Whimsical Fatman was certain he should be thankful. For the first time in nearly a decade he got three square meals a day, a place to sleep that was safe, secure, and warm, and people were tending to his injuries. So of course he should be thankful. But he wasn't. He felt as if he were in limbo—halfway between what was and what could have been—and the off-white hospital walls, the quiet efficiency of the staff, the low chugga-chugga of the rollaway carts, the beeping and humming of monitors of one kind and another all merged into a world that was strange and uncomfortable. And he wanted desperately to be away from it.
He maneuvered his wheelchair around a corner and stopped. WARD R, the sign on the door read: ADMITTANCE ONLY TO AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL. He saw a man looking through a small square window in the door. The man, he thought, was the spitting image of W.C. Fields, but maybe a little thinner. The man stared at Whimsy for a moment. Whimsy nodded. The man turned away.
"It's locked, Mr. Marsh," the aide—a blond-haired man in his early twenties—said, and took hold of Marsh's arm.
"Yes," Marsh said. "I can see that it's locked."
"It's for your own protection," the aide said.
Marsh stepped away from the door. He chuckled softly. "Bullshit!" he whispered.
The aide nodded to his right and smiled benignly. "Could you come with me, please, Mr. Marsh? Dr. Halloway would like to talk with you."
"Is that the psychiatrist?"
"Yes, sir. One of them."
"Then I don't know why he wants to talk with me." The aide's grip on Marsh's arm strengthened—Marsh was amazed at how strong the man was. "Please, Mr. Marsh, Dr. Halloway's time is very valuable." Reluctantly, Marsh followed him.
Thirty Years Earlier on a Farm Near Penn Yann, New York:
Rachel Griffin saw the three dark figures seated around the fire behind the house; she sketched in her mind the geometry, the symmetry those still figures represented.
Her eyes lowered. Her gaze fell on the four remaining snow-covered piles of wood, the beehives, the lopsided pyramids Paul had asked her to build weeks before.
She glanced at him. His eyes were closed now. He seemed in pain, somehow, seemed to be undergoing some deep inner turmoil.
She took a deep breath, held it a moment. "How soon will they die, Paul? Do you think that fire of theirs keeps them warm?"
Paul looked at her; out of the corner of her eye she saw that he was looking. She turned her head; their eyes met. She extended her hand; he took it. "Come here," she coaxed. He joined her at the window. "It's their last night, isn't it, Paul?"
He squeezed her hand; his eyes watered suddenly. "And our first night," he said. She leaned against him. "Rachel, they want us to stay."
"I know it."
"And I wish we could. But . . . I've . . . I've grown beyond them, I think. I've grown beyond them."
Rachel said nothing.
"I thought," Paul continued, "that I owed them something. And perhaps I do. But if I owe them anything, I owe them myself, not you."
Again Rachel was quiet.
"Do you understand what I'm saying, Rachel?"
And she did understand, had understood, she knew, for weeks, and only now—the evidence so clear—able to admit it, or begin to understand it.
Paul had been one of them. It was as simple as that. He had been one of the children. And then he had become "Paul Griffin." He had learned, had grown, had survived. He had been transformed. And now, two decades later, what he had been was coming back, was destroying him—had been destroying him since their first day at the house—because it (she didn't know what to call it, she knew so little about it, only what the boy had shown her) no longer recognized him, and could no longer trust him.
Just as Lumas had not recognized him. Or trusted him. Because the world outside the land and the farmhouse had done its awful work.
Dr. Halloway's cavernous office was at the end of the corridor, between another set of locked doors. It was festooned with exotic plants, and a dark Oriental rug graced the floor. There were two couches—one, an overstuffed rococo style, the other a white fabric on rattan, which had been placed beneath a pair of unlikely bay windows. The room was dimly lit.
The doctor, a man who had been described by one of his patients as "depressingly average-looking," sat behind a huge, dark oak desk, his back to the wall farthest from the door. He nodded at the rococo couch when Marsh came in. "You may sit or recline, Mr. Marsh. Whatever you wish."
Marsh disliked him at once, he wasn't sure why. He went over to the rococo couch and sat on its edge, with his arms folded in front of him. He supposed that he looked very uncomfortable, and he was happy for it.
"Relax," the doctor coaxed smilingly. "We're just going to talk."
Marsh put his palms flat on the couch to either side of himself.
"That's better, Mr. Marsh. Now could you tell me, please, how old you are."
"I'm seventy-three."
"And can you tell me who the President is?"
"Yes, I can."
"Who is it, please?"
Marsh named the President.
"Could you tell me what city this is?"
"It's New York."
"The borough?"
"Manhattan."
"That's excellent, Mr. Marsh. Really excellent."
Marsh leaned forward. "I want my dog. One of your employees has got him, and I want him."
Halloway checked a thin file on his desk. "Yes, I see that it mentions something here about a dog. His name is Seth?"
Marsh shook his head. "No. His name is Joe."
"Then who is Seth, Mr. Marsh?"
Marsh was rapidly learning to dislike this man—he seemed like someone who set himself apart from everyone else; aloof!—Yes, that was the word. "Seth is no one," Marsh said.
Halloway smiled a thin, patient smile: "No one, Mr. Marsh?"
"No one at all."
"According to the admitting physician, you had quite a lot to say about him—about this being you call 'Seth.'"
"Oh?"
"Yes, you did. You even went so far as to talk about certain 'powers' this being possesses. Would you like to tell me what those powers are, Mr. Marsh?"
"I'd like to know why I'm being held here."
"Do you feel that you are being held against your will?"
"The doors are locked and no one will unlock them; you figure it out."
Again the doctor smiled a thin, patronizing smile. "Is it one of Seth's powers, Mr. Marsh, to walk through unlocked doors?"
"No."
"I see. Then what powers does he possess?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know? How can you not know about your own creation, Mr. Marsh?"
"He's not my creation."
"Oh. Whose is he?"
"The earth's."
"That would really apply to all of us, wouldn't it?"
"To some of us more than others."
Another thin smile. But now, Marsh saw something else, something uncertain in the man's eyes, as if he were vaguely troubled. "To Seth more than anyone else, Mr. Marsh?"
The doctor's smile faded. "Do you feel that you are a troubled man, Mr. Marsh?"
"No."
"Do you feel . . . " He paused, looked away as if in search of the correct thought. He looked back, attempted another thin smile. "Do you feel that we here at Bellevue . . . do you feel that I . . ." He looked away again.
Marsh asked, "Is something wrong?"
The doctor waved the question away. "No. Nothing's wrong. Don't concern yourself." He looked clearly troubled now, as if he were in pain. "Don't concern yourself," he repeated. "A migraine, I think. A migraine. That will be all for this . . . That will be all for this . . . Do you feel, Mr. Marsh, that we here at Bellevue. . . Do you feel that . . ."
Marsh stood. "Can I get you something?" he asked, and felt foolish for it—he wasn't sure why.
"Irving C. Halloway. And of course, my father was a member of the profession, as well. . . . You may be excused, Mr. Marsh. You may be excused." He put his hands to his ears; he lowered his head.
Marsh went to the door, opened it, and went back to his room.