Chapter nine

I jumped out of the car and went after him. I ran about ten steps, then pulled up short. There was nothing. No movement. Not a sound. I stood still with my heart going like a piston. I fought for breath as my eyes swept slowly over the campus yard.

The fog swayed and shifted. Black shadows of buildings and trees appeared and vanished in it. A light in a window blinked on; another died. And in the beams of the Mustang’s headlamps, the gossamer mist twisted and twined with the dark.

I breathed deeply once, trying to get calm, but my nerves were on the rack, stretched tight. I thought I heard a footstep on the gravel. I spun to face it. Then I thought I heard an engine starting down the drive and I swiveled the other way. The Mustang’s engine overrode any other sounds, and I wasn’t sure what I’d heard. I wasn’t sure what I’d seen. The night seemed barely real to me. I felt lost in it, confused.

I put my arm up against the headlights’ glare and walked quickly back to the car. I reached into the Mustang and grabbed my keys. I killed the engine and the lights. The silence and darkness seemed to drop down over me like a blanket. I took a few slow steps along the drive. I paused again and listened hard.

I heard the motor scream before I saw the car. There were no lights. The fender only glinted once as it broke from the fog. Then there was just a roaring blackness plunging at me. I jumped. I hit the lawn and rolled. The car sped by, and its wake of gravel sprayed over me, biting into my skin. Lying in the wet grass, I looked over my shoulder. I saw the brake lights flash red as the car thudded off the drive to avoid the Mustang. I saw the red flash again as the car paused at the gate just before it turned and raced away.

Slowly, I stood. I rubbed my right arm. It ached with the force of the fall. I moved back onto the drive and stood staring after the car.

Again I heard the footstep on the gravel, closer this time.

I spun around. A white phantom drifted toward me out of the mist.

For a moment I could only stand watching it as it floated closer. It floated closer lazily. Then it raised its arm and drove a dagger down toward my chest.

I brought my crossed arms up in front of me, caught the falling wrist in the crux of them. The knife hovered before my eyes.

“Drop it, drop it, Susannah!” I shouted. “It’s me.”

I heard her cry out: “Michael!”

I saw the knife slip from her fingers and tumble through the air. I heard the clink of it as it hit the gravel. I released her wrist and her hands fluttered out at me, touching my face, running up through my hair, grabbing at my collar. Her face was gray. Her mouth hung open. She gibbered at me breathlessly.

“I saw him. Michael, I saw him, I saw him.” She kept saying it over and over.

I fought her hands off, grabbed her by the shoulders.

I shouted at her: “You can’t see him. I made him up. You can’t see him. I invented him.”

I was in no great shape myself.

Susannah looked up at me as if I had struck her.

“Michael?” she said. Her voice sounded small and hurt.

Still gripping her shoulders, I drew a long breath. I fought for control as she stared at me. Then I nodded and pulled her against my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and held her fast.

“I saw him too,” I said.

“Thank God,” said Susannah, and started sobbing.

We stayed like that a long time.

Then I said: “Aren’t you cold?”

She was wearing only a nightgown.

“I don’t know,” she said.

My arm around her shoulder, I took her to the Mustang. I opened the passenger door and helped her in. She was trembling. Her hands were clasped under her chin.

“Is college always like this?”

She didn’t laugh. “I don’t know,” she said.

I closed the door, walked around, and got behind the wheel.

I turned on the engine. I turned on the lights. But for a few seconds I could do nothing but stare at the spot where I had seen him.

I shook my head. “But I made him up,” I whispered.

And Susannah’s whisper answered me out of the darkness.

“No,” she said. “No, you didn’t. I dreamed him.”