died of fear, no matter what the words on the death certificates say? I dont believe that, she said in a blurry, wavering voice. She spoke louder, striving for a firmness she didnt feel. Youre not my father! I dont think youre anyone ! I think youre only made of moonlight! As if in answer, the figure bent forward in a kind of mocking bow, and for one moment its facea face which seemed too real to doubtslipped out of the shadows. Jessie uttered a rusty shriek as the pallid rays falling through the skylight painted its features with tawdry carnival gilt. It wasnt her father; compared with the evil and the lunacy she saw in the face of her visitor, she would have welcomed her father, even after twelve years in a cold coffin. Redrimmed, hideously sparkling eyes regarded her from deep eyesockets wrapped in wrinkles. Thin lips twitched upward in a dry grin, revealing discolored molars and jagged canines which seemed almost as long as the stray dogs fangs. One of its white hands lifted the object she had half seen and halfintuited sitting by its feet in the darkness. At first she thought it had taken Geralds briefcase from the little room he used as a study down here, but when the creature lifted the boxshaped thing into the light, she saw it was a lot bigger than Geralds briefcase and much older. It looked like the sort of oldfashioned sample case travelling salesmen had once carried. Please, she whispered in a strengthless, wheezing little voice. Whatever you are, please dont hurt me. You dont have to let me go if you dont want to, thats all right, but please dont hurt me. Its grin grew, and she saw tiny twinkles far back in its mouthher visitor apparently had gold teeth or gold fillings in there, just like Gerald. It seemed to laugh soundlessly, as if gratified by her terror. Then its long fingers were unsnapping the catches of its bag (I am dreaming, I think, now it does feel like a dream, oh thank God it does) and holding it open to her. The case was full of bones and jewelry. She saw fingerbones and rings and teeth and bracelets and ulnae and pendants; she saw a diamond big enough to choke a rhino glittering milky trapezoids of moonlight from within the stiff, delicate curves of an infants ribcage. She saw these things and wanted them to be a dream, yes, wanted them to be, but if it was, it was like no dream shed ever had before. It was the situationhandcuffed to the bed while a halfseen maniac silently showed off his treasuresthat was dreamlike. The feeling, however ... The feeling was reality. There was no getting around it. The feeling was reality. The thing standing in the corner held the open case out for her inspection, one hand supporting the bottom. It plunged its other hand into the tangle of bones and jewelry and stirred it, producing a tenebrous click and rustle that sounded like dirtclogged castanets. It stared at her as it did this, the somehow unformed features of its strange face wrinkled upward in amusement, its mouth gawping in that silent grin, its slumped shoulders rising and falling in strangled chuffs of laughter. No! Jessie screamed, but no sound came out. Suddenly she felt someonemost likely the Goodwife, and boy, had she ever underestimated the intestinal fortitude of that ladyrunning for the switches which governed the circuitbreakers in her head. Goody had seen tendrils of smoke starting to seep out through the cracks in the closed doors of those panels, had understood what they meant, and was making a final, desperate effort to shut down the machinery before the motors overheated and the bearings froze. The grinning figure across the room reached deeper into the case and held out a handful of bones and gold to Jessie in the moonlight. There was an intolerably bright flash inside her head and then the lights went out. She did not faint prettily, like the heroine in a florid. stage play, but was snapped brutally backward like a condemned murderer who has been strapped into the hotseat and has just gotten his first jolt of the juice. All the same it was an end to the horror, and for the time being that was enough. Jessie Burlingame went into the darkness without a murmur of protest. 14 She struggled briefly back to consciousness some time later, aware of only two things the moon had made it around to the west windows, and she was terribly afraid ... of what she at first didnt know. Then it came to her Daddy had been here, was perhaps here still. The creature hadnt looked like him, that was true, but that was only because Daddy had been wearing his eclipse face. Jessiestruggled up, pushing with her feet so hard she shoved the coverlet down beneath her. She wasnt able to do much with her arms, however. The jittering pins and needles had stolen away while shed been unconscious, and they had no more feeling than a couple of chairlegs. She stared into the corner by the bureau with wide, moonsilvered eyes. The wind had died and the shadows were, at least for the time being, still. There was nothing in the corner. Her dark visitor had gone. Maybe not, Jessmaybe hes just changed location. Maybe hes hiding under the bed, hows that for a thought? If he is, he could reach up at any second and put one of his hands on your hip. The wind stirredonty a puff, not a gustand the back door banged weakly. Those were the only sounds. The dog had fallen silent, and it was this more than anything else which convinced her that the stranger was gone. She had the house to herself. Jessies gaze dropped to the large dark blob on the floor. Correction, she thought. Theres Gerald. Cant forget about him. She put her head back and closed her eyes, aware of a steady low pulse in her throat, not wanting to wake up enough for that pulse to transform itself into what it really was thirst. She didnt know if she could go from black unconsciousness to ordinary sleep or not, but she knew that was what she wanted; more than anything elseexcept perhaps for someone to drive down here and rescue hershe wanted to sleep. There was no one here, Jessieyou know that, dont you? It was, absurdity of absurdities, Ruths voice. Toughtalking Ruth, whose stated motto, cribbed from a Nancy Sinatra song, was One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you. Ruth, who had been reduced to a pile of quivering jelly by the shape in the moonlight. Go ahead, toots, Ruth said. Make fun of me all you wantmaybe I even deserve itbut dont kid yourself. There was no one here. Your imagination put on a little slideshow, thats all. Thats all there was to it. Youre wrong, Ruth, Goody responded calmly. Someone was here, all right, and Jessie and I both know who it was. It didnt exactly look like Daddy, but that was only because he had his eclipse face on. The face wasnt the important part, though, or how tall he lookedhe might have had on boots with special high heels, or maybe he was wearing shoes with lifts in them. For all I know, he could have been on Stilts. Stilts Ruth cried, amazed. Oh dear God, now Ive heard evvverything! Never mind the fact that the man died before Reagans Inauguration Day tux got back from the cleaners; Tom Mahout was so clumsy he should have had walkingdownstairs insurance. Stilts? Oh babe, you have got to be putting me on! That part doesnt matter, Goody said with a kind of serene stubbornness. It was him. Id know that smell anywherethat thick, bloodwarm smell. Not the smell of oysters or pennies. Not even the smell of blood. The smell of... The thought broke up and drifted away. Jessie slept. 15 She ended up alone with her father at Sunset Trails on the afternoon of July 20th, 1963, for two reasons. One was a cover for the other. The cover was her claim that she was still a little frightened of Mrs. Gilette, even though it had been at least five years (and probably closer to six) since the incident of the cookie and the slapped hand. The real reason was simple and uncomplicated it was her Daddy she wanted to be with during such a special, onceinalifetime event. Her mother had suspected as much, and being moved around like a chesspiece by her husband and her tenyearold daughter hadnt pleased her, but by then the matter was practically a fait accompli. Jessie had gone to her Daddy first. She was still four months away from her eleventh birthday, but that didnt make her a fool. What Sally Mahout suspected was true Jessie had launched a conscious, carefully thoughtout campaign which would allow her to spend the day of the eclipse with her father. Much later Jessie would think that this was yet another reason to keep her mouth shut about what had happened on that day; there might be those her mother, for instancewho would say that she had no right to complain; that she had in fact gotten about what she deserved. On the day before the eclipse, Jessie had found her father sitting on the deck outside his den and reading a paperback copy of Profiles in Courage while his wife, son, and elder daughter laughed and swam in the lake below. He smiled at her when she took the seat next to him, and Jessie smiled back. She had brightened her mouth with lipstick for this interviewPeppermint YumYum, in fact, a birthday present from Maddy. Jessie hadnt liked it when she first tried it onshe thought it a baby shade, and that it tasted like Pepsodentbut Daddy had said he thought it was pretty, and that had transformed it into the most valuable of her few cosmetic resources, something to be treasured and used only on special occasions like this one. He listened carefully and respectfully as she spoke, but he made no particular attempt to disguise the glint of amused skepticism in his eyes. Do you really mean to tell me youre still afraid of Adrienne Gilette ? he asked when she had finished rehashing the ofttold tale of how Mrs. Gilette had slapped her hand when she had reached for the last cookie on the plate. That must have been back in ... I dont know, but I was still working for Dunninger, so it must have been before 1959. And youre still spooked all these years later? How absolutely Freudian, my dear! Welllll ... you know ... just a little. She widened her eyes, trying to communicate the idea that she was saying a little but meaning a lot. In truth she didnt know if she was still scared of old PoohPooh Breath or not, but she did know she considered Mrs. Gilette a boring old bluehaired booger, and she had no intention of spending the only total eclipse of the sun shed probably ever see in her company if she could possibly work things around so she could watch it with her Daddy, whom she adored beyond the power of words to tell. She evaluated his skepticism and concluded with relief that it was friendly, perhaps even conspiratorial. She smiled and added But I also want to stay with you. He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers like a French monsieur. He hadnt shaved that dayhe often didnt when he was at campand the rough scrape of his whiskers sent a pleasurable shiver of goosebumps up her arms and back. Comme tu es douce, he said. Ma jolie mademoiselle. Je taime. She giggled, not understanding his clumsy French but suddenly sure it was all going to work out just the way she had hoped it would. It would be fun, she said happily. Just the two of us. I could make an early supper and we could eat it right here, on the deck. He grinned. Eclipse Burgers  deux? She laughed, nodding and clapping her hands with delight. Then he had said something that struck her as a little odd even at the time, because he was not a man who cared much about clothes and fashions You could wear your pretty new sundress. Sure, if you want, she said, although she had already made a mental note to ask her mother to try and exchange the sundress. It was pretty enoughif you werent offended by red and yellow stripes almost bright enough to shout, that wasbut it was also too small and too tight. Her mother had ordered it from Sears, going mostly by guess and by gosh, filling in a single size larger than that which had fit Jessie the year before. As it happened, she had grown a little faster than that, in a number of ways. Still, if Daddy liked it ... and if he would come over to her side of this eclipse business and help her push ... He did come over to her side, and pushed like Hercules himself. He began that night, suggesting to his wife after dinner (and two or three mellowing glasses of vin rouge) that Jessie be excused from tomorrows eclipsewatch outing to the top of Mount Washington. Most of their summer neighbors were going; just after Memorial Day theyd begun having informal meetings on the subject of how and where to watch the upcoming solar phenomenon (to Jessie these meetings had seemed like ordinary runofthemill summer cocktail parties), and had even given themselves a nameThe Dark Score Sun Worshippers. The Sun Worshippers had rented one of the school districts minibuses for the occasion and were planning to voyage to the top of New Hampshires tallest mountain equipped with box lunches, Polaroid sunglasses, specially constructed reflectorboxes, specially filtered cameras ... and champagne, of course. Lots and lots of champagne. To Jessies mother and older sister, all this had seemed to be the very definition of frothy, sophisticated fun. To Jessie it had seemed the essence of all that was boring ... and that was before you added PoohPooh Breath into the equation. She had gone out on the deck after supper on the evening of the 19th, presumably to read twenty or thirty pages of Mr. C. S. Lewiss Out of the Silent Planet before the sun went down. Her actual purpose was a good deal less intellectual she wanted to listen as her father made histheirpitch, and to silently root him on. She and Maddy had been aware for years that the combination living roomdining room of the summer house had peculiar acoustical qualities, probably caused by its high, steeply angled ceiling; Jessie had an idea that even Will knew about the way sound carried from in there to out here on the deck. Only their parents seemed unaware that the room might as well have been bugged, and that most of the important decisions they had made in that room as they sipped afterdinner cognac or cups of coffee were known (to their daughters, at least) long before the marching orders were handed down from staff headquarters. Jessie noticed she was holding the Lewis novel upside down and made haste to rectify that situation before Maddy happened by and gave her a big, silent horselaugh. She felt a little guilty about what she was doingit was a lot closer to eavesdropping than to rooting, when you got right down to itbut not quite guilty enough to stop. And in fact she considered herself still to be on the right side of a thin moral line. After all, it wasnt as if she were hiding in the closet, or anything; she was sitting right out here in full view, bathed in the bright light of the westering sun. She was sitting out here with her book, and wondering if there were ever eclipses on Mars, and if there were Martians up there to watch them if there were. If her parents thought no one could hear what they were saying just because they were sitting at the table in there, was that her fault? Was she supposed to go in and tell them? I dont theenk so, my deah, Jessie whispered in her snottiest Elizabeth Taylor Cat on a Hot Tin Roof voice; and then cupped her hands over a big, goofy grin. And she guessed she was also safe from her big sisters interference, at least for the time being; she could hear Maddy and Will below her in the rumpus room, squabbling goodnaturedly over a game of Cootie or Parcheesi or something like that. I really dont think it would hurt her to stay here with me tomorrow, do you? her father was asking in his most winning, goodhumored voice. No, of course not, Jessies mother replied, but it wouldnt exactly kill her to go someplace with the rest of us this summer, either. Shes turned into a complete Daddys girl. She went down to the puppet show in Bettel with you and Will last week. In fact, didnt you tell me that she stayed with Willeven bought him an ice cream out of her own allowancewhile you went into that auction barn? That was no sacrifice for our Jessie, Sally replied. She sounded almost grim. What do you mean? I mean she went to the puppet show because she wanted to, and she took care of Will because she wanted to. Grimness had given way to a more familiar tone exasperation. How can you understand what I mean? that tone asked. How can you possibly, when youse a man? This was a tone Jessie had heard more and more frequently in her mothers voice these last few years. She knew that was partly because she herself heard more and saw more as she grew up, but she was pretty sure it was also because her mother used that tone more frequently than she once had. Jessie couldnt understand why her fathers brand of logic always made her mother so crazy. All of a sudden the fact that she did something because she wanted to is a cause for concern? Tom was now asking.


Maybe even a mark against her? What do we do if she develops a social conscience as well as a family one, Sal? Put her in a home for wayward girls? Dont patronize me, Tom. You know perfectly well what I mean. Nope; this time youve lost me in the dust, sweet one. This is supposed to be our summer vacation, remember? And Ive always sort of had the idea that when people are on vacation, theyre supposed to do what they want to do, and be with who they want to be with. In fact, I thought that was the whole idea. Jessie smiled, knowing it was all over but the shouting. When the eclipse started tomorrow afternoon, she was going to be here with her Daddy instead of on top of Mount Washington with PoohPooh Breath and the rest of The Dark Score Sun Worshippers. Her father was like some worldclass chessmaster who had given a talented amateur a run for her money and was now polishing her off. You could come, too, TomJessie would come if you did. That was a tricky one. Jessie held her breath. Cant, my loveIm expecting a call from David Adams on the Brookings Pharmaceuticals portfolio. Very important stuff... also very risky stuff. At this stage, handling Brookings is like handling blasting caps. But let me be honest with you even if I could, Im not really sure I would. Im not nuts about the Gilette woman, but I can get along with her. That asshole Sleefort, on the other hand Hush, Tom! Dont worryMaddy and Will are downstairs and Jessies way out on the front deck ... see her? At that moment, Jessie suddenly became sure that her father knew exactly what the acoustics of the living roomdining room were like; he knew that his daughter was hearing every word of this discussion. Wanted her to hear every word. A warm little shiver traced its way up her back and down her legs. I should have knourn it came down to Dick Sleefort! Her mother sounded angrily amused, a combination that made Jessies head spin. It seemed to her that only adults could combine emotions in so many daffy waysif feelings were food, adult feelings would be things like chocolatecovered steak, mashed potatoes with pineapple bits, Special K with chili powder sprinkled on it instead of sugar. Jessie thought that being an adult seemed more like a punishment than a reward. This is really exasperating, Tomthe man made a pass at me six years ago. He was drunk. Back in those days he was always drunk, but hes cleaned up his act. Polly Bergeron told me he goes to A. A., and Bully for him, her father said dryly. Do we send him a getwell card or a meritbadge, Sally? Dont be flip. You almost broke the mans nose Yes, indeed. When a fellow comes into the kitchen to freshen his drink and finds the rumdum from up the road with one hand on his wifes behind and the other down the front of her Never mind, she said primly, but Jessie thought that for some reason her mother sounded almost pleased. Curiouser and curiouser. The point is, its time you discovered that Dick Sleefort isnt a demon from the deeps and its time Jessie discovered Adrienne Gilette is just a lonely old woman who once slapped her hand at a lawnparty as a little joke. Now please dont get all crazy on me, Tom; Im not claiming it was a good joke; it wasnt. Im just saying that Adrienne didnt know that. There was no bad intent. Jessie looked down and saw her paperback novel was bent almost double in her right hand. How could her mother, a woman whod graduated cum laude (whatever that meant) from Vassar, possibly be so stupid? The answer seemed clear enough to Jessie she couldnt be. Either she knew better or she refused to see the truth, and you arrived at the same conclusion no matter which answer you decided was the right one when forced to choose between believing the ugly old woman who lived up the road from them in the summertime and her own daughter, Sally Mahout had chosen PoohPooh Breath. Good deal, huh? If Im a Daddys girl, thats why. That and all the Other stuff she says thats like that. Thats why, but I could never tell her and shell never see it on her own. Never in a billion years. Jessie forced herself to relax her grip on the paperback. Mrs. Gilette had meant it, there had been bad intent, but her fathers suspicion that she had ceased being afraid of the old crow had probably been more right than wrong, just the same. Also, she was going to get her way about staying with her father, so none of her mothers essaitcheyetee really mattered, did it? She was going to be here with her Daddy, she wouldnt have to deal with old PoohPooh Breath, and these good things were going to happen because ... Because he sticks up for me, she murmured. Yes; that was the bottom line. Her father stuck up for her, and her mother stuck it to her. Jessie saw the evening star glowing mildly in the darkening sky and suddenly realized she had been out on the deck, listening to them circle the subject of the eclipseand the subject of herfor almost threequarters of an hour. She discovered a minor but interesting fact of life that night time speeds by fastest when you are eavesdropping on conversations about yourself. With hardly a thought, she raised her hand and curled it into a tube, simultaneously catching the star and sending it the old formula wish I may, wish I might. Her wish, already well on the way to being granted, was that she be allowed to stay here tomorrow with her Daddy. To stay with him no matter what. Just two folks who knew how to stick up for each other, sitting out on the deck and eating Eclipse Burgers  deux ... like an old married couple. As for Dick Sleefort, he apologized to me later, Tom. I dont remember if I ever told you that or not You did, but I dont remember him ever apologizing to me. He was probably afraid youd knock his block off, or at least try to, Sally replied, speaking again in that tone of voice Jessie found so peculiarit seemed to be an uneasy mixture of happiness, good humor, and anger. Jessie wondered for just a moment if it was possible to sound that way and be completely sane, and then she squashed the thought quickly and completely. Also, I want to say one more thing about Adrienne Gilette before we leave the subject entirely ... Be my guest. She told mein 1959, this was, two whole summers laterthat she went through the change that year. She never specifically mentioned Jessie and the cookie incident, but I think she was trying to apologize. Oh. It was her fathers coolest, most lawyerly Oh. And did either of you ladies think to pass that information on to Jessie... and explain to her what it meant? Silence from her mother. Jessie, who still had only the vaguest notion of what going through the change meant, looked down and saw she had once again gripped the book tight enough to bend it and once again forced herself to relax her hands. Or to apologize? His tone was gentle ... caressing ... deadly. Stop crossexamining me! Sally burst out after another long, considering silence. This is your home, not Part Two of Superior Court, in case you hadnt noticed! You brought the subject up, not me, he said. I just asked Oh, I get so tired of the way you twist everything around, Sally said. Jessie knew from her tone of voice that she was either crying or getting ready to. For the first time that she could remember, the sound of her mothers tears called up no sympathy in her own heart, no urge to run and comfort (probably bursting into tears herself in the process). Instead she felt a queer, stony satisfaction. Sally, youre upset. Why dont we just Youre damned tooting I am. Arguments with my husband have a way of doing that, isnt that strange? Isnt that just the weirdest thing you ever heard? And do you know what were arguing about? Ill give you a hint, Tomits not Adrienne Gilette and its not Dick Sleefort and its not the eclipse tomorrow. Were arguing about Jessie, about our daughter, and what else is new? She laughed through her tears. There was a dry hiss as she scratched a match and lit a cigarette. Dont they say its the squeaky wheel that always gets the grease? And thats our Jessie, isnt it? The squeaky wheel. Never quite satisfted with the arrangements until she gets a chance to put on the finishing touches. Never quite happy with someone elses plans. Never able to let well enough alone. Jessie was appalled to hear something very close to hate in her mothers voice. Sally Never mind, Tom. She wants to stay here with you? Fine. She wouldnt be pleasant to have along, anyway; all shed do is pick fights with her sister and whine about having to watch out for Will. All shed do is squeak, in other words. Sally, Jessie hardly ever whines, and shes very good aboutOh, you dont see her! Sally Mahout cried, and the spite in her voice made Jessie cringe back in her chair. I swear to God, sometimes you behave as if she were your girlfriend instead of your daughter! This time the long pause belonged to her father, and when he spoke, his voice was soft and cold. Thats a lousy, underhanded, unfair thing to say, he finally replied. Jessie sat on the deck, looking at the evening star and feeling dismay deepening toward something like horror. She felt a sudden urge to cup her hand and catch the star againthis time to wish everything away, beginning with her request to her Daddy that he fix things so she could stay at Sunset Trails with him tomorrow. Then the sound of her mothers chair being pushed back came. I apologize, Sally said, and although she still sounded angry, Jessie thought she now sounded a little afraid, as well. Keep her tomorrow, if thats what you want! Fine! Good! Youre welcome to her! Then the sound of her heels, tapping rapidly away, and a moment later the snick of her fathers Zippo as he lit his own cigarette. On the deck, Jessie felt warm tears spring to her eyestears of shame, hurt, and relief that the argument had ended before it could get any worse ... for hadnt both she and Maddy noticed that their parents arguments had gotten both louder and hotter just lately? That the coolness between them afterward was slower to warm up again? It wasnt possible, was it, that they No, she interrupted herself before the thought could be completed. No, its not. Its not possible at all, so just shut up. Perhaps a change of scene would induce a change of thought. Jessie got up, trotted down the deck steps, then walked down the path to the lakefront. There she sat, throwing pebbles into the water, until her father came out to find her, half an hour later. Eclipse Burgers for two on the deck tomorrow, he said, and kissed the side of her neck. He had shaved and his chin was smooth, but that small, delicious shiver went up her back again just the same. Its all fixed. Was she mad? Nope, her father said cheerfully. Said it was fine by her either way, since youd done all your chores this week and She had forgotten her earlier intuition that he knew a lot more about the acoustics of the living roomdining room than he had ever let on, and the generosity of his lie moved her so deeply that she almost burst into tears. She turned to him, threw her arms around his neck, and covered his cheeks and lips with fierce little kisses. His initial reaction was surprise. His hands jerked backward, and for just a moment they were cupping the tiny nubs of her breasts. That shivery feeling passed through her again, but this time it was much strongeralmost strong enough to be painful, like a shockand with it, like some weird dj vu, came that recurring sense of adulthoods strange contradictions a world where you could order blackberry meatloaf or eggs fried in lemonjuice whenever you wanted to ... and where some people actually did. Then his hands slipped all the way around her, they were pressed safely against her shoulderblades, hugging her warmly against him, and if they had stayed where they shouldnt have been a moment longer than they should have done, she barely noticed. I love you, Daddy. Love you, too, Punkin. A hundred million bunches. 16 The day of the eclipse dawned hot and muggy but relatively clearthe weather forecasters warnings that lowhanging clouds might obscure the phenomenon were going to prove groundless, it seemed, at least in western Maine. Sally, Maddy, and Will left to catch The Dark Score Sun Worshippers bus at around ten oclock (Sally gave Jessie a stiff, silent peck on the cheek before leaving, and Jessie responded in kind), leaving Tom Mahout with the girl his wife had called the squeaky wheel the night before. Jessie changed out of her shorts and Camp Ossippee teeshirt and into her new sundress, the one which was pretty (if you werent offended by red and yellow stripes almost bright enough to shout, that was) but too tight. She put on a dab of Maddys My Sin perfume, a little of her mothers Yodora deodorant, and a fresh application of Peppermint YumYum lipstick. And although she had never been one to linger before the mirror, fussing with herself (that was her mothers term, as in Maddy, stop fussing with yourself and come out of there!), she took time to put her hair up that day because her father had once complimented her on that particular style. When she had put the last pin into place, she reached for the bathroom lightswitch, then paused. The girl looking back at her from the mirror didnt seem like a girl at all, but a teenager. It wasnt the way the sundress accentuated the tiny swellings that wouldnt really be breasts for another year or two, and it wasnt the lipstick, and it wasnt her hair, held up in a clumsy but oddly fetching chignon; it was all of these things together, a sum greater than its parts because of ... what? She didnt know. Something in the way the upsweep of her hair accented the shape of her cheekbones, perhaps. Or the bare curve of her neck, so much sexier than. either the mosquitobumps on her chest or her hipless tomboys body. Or maybe it was just the look in her eyessome sparkle that either had been hidden before today or had never been there at all. Whatever it was, it made her linger a moment longer, looking at her reflection, and suddenly she heard her mother saying I swear to God, sometimes you behave as if she were your girlfriend insteadof your daughter! She bit her pink lower lip, brow furrowing a little, remembering the night beforethe shiver that had gone through her at his touch, the feel of his hands on her breasts. She could feel that shiver trying to happen again, and she refused to let it. There was no sense shivering over stupid stuff you couldnt understand. Or even thinking about it. Good advice, she thought, and turned off the bathroom light. She found herself growing more and more excited as noon passed and the afternoon drew along toward the actual time of the eclipse. She turned the portable radio to WNCH, the rockandroll station in North Conway. Her mother abhorred NCH, and after thirty minutes of Del Shannon and Dee Dee Sharp and Gary U.S. Bonds, would make whoever had tuned it in (usually Jessie or Maddy, but sometimes Will) change to the classical music station which broadcast from the top of Mount Washington, but her father actually seemed to enjoy the music today, snapping his fingers and humming along. Once, during The Duprees version of You Belong to Me, he swept Jessie briefly into his arms and danced her along the deck. Jessie got the barbecue going around threethirty, with the onset of the eclipse still an hour away, and went to ask her father if he wanted two burgers or just one. She found him on the south side of the house, below the deck on which she stood. He was wearing only a pair of cotton shorts (YALE PHY ED was printed on one leg) and a quilted ovenmitt. He had tied a bandanna around his forehead to keep the sweat out of his eyes. He was crouched over a small, smoky sod fire. The combination of the shorts and the bandanna gave him an odd but pleasant look of youth; Jessie could for the first time in her life see the man with whom her mother had fallen in love during her senior summer. Several squares of glasspanes cut carefully out of the crumbling putty in an old shed windowwere piled up beside him. He was holding one in the smoke rising from the fire, using the barbecue tongs to turn the glass square this way and that like some sort of weird camp delicacy. Jessie burst out laughingit was mostly the ovenmitt that struck her funnyand he turned around, also grinning. The thought that the angle made it possible for him to look up her dress crossed her mind, but only fleetingly. He was her father, after all, not some cute boy like Duane Corson from down at the marina. What are you doing? she giggled. I thought we were having hamburgers for lunch, not glass sandwiches! Eclipseviewers, not sandwiches, Punkin, he said. If you put two or three of these together, you can look at the eclipse for the whole period of totality without damaging your eyes. You have to be really careful, Ive read ; you can burn your retinas and not even know youve done it until later. Ag! Jessie said, shivering a little. The idea of burning yourself without knowing you were doing it struck her as incredibly gross. How long will it be total, Daddy? Not long. A minute or so. Well, make some more of those glass whatchamacallumsI dont want to burn my eyes. One Eclipse Burger or two? One will be fine. If its a big one. Okay. She turned to go. Punkin? She looked back at him, a small, compact man with fine beads of sweat standing out on his forehead, a man with as little body hair as the man she would later marry, but without either Geralds thick glasses or his paunch, and for a moment the fact that this man was her father seemed the least important thing about him. She was struck again by how handsome he was, and how young he looked. As she watched, a bead of sweat rolled slowly down his stomach, tracked just east of his navel, and made a small dark spot on the elastic waistband of his Yale shorts. She looked back at his face and was suddenly, exquisitely aware of his eyes on her. Even narrowed against the smoke as they were now, those eyes were absolutely gorgeous, the brilliant gray of daybreak on winter water. Jessie found she had to swallow before she could answer; her throat was dry. Possibly it was the acrid smoke from his sod fire. Or possibly not. Yes, Daddy? For a long moment he said nothing, only went on looking up at her with sweat running slowly down his cheeks and forehead and chest and belly, and Jessie was suddenly frightened. Then he smiled again and all was well. You look very pretty today, Punkin. In fact, if it doesnt sound too yucky, you look beautiful. Thank youit doesnt sound yucky at all. His comment pleased her so much (especially after her mothers angry editorial comments of the night before, or perhaps because of them) that a lump rose in her throat and she felt like crying for a moment. She smiled instead, and sketched a curtsey in his direction, and then hurried back to the barbecue with her heart pounding a steady drumroll in her chest. One of the things her mother had said, the most awful thing, tried to rise into her mind (you behave as if she were your) and Jessie squashed it as ruthlessly as she would have squashed a badtempered wasp. Still, she felt gripped by one of those crazy adult mixes of emotionice cream and gravy, roast chicken stuffed with sourballsand could not seem to entirely escape it. Nor was she sure she even wanted to. In her mind she kept seeing that single drop of sweat tracking lazily down his stomach, being absorbed by the soft cotton of his shorts, leaving that tiny dark place. It was from that image that the emotional turmoil seemed chiefly to arise. She kept seeing it and seeing it and seeing it. It was crazy. Well, so what? It was a crazy day, that was all. Even the sun was going to do something crazy. Why not leave it at that? Yes, the voice that would one day masquerade as Ruth Neary agreed. Why not? The Eclipse Burgers, garnished with sauted mushrooms and mild red onion, were nothing short of fabulous. They certainly eclipse the last batch your mother made, her father told her, and Jessie giggled wildly. They ate on the deck outside Tom Mahouts den, balancing metal trays on their laps. A round decktable, littered with condiments, paper plates, and eclipsewatching paraphernalia, stood between them. The observation gear included Polaroid sunglasses, two homemade cardboard reflectorboxes of the sort which the rest of the family had taken with them to Mount Washington, panes of smoked glass, and a stack of hotpads from the drawer beside the kitchen stove. The panes of smoked glass werent hot anymore, Tom told his daughter, but he wasnt terribly competent with the glasscutter, and he was afraid there still might be nicks and jagged spots along the edges of some of the panes. The last thing I need, he told her, is for your mother to come home and find a note saying Ive taken you to the Emergency Room at Oxford Hills Hospital so they can try to sew a couple of your fingers back on. Mom really wasnt exactly crazy about this idea, was she? Jessie asked. Her Daddy gave her a brief hug. No, he said, but I was. I was crazy enough about it for both of us. And he gave her a smile so bright she just had to smile back. It was the reflectorboxes they used first as the onset of the eclipse429 P.M., EDTneared. The sun lying in the center of Jessies reflectorbox was no bigger than a bottlecap, but it was so fiercely bright that she groped a pair of the sunglasses from the table and put them on. According to her Timex, the eclipse should have already startedit said 430. I guess my watch is fast, she said nervously. Either that or theres a bunch of astronomers all over the world with egg on their faces. Check again, Tom said, smiling. When she looked back into the reflectorbox, she saw that the brilliant circle was no longer a perfect circle; a crescent of darkness now dented the righthand side. A shiver slipped down her neck. Tom, who had been watching her instead of the image inside his own reflectorbox, saw it. Punkin? All right? Yes, but ... its a little scary, isnt it? Yes, he said. She glanced at him and was deeply relieved to see he meant it. He looked almost as scared as she felt, and this only added to his winning boyishness. The idea that they might be afraid of different things never entered her mind. Want to sit on my lap, Jess? Can I? You bet. She slipped onto his lap, still holding her own reflectorbox in her hands. She wiggled around to get comfortable against him, liking the smell of his faintly sweaty, sunwarmed skin and a faint trace of some aftershaveRedwood, she thought it was called. The sundress rode up on her thighs (it could hardly do anything else, as short as it was), and she barely noticed when he put his hand on one of her legs. This was her father, after allDaddynot Duane Corson from down at the marina, or Richie Ashlocke, the boy she and her friends moaned and giggled over at school. The minutes passed slowly. Every now and then she squirmed around, trying to get comfortablehis lap seemed strangely full of angles this afternoonand at one point she must have dozed off for three or four minutes. It might have been even longer, because the puff of breeze that came strolling down the deck and woke her up was surprisingly cold against her sweaty arms, and the afternoon had changed somehow; colors which had seemed bright before she leaned back against his shoulder and closed her eyes were now pale pastels, and the light itself had weakened somehow. It was as if, she thought, the day had been strained through cheesecloth. She looked into her reflectorbox and was surprisedalmost stunned, actuallyto see that only half the sun was there now. She looked at her watch and saw it was nine minutes past five. Its happening, Daddy! The suns going out! Yes, he agreed. His voice was odd, somehowdeliberate and thoughtful on top, somehow blurry down below. Right on schedule. She noticed in a vague sort of way that his hand had slipped higherquite a bit higher, actuallyon her leg while she had been dozing. Can I look through the smoked glass yet, Dad? Not yet, he said, and his hand slid higher still along her thigh. It was warm and sweaty but not unpleasant. She put her own hand over it, turned to him, and grinned. Its exciting, isnt it? Yes, he said in that same odd blurry tone. Yes it is, Punkin. Quite a bit more than I thought it would be, actually. More time passed. In the reflectorbox, the moon continued to nibble away at the sun as fivetwentyfive passed, and then fivethirty. Almost all of her attention was now focused on the diminishing image in the reflectorbox, but some faint part of her became aware once again of how oddly hard his lap was this afternoon. Something was pressing against her bottom. It wasnt painful, but it was insistent. To Jessie, it felt like the handle of some toota screwdriver, or maybe her mothers tackhammer. Jessie wriggled again, wanting to find a more comfortable spot on his lap, and Tom drew in a quick hissing mouthful of air over his bottom lip Daddy? Am I too heavy? Did I hurt you? No. Youre fine. She glanced at her watch. Fivethirtyseven now; four minutes to totality, maybe a little more if her watch was running fast. Can I look at it through the glass yet? Not yet, Punkin. But very soon. She could hear Debbie Reynolds singing something from the Dark Ages, courtesy of WNCH The old hootyowl ... hootyhoos to the dove ... Tammy... Tammy ... Tammys in love. It finally drowned in a sticky swirl of violins and was replaced by the disc jockey, who told them it was getting dark in Ski Town, U.S.A. (this was the way the NCH deejays almost always referred to North Conway), but that the skies were too cloudy over on the New Hampshire side of the border to actually see the eclipse. The deejay told them there were a lot of disappointed folks wearing sunglasses across the street on the town common. Were not disappointed folks, are we, Daddy? Not a bit, he agreed, and shifted beneath her again. Were about the most happy folks in the universe, I guess. Jessie peered into the reflectorbox again, forgetting everything except the tiny image which she could now look at without narrowing her eyes down to protective slits behind the heavily tinted Polaroid sunglasses. The dark crescent on the right which had signalled the onset of the eclipse had now become a blazing crescent of sunlight on the left. It was so bright it almost seemed to float over the surface of the reflectorbox. Look out on the lake, Jessie! She did, and behind the sunglasses her eyes widened. In her rapt examination of the shrinking image in the reflectorbox, she had missed what was going on all around her. Pastels had now faded to ancient watercolors. A premature twilight, both entrancing and horrifying to the tenyearold girl, was slipping across Dark Score Lake. Somewhere in the woods, an old hootyowl cried out softly, and Jessie felt a sudden hard shudder bend its way through her body On the radio, an Aamco Transmission ad ended and Marvin Gaye began to sing Oww, listen everybody, especially you girls, is it right to be left alone when the one you love is never home? The owl hooted again in the woods to the north of them. It was a scarysound, Jessie suddenly realizeda very scary sound. This time when she shivered, Tom slipped an arm around her. Jessie leaned gratefully back against his chest. Its creepy, Dad. It wont last long, honey, and youll probably never see another one. Try not to be too scared to enjoy it. She looked into her reflectorbox. There was nothing there.  I love too hard, my friends sometimes say ... Dad? Daddy? Its gone. Can I Yes. Now its okay. But when I say you have to stop, you have to stop. No arguments, understand? She understood, all right. She found the idea of retinal bumsburns you apparently didnt even know you were getting until it was too late to do anything about thema lot scarier than the hootyowl off in the woods. But there was no way she wasnt going to at least have a peek, now that it was actually here, actually happening. No way. But I believe, Marvin sang with the fervor of the converted, Yes I believe... that a woman should be loved that way ...  Tom Mahout gave her one of the oven potholders, then three panes of smoked glass in a stack. He was breathing fast, and Jessie suddenly felt sorry for him. The eclipse had probably given him the creeps, too, but of course he was an adult and wasnt supposed to let on. In a lot of ways adults were sad creatures. She thought about turning around to comfort him, then decided that would probably make him feel even worse. Make him feel stupid. Jessie could sympathize. She hated to feel stupid worse than anything. Instead, she held the smoked panes of glass up in front of her, then slowly raised her head from her reflectorbox to look through them. Now you chicks should all agree, Marvin sang, this aint the way its sposed to be, So lemme hear ya! Lemme hearya say YEAH YEAH! What Jessie saw when she looked through the makeshift viewer 17 At this point the Jessie handcuffed to the bed in the summer house on the north shore of Kashwakamak Lake, the Jessie who was not ten but thirtynine and a widow of almost twelve hours, suddenly realized two things that she was asleep, and that she was not so much dreaming about the day of the eclipse as reliving it. She had gone on awhile thinking it was a dream, only a dream, like her dream of Wills birthday party, where most of the guests had either been dead or people she wouldnt actually meet for years. This new mindmovie had the surrealbutsensible quality of the earlier one, but that was an untrustworthy yardstick because that whole day had been surreal and dreamlike. First the eclipse, and then her father No more, Jessie decided. No more, Im getting out of this. She made a convulsive effort to rise out of the dream or recollection or whatever it was. Her mental effort translated into a wholebody twitch, and the handcuff chains jingled mutedly as she twisted violently from side to side. She almost made it; for a moment she was almost out. And she could have made it, would have made it, if she hadnt thought better of it at the last moment. What stopped her was an inarticulate but overwhelming terror of a shapesome waiting shape that might make what had happened that day on the deck seem insignificant by comparison ... if she had to face it, that was. But maybe I dont have to. Not yet. And perhaps the urge to hide in sleep wasnt allthere might have been something else, as well. Some part of her that intended to have this out in the open once and for all, no matter what the cost. She sank back down on the pillow, eyes closed, arms held up and sacrificially spread, her face pale and tight with strain. Especially you girls, she whispered into the darkness. Especially all you girls. She sank back on the pillow, and the day of the eclipse claimed her again. 18 What Jessie saw through her sunglasses and her homemade filter was so strange and so awesome that at first her mind refused to grasp it. There seemed to be a vast round beauty mark, like the one below the corner of Anne Franciss mouth, hanging there in the afternoon sky. If I talk in my sleep... cause I havent seen my baby all week ...  It was at this point that she first felt her fathers hand on the nub of her right breast. It squeezed gently for a moment, drifted across to the left one, then returned to the right again, as if he were making a size comparison. He was breathing very fast now; the respiration in her ear was like a steam engine, and she was again aware of that hard thing pressing against her bottom. Can I get a witness? Marvin Gaye, that auctioneer of soul, was shouting. Witness, witness? Daddy? Are you all right? She felt a delicate tingle in her breasts againpleasure and pain, roast turkey with a Nehi glaze and chocolate gravybut this time she also felt alarm and a kind of startled confusion.


Yes, he said, but his voice sounded almost like the voice of a stranger. Yes, fine, but dont look around. He shifted. The hand which had been on her breasts went somewhere else; the one on her thigh moved up farther, pushing the hem of the sundress ahead of it. Daddy, what are you doing? Her question was not exactly fearful; mostly it was curious. Still, there was an undertone of fear there, something like a length of fine red thread. Above her, a furnace of strange light glowed fiercely around the dark circle hanging in the indigo sky. Do you love me, Punkin? Yes, sure Then dont worry about anything. Id never hurt you. I want to be sweet to you. Just watch the eclipse and let me be sweet to you. Im not sure I want to, Daddy. That sense of confusion was growing deeper, the red thread was fattening. Im afraid of burning my eyes. Burning my watchamacallums. But I believe, Marvin sang, a womans a mans best friend... and Im gonna stick by her... to the very end.  Dont worry. He was panting now. You have another twenty seconds. At least that. So dont worry. And dont look around. She heard the snap of elastic, but it was his, not hers; her underpants were where they were supposed to be, although she realized that if she looked down she would be able to see themthat was how far up he had pushed her dress. Do you love me? he asked again, and although she was gripped by a terrible premonition that the right answer to this question had become the wrong one, she was ten years old and it was still the only answer she had to give. She told him that she did. Witness, witness, Marvin pleaded, fading out now. Her father shifted, pressing the hard thing more firmly against her bottom. Jessie suddenly realized what it wasnot the handle of a screwdriver or the tackhammer from the toolbox in the pantry, that was for sureand the alarm she felt was matched by a momentary spiteful pleasure which had more to do with her mother than with her father. This is what you get for not sticking up for me, she thought, looking at the dark circle in the sky through the layers of smoked glass, and then I guess this is what we both get. Her vision suddenly blurred, and the pleasure was gone. Only the mounting sense of alarm was left. Oh jeez, she thought. Its my retinas... it must be my retinas starting to burn. The hand on her thigh now moved between her legs, slid up until it was stopped by her crotch, and cupped her firmly there. He shouldnt be doing that, she thought. It was the wrong place for his hand. Unless Hes goosing you, a voice inside suddenly spoke up. In later years that voice, which she eventually came to think of as that of the Goodwife, frequently filled her with exasperation; it was sometimes the voice of caution, often the voice of blame, and almost always the voice of denial. Unpleasant things, demeaning things, painful things ... they would all go away eventually if you ignored them enthusiastically enough, that was the Goodwifes view. It was a voice apt to stubbornly insist that even the most obvious wrongs were actually rights, parts of a benign plan too large and complex for mere mortals to grasp. There would be times (mostly during her eleventh and twelfth years, when she called that voice Miss Petrie, after her secondgrade teacher) when she would actually raise her hands to her ears to try and blot out that quacking, reasonable voiceuseless, of course, since it originated on the side of her ears she couldnt get tobut in that moment of dawning dismay while the eclipse darkened the skies over western Maine and reflected stars burned in the depths of Dark Score Lake, that moment when she realized (sort of) what the hand between her legs was up to, she heard only kindness and practicality, and she seized upon what the voice was saying with panicky relief. Its just a goose, thats all it is, Jessie. Are you sure? she cried back. Yes, the voice replied firmlyas the years went by, Jessie would discover that this voice was almost always sure, wrong or right. He means it as a joke, thats all. He doesnt know hes scaring you, so dont open your mouth and spoil a lovely afternoon. This is no big deal. Dont you believe it, toots! the other voicethe tough voiceresponded. Sometimes he behaves as if youre his goddamned girlfriend instead of his daughter, and thats what hes doing right now! Hes not goosing you, Jessie! Hes fucking you! She was almost positive that was a lie, almost positive that strange and forbidden schoolyard word referred to an act that could not be accomplished with just a hand, but doubts remained. With sudden dismay she remembered Karen Aucoin telling her not to ever let a boy put his tongue in her mouth, because it could start a baby in her throat. Karen said it sometimes happened that way, but that a woman who had to vomit her baby to get it out almost always died, and usually the baby died, too. I aint ever going to let a boy Frenchkiss me, Karen said. I might let one feel me on top, if I really loved him, but I dont ever want a baby in my throat. How would you EAT? At the time, Jessie had found this concept of pregnancy so crazy it was almost charmingand who but Karen Aucoin, who worried about whether or not the light stayed on when you shut the refrigerator door, could have come up with such a thing? Now, however, the idea shimmered with its own weird logic. Suppose just supposeit was true? If you could get a baby from a boys tongue, if that could happen, then And there was that hard thing pressing into her bottom. That thing that wasnt the handle of a screwdriver or her mothers tackhammer. Jessie tried to squeeze her legs together, a gesture that was ambivalent to her but apparently not to him. He gaspeda painful, scary soundand pressed his fingers harder against the sensitive mound just beneath the crotch of her underpants. It hurt a little. She stiffened against him and moaned. It occurred to her much later that her father very likely misinterpreted that sound as passion, and it was probably just as well that he did. Whatever his interpretation, it signalled the climax of this strange interlude. He arched suddenly beneath her, sending her smoothly upward. The movement was both terrifying and strangely pleasurable ... that he should be so strong, that she should be so moved. For one moment she almost understood the nature of the chemicals at work here, dangerous yet compelling, and that control of them might lie within her graspif she wanted to control them, that was. I dont, she thought. I dont want anything to do with it. Whatever it is, its nasty and horrible and scary. Then the hard thing pressed against her buttock, the thing that wasnt the handle of a screwdriver or her mothers tackhammer, was spasming, and some liquid was spreading there, soaking a hot spot through her pants. Its sweat, the voice which would one day belong to the Goodwife said promptly. Thats what it is. He sensed you were afraid of him, afraid to be on his lap, and that made him nervous. You ought to be sorry. Sweat, my eye! the other voice, the one which would one day belong to Ruth, returned. It spoke quietly, forcefully, fearfully. You know what it is, Jessieits the stuff you heard Maddy and those other girls talking about the night Maddy had her slumber party, after they thought you were finally asleep. Cindy Lessard called it spunk. She said it was white and that it squirts out of a guys thing like toothpaste. Thats the stuff that makes babies, not French kissing. For a moment she balanced up there on the stiff lift of his wave, confused and afraid and somehow excited, listening to him snatch one harsh breath after another out of the humid air. Then his hips and thighs slowly relaxed and he lowered her back down. Dont look at it any longer, Punkin, he said, and although he was still panting, his voice was almost normal again. That scary excitement had gone out of it, and there was no ambivalence about what she felt now deep simple relief. Whatever had happenedif anything really hadit was over. Daddy Nope, dont argue. Your time is up. He took the stack of smoked glass panes gently from her hand. At the same time he kissed her neck, even more gently. Jessie stared out at the weird darkness cloaking the lake as he did it. She was faintly aware that the owl was still calling, and that the crickets had been fooled into beginning their evensongs two or three hours early. An afterimage floated in front of her eyes like a round black tattoo surrounded by an irregular halo of green fire and she thought If I looked at it too long, if I burned my retinas, Ill probably have to look at that for the rest of my life, like what you see after someone shoots off a flashbulb in your eyes. Why dont you go inside and change into jeans, Punkin ? I guess maybe the sundresswasnt such a good idea, after all. He spoke in a dull, emotionless voice that seemed to suggest that wearing the sundress had been all her idea (Even if it wasnt, you should have known better, the Miss Petrie voice said instantly), and a new idea suddenly occurred to her What if he decided he had to tell Mom about what had happened? The possibility was so horrifying that Jessie burst into tears. Im sorry, Daddy, she wept, throwing her arms around him and pressing her face into the hollow of his neck, smelling the vague and ghostly aroma of his aftershave or cologne or whatever it was. If I did something wrong, Im really, really, really sorry. God, no, he said, but he still spoke in that dull, preoccupied voice, as if trying to decide if he should tell Sally what Jessie had done, or if it could perhaps be swept under the rug. You didnt do anything wrong, Punkin. Do you still love me? she persisted. It occurred to her that she was mad to ask, mad to risk an answer which might devastate her, but she had to ask. Had to. Of course, he replied at once. A little more animation came into his voice as he said it, enough to make her understand that he was telling the truth (and oh what a relief that was), but she still suspected things had changed, and all because of something she barely understood. She knew the (goose it was a goose just a kind of goose) had had something to do with sex, but she had no idea just how much or how serious it might have been. It probably wasnt what the girls at the slumber party had called going all the way (except for the strangely knowledgeable Cindy Lessard; she had called it deepsea diving with the long white pole, a term which had struck Jessie as both horrible and hilarious), but the fact that he hadnt put his thing in her thing still might not mean she was safe from being what some of the girls, even at her school, called peegee. What Karen Aucoin had told her last year when they were walking home from school recurred to her, and Jessie tried to shut it out. It almost certainly wasnt true, and he hadnt stuck his tongue in her mouth even if it was. In her mind she heard her mothers voice, loud and angry Dont they say its the squeaky wheel that always gets the grease? She felt the hot wet spot against her buttocks. It was still spreading. Yes, she thought. I guess thats right. I guess the squeaky wheel does get the grease. Daddy He raised his hand, a gesture he often made at the dinner table when her mother or Maddy (usually her mother) started getting hot under the collar about something. Jessie couldnt remember Daddy ever making this gesture to her, and it reinforced her feeling that something had gone horribly awry here, and that there were apt to be fundamental, unappealable changes as. the result of some terrible error (probably agreeing to wear the sundress) she had made. This idea caused a feeling of sorrow so deep that it felt like invisible fingers working ruthlessly inside her, sifting and winnowing her guts. In the corner of her eye, she noticed that her fathers gym shorts were askew. Something was poking out, something pink, and it sure as hell wasnt the handle of a screwdriver. Before she could look away, Tom Mahout caught the direction of her glance and quickly adjusted his shorts, causing the pink thing to disappear. His face contracted in a momentary moue of disgust, and Jessie cringed inside again. He had caught her looking, and had mistaken her random glance for unseemly curiosity. What just happened, he began, then cleared his throat. We need to talk about what just happened, Punkin, but not right this minute. Dash inside and change your clothes, maybe take a quick shower while youre at it. Hurry up so you dont miss the end of the eclipse. She had lost all interest in the eclipse, although she would never tell him that in a million years. She nodded instead, then turned back. Daddy, am I all right? He looked surprised, unsure, warya combination which increased the feeling that angry hands were at work inside her, kneading her guts ... and she suddenly understood that he felt as bad as she did. Perhaps worse. And in an instant of clarity untouched by any voice save her own, she thought You ought to! Jeepers, you started it! Yes, he said ... but his tone did not entirely convince her. Right as rain, Jess. Now go on inside and fix yourself up. All right. She tried to smitetried hardand actually succeeded a little. Her father looked startled for a moment, and then he returned her smile. That relieved her somewhat, and the hands which had been working inside her temporarily loosened their grip. By the time she had reached the big upstairs bedroom she shared with Maddy, however, the feelings had begun to return. The worst by far was the fear that he would feel he had to tell her mother about what had happened. And what would her mother think? Thats our Jessie, isnt it? The squeaky wheel. The bedroom had been divided off girlsatcampstyle with a clothesline strung down the middle. She and Maddy had hung some old sheets on this line, and then colored bright designs on them with Wills Crayolas. Coloring the sheets and dividing the room had been great fun at the time, but it seemed stupid and kiddish to her now, and the way her overblown shadow danced on the center sheet was actually scary; it looked like the shadow of a monster. Even the fragrant smell of pine resin, which she usually liked, seemed heavy and cloying to her, like an airfreshener you sprayed around heavily to cover up some unpleasant stink. Thats our Jessie, never quite satisfied with the arrangements until she gets a chance to put on the finishing touches. Never quite happy with someone elses plans. Never able to let well enough alone. She hurried into the bathroom, wanting to outrun that voice, rightly guessing she wouldnt be able to. She turned on the light and pulled the sundress over her head in one quick jerk. She threw it into the laundry hamper, glad to be rid of it. She looked at herself in the mirror, wideeyed, and saw a little girls face surrounded by a big girls hairdo ... one which was now coming loose from the pins in strands and puffs and locks. It was a little girls body, tooflatchested and slimhippedbut it wouldnt be that way for long. It had already started to change, and it had done something to her father it had no business doing. I never want boobs and curvy hips, she thought dully. If they make things like this happen, who would? The thought made her aware of that wet spot on the seat of her underpants again. She slipped out of them cotton pants from Sears, once green, now so faded they were closer to grayand held them up curiously, her hands inside the waistband. There was something on the back of them, all right, and it wasnt sweat. Nor did it look like any kind of toothpaste she had ever seen. What it looked like was pearlygray dish detergent. Jessie lowered her head and sniffed cautiously. She smelled a faint odor which she associated with the lake after a run of hot, still weather, and with their wellwater all the time. She once took her father a glass of water which smelled particularly strong to her and asked if he could smell it. He had shaken his head. Nope, hed said cheerfully, but that doesnt mean it isnt there. It just means I smoke too damn much. My guess is that its the smell of the aquifer, Punkin. Trace minerals, thats all. A little smelly, and it means your mother has to spend a fortune on fabric softener, but it wont hurt you. Swear to God. Trace minerals, she thought now, and sniffed that bland aroma again. She was unable to think why it fascinated her, but it did. The smell of the aquifer, thats all. The smell of Then the more assertive voice spoke up. On the afternoon of the eclipse it sounded a bit like her mothers voice (it called her toolsie, for one thing, as Sally sometimes did when she was irritated with Jessie for shirking some chore or forgetting some responsibility), but Jessie had an idea it was really the voice of her own adult self. If its combative bray was a little distressing, that was only because it was too early for that voice, strictly speaking. It was here just the same, though. It was here, and it was doing the best it could to put her back together again. She found its brassy loudness oddly comforting. Its the stuff Cindy Lessard was talking about, thats what it isits his spunk, tootsie. I suppose you ought to be grateful it ended up on your underwear instead of someplace else, but dont go telling yourself any fairytales about how its the lake you smell, or trace minerals from deep down in the aquifer, or anything else. Karen Aucoin is a dipshit, there was never a woman in the history of the world who grew a baby in her throat and you know it, but Cindy Lessard is no dipshit. I think shes seen this stuff, and now youve seen it, too. Mansstuff. Spunk. Suddenly revettednot so much by what it was as from whom it had originatedJessie threw the underpants into the hamper on top of the sundress. Then she had a vision of her mother, who emptied the hampers and did the wash in the dank basement laundry room, fishing this particular pair of panties out of this particular hamper and finding this particular deposit. And what would she think? Why, that the familys troublesome squeaky wheel had gotten the grease, of course what else? Her revulsion turned to guilty horror, and Jessie quickly fished the underpants back out. All at once the flat odor seemed to fill her nose, thick and bland and sickening. Oysters and copper, she thought, and that was all it took. She fell on her knees in front of the toilet, the underpants wadded up in one clenched hand, and vomited. She flushed quickly, before the smell of partly digested hamburger could get into the air, then turned on the cold sinktap and rinsed her mouth out. Her fear that she was going to spend the next hour or so in here. kneeling in front of the toilet and puking, began to subside. Her stomach seemed to be settling. If she could just keep from getting another whiff of that bland coppercreamy smell ... Holding her breath, she thrust the panties under the cold tap, rinsed them, wrung them out, and Hung them back in the hamper. Then she took a deep breath, pushing her hair away from her temples with the backs of her damp hands at the same time. If her mother asked her what a damp pair of panties was doing in the dirty clothes Already youre thinking like a criminal, the voice that would one day belong to the Goodwife mourned. Do you see what being a badgirl gets you, Jessie? Do you? I certainly hope you d Be quiet, you little creep, the other voice snarled back. You can nag all you want later on, but right now were trying to take care of a little business here, if you dont mind. Okay? No answer. That was good. Jessie brushed nervously at her hair again, although very little of it had fallen back down against her temples. If her mother asked what the damp panties were doing in the dirtyclothes hamper, Jessie would simply say it was so hot she went for a dip without changing out of her shorts. All three of them had done that on several occasions this summer. Then you better remember to run your shorts and shirt under the tap, too. Right, toots? Right, she agreed. Good point. She slipped into the robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door and returned to the bedroom to get the shorts and the teeshirt shed been wearing when her mother, brother, and older sister left that morning ... a thousand years ago, it now seemed. She didnt see them at first, and got down on her knees to look under the bed. The other woman is on her knees, too, a voice remarked, and she smells that same smell. That smell thats like copper and cream. Jessie heard but didnt hear. Her mind was on her shorts and teeshirton her cover story. As she had suspected, they were under the bed. She reached for them. Its coming out of the well, the voice remarked further. The smell from the well. Yes, yes, Jessie thought, grabbing the clothes and starting back to the bathroom. The smell from the well, very good, youre a poet and you dont know it. She made him fall down the well, the voice said, and that finally got through. Jessie came to a dead stop in the bathroom doorway, her eyes widening. She was suddenly afraid in some new and deadly way. Now that she was actually listening to it, she realized that this voice was not like any of the others; this one was like a voice you might pick up on the radio late at night, when conditions were exactly righta voice that might come from far, far away. Not that far, Jessie; she is in the path of the eclipse, too. For one moment, the upper hallway of the house on Dark Score Lake seemed to be gone. What replaced it was a tangle of blackberry bushes, shadowless under the eclipsedarkened sky, and a clear smell of seasalt. Jessie saw a skinny woman in a housedress with her saltandpepper hair put up in a bun. She was kneeling by a splintered square of boards. There was a puddle of white fabric beside her. Jessie was quite sure it was the skinny womans slip. Who are you? Jessie asked the woman, but she was already gone ... if she had ever been there in the first place, that was. Jessie actually glanced over her shoulder to see if perhaps that spooky skinny woman had gotten behind her. But the upstairs hallway was deserted; she was alone. She looked down at her arms and saw they were rippled with gooseflesh. Youre losing your mind, the voice that would one day be Goodwife Burlingame mourned. Oh Jessie, youve been bad, youve been very bad, and now youre going to have to pay by losing your mind. Im not, she said. She looked at her pale, strained face in the bathroom mirror. Im not! She waited for a moment in a kind of horrified suspension to see if any of the voicesor the image of the woman kneeling by the splintered boards with her slip puddled on the ground beside herwould come back, but she neither heard nor saw anything. That creepy other who had told Jessie some she had pushed some he down some well was apparently gone. Strain, toots, the voice that would one day be Ruth advised, and Jessie had a clear idea that while the voice didnt exactly believe that, it had decided Jessie had better get moving again, and right away. You thought about a woman with a slip beside her because youve got underwear on the brain this afternoon, thats all. Id forget the whole thing, if I were you. That was great advice. Jessie quickly dampened her shorts and shirt under the tap, wrung them out, and then stepped into the shower. She soaped, rinsed, dried, hurried back to the bedroom. She ordinarily wouldnt have bothered with the robe again for the quick dash across the hall, but this time she did, only holding it shut instead of taking time to belt it closed. She paused in the bedroom again, biting her lip, praying that the weird other voice wouldnt come back, praying that she wouldnt have another of those crazy hallucinations or illusions or whatever they were. Nothing came. She dropped the robe on her bed, hurried across to her bureau, pulled on fresh underwear and shorts. She smells that same smell, she thought. Whoever that woman is, she smells the same smell coming out of the well she made the man fall into, and its happening now, during the eclipse. Im sure She turned, a fresh blouse in one hand, and then froze. Her father was standing in the doorway, watching her. 19 Jessie awoke in the mild, milky light of dawn with the perplexing and ominous memory of the woman still filling her mindthe woman with her graying hair pulled back in that tight countrywomans bun, the woman who had been kneeling in the blackberry tangles with her slip puddled beside her, the woman who had been looking down through broken boards and smelling that awful bland smell. Jessie hadnt thought of that woman in years, and now, fresh from her dream of 1963 that hadnt been a dream but a recollection, it seemed to her that she had been granted some sort of supernatural vision on that day, a vision that had perhaps been caused by stress and then lost again for the same reason. But it didnt matternot that, not what had happened with her father out on the deck, not what had happened later, when she had turned around to see him standing in the bedroom door. All that had happened a long time ago, and as for what was happening right now Im in trouble. I think Im in very serious trouble. She lay back against the pillows and looked up at her suspended arms. She felt as dazed and helpless as a poisoned insect in a spiders web, wanting no more than to be asleep againdreamlessly this time, if possiblewith her dead arms and dry throat in another universe. No such luck. There was a slow, somnolent buzzing sound somewhere close by. Her first thought was alarm clock. Her second, after two or three minutes of dozing with her eyes open, was smoke detector. That idea caused a brief, groundless burst of hope which brought her a little closer to real waking. She realized that what she was hearing didnt really sound very much like a smoke detector at all. It sounded like...well ... like . Its flies, toots, okay? The nobullshit voice now sounded tired and wan. Youve heard about the Boys of Summer, havent you? Well, these are the Flies of Autumn, and their version of the World Series is currently being played on Gerald Burlingame, the noted attorney and handcufffetishist. Jesus, I gotta get up, she said in a croaking, husky voice she barely recognized as her own. What the hell does that mean? she thought, and it was the answerNot a goddam thing, thanks very muchthat finished the job of bringing her back to full wakefulness. She didnt want to be awake, but she had an idea that she had better accept the fact that she was and do as much with it as she could, while she could. And you probably better start by waking up your hands and arms. If they will wake up, that is. She looked at her right arm, then turned her head on the rusty armature of her neck (which was only partially asleep) and looked at her left. Jessie realized with sudden shock that she was looking at them in a completely new waylooking at them as she might have looked at pieces of furniture in a showroom window. They seemed to have no business with Jessie Burlingame at all, and she supposed there was nothing so odd about that, not really; they were, after all, utterly without feeling. Sensation only started a little below her armpits. She tried to pull herself up and was dismayed to find the mutiny in her arms had gone further than she had suspected. Not only did they refuse to move her; they refused to move themselves. Her brains order was totally ignored. She looked up at them again, and they no longer looked like furniture to her. Now they looked like pallid cuts of meat hanging from butchers hooks, and she let out a hoarse cry of fear and anger. Never mind, though. The arms werent happening, at least for the time being, and being mad or afraid or both wasnt going to change that a bit. How about the fingers? If she could curl them around the bedposts, then maybe ... ... or maybe not. Her fingers seemed as useless as her arms. After nearly a full minute of effort, Jessie was rewarded only by a single numb twitch from her right thumb. Dear God, she said in her grating dustinthecracks voice. There was no anger in it now, only fear. People died in accidents, of courseshe supposed she had seen hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of deathclips on the TV news during her lifetime. Bodybags carried away from wrecked cars or winched out of the jungle in MediVac slings, feet sticking out from beneath hastily spread blankets while buildings burned in the background, whitefaced, stumblevoiced witnesses pointing to pools of sticky dark stuff in alleys or on barroom floors. She had seen the whiteshrouded shape that had been John Belushi toted out of the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Los Angeles; she had seen aerialist Karl Wallenda lose his balance, fall heavily to the cable he had been trying to cross (it had been strung between two resort hotels, she seemed to remember), clutch it briefly, and then plunge to his death below. The news programs had played that one over and over as if obsessed with it. So she knew people died in accidents, of course she knew it, but until now she had somehow never realized there were people inside those people, people just like her, people who hadnt had the slightest idea they would never eat another cheeseburger, watch another round of Final Jeopardy (and please make sure your answer is in the form of a question), or call their best friends to say that penny poker on Thursday night or shopping on Saturday afternoon seemed like a great idea. No more beer, no more kisses, and your fantasy of making love in a hammock during a thunderstorm was never going to be fulfilled, because you were going to be too busy being dead. Any morning you rolled out of bed might be your last. Its a lot more than a case of might this morning, Jessie thought. I think now its a case of probably. The houseour nice quiet lakeside housemay very well be on the news Friday or Saturday night. Itll be Doug Rowe wearing that white trenchcoat of his I hate so much and talking into his microphone and calling it the house where prominent Portland lawyer Gerald Burlingame and his wife Jessie died.  Then hell send it back to the studio and Bill Green will do the sports, and that isnt being morbid, Jessie, that isnt the Goodwife moaning or Ruth ranting. Its But Jessie knew. It was the truth. It was just a silly little accident, the kind of thing you shook your head over when you saw it reported in the paper at breakfast; you said Listen to this, honey, and read the item to your husband while he ate his grapefruit. Just a silly little accident, only this time it was happening to her. Her minds constant insistence that it was a mistake was understandable but irrelevant. There was no Complaint Department where she could explain that the handcuffs had been Geralds idea and so it was only fair that she should be let off. If the mistake was going to be rectified, she would have to be the one to do it. Jessie cleared her throat, closed her eyes, and spoke to the ceiling. God? Listen a minute, would You? I need some help here, I really do. Im in a mess and Im terrified. Please help me get out of this, okay? I ... um ... I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. She struggled to amplify this prayer and could only come up with something Nora Callighan had taught her, a prayer which now seemed to be on the lips of every selfhelp huckster and dipshit guru in the world God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen. Nothing changed. She felt no serenity, no courage, most certainly no wisdom. She was still only a woman with dead arms and a dead husband, cuffed to the posts of this bed like a curdog chained to a ringbolt and left to die unremarked and unlamented in a dusty back yard while his tosspot master serves thirty days in the county clink for driving without a license and under the influence.