CHAPTER FORTY

WHEN RON AWOKE, THE SUN WAS JUST BEGINNING TO SLANT into the room. He shifted his weight cautiously so that he would not disturb Chandal, and picked up his wristwatch from the side table. It was just after eight.

He left the bed. It was going to be another hot day. The room was already beginning to warm. He turned to stare at Chandal. For the first time in days she was not the first to rise.

He moved quietly to the chair and got into his trousers and shirt. He was just putting on his shoes when Chandal stirred. He looked at her; she turned over, but did not wake.

He crossed into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. After drying off, he looked into Kristy’s room. This morning she was in bed, lying asleep with her arms around her puppet.

A queen, he thought, and shuddered.

The day was bright, not a cloud in the sky. Ron had moved back into his own bedroom and was now staring from the window. There was a gentle but rapid transformation as the sun rose. His body became motionless, as if held immobile by an unseen force. He was rooted to the spot, yet without any sensation of paralysis.

Minutes passed, and with the chiming of the hall clock, objects began to fade from his vision. There was nothing between him and the sun, not even a void, not even emptiness. Finally the balcony itself faded and what he was viewing was a giant screen on whose white surface images flashed. He saw Cynthia Harris go over the edge. Again; then, saw her face peering at him as a ghost of what she had once been. Her face melted quickly into Tyler Adam’s face; the transformation was a gentle one, both having the same ghostly pallor. Tyler Adam appeared to have tears in his eyes.

“The Seeing Eyes,” someone whispered.

Kristy appeared wearing her crown. For some strange reason, Ron found himself smiling. Perhaps because the crown she wore sat crooked atop her head and covered one eye. Her eyes grew larger as his smile diminished. Nancy’s face loomed out, grew larger and larger in his mind’s eye, but he himself seemed to be shrinking. Smaller. Smaller.

And that was the point, wasn’t it? What he feared most. That he might disappear from his own consciousness, just as the others seemed to be disappearing and that he would be left drifting in his own insanity.

A sudden panic arose in him. He shook his head violently. Reality smacked him across the face.

Below, he watched Matthew Todd close the garden gate and begin to walk quite slowly away from the house. Dressed in a pair of greasy coveralls, he shifted his weight to one side, seeming to limp slightly on his left leg.

Ron backed away from the window and ran from the bedroom and down the stairs. He never took a breath, his legs moving almost as fast as his thoughts, until he’d thrown open the front door.

“Mr. Todd!” he shouted. His voice was harsher than he would have liked, hysterical and shrill.

Matthew Todd smiled pleasantly and kept on walking.

“Mr. Todd!” he yelled.

“Sorry about last night, Mr. Talon,” he said mildly. “The crowning always gets me a little crazy. Congratulations again. A lovely queen. Prettiest ever.” He swung his body into his pickup truck. “But you’re all set now.”

“What?”

“Your car is all set to go. I even fixed your tailpipe. Didn’t charge you for it though. I left the keys and the bill with Mrs. Taylor. You can just leave her a check.”

Ron turned and stared at his car. It was true. The right rear tire had been changed. Someone had even washed the car and had parked it in such a way as to show it off. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his perfectly fitted white trousers and pointed with his head.

“Someone’s washed it,” Ron noted.

“Tyler Adam. I gave him a few dollars.”

“Is he still around?”

“Went back into the hills, I think. The trouble with Tyler,” he said confidentially, “is he still thinks it’s 1929. Ask him, he’ll tell you straightaway—Hoover is president of these United States.” He shut the door to his pickup. “Well, you be careful driving over those hills. And if I don’t get to see you again, well...”

Ron was still looking at his car when Todd started his engine. “Yes, sir,” he said and let loose the emergency brake. “The hardest thing in Tyler’s life,” he said with a chuckle, “is that he doesn’t know prohibition’s been repealed.”

Laughter and engine noise roared, mixed, then faded away down the drive.

By eleven o’clock Ron had taken most of the luggage down to the car. As he put the largest of the suitcases into the luggage space, he glanced up. Chandal stood poised at the window watching him. There was a strange glow to the glass which made it appear as though she were standing in a freshly watered garden, yet her face remained dead white.

Ron felt suddenly impaled by her gaze. Whatever she was thinking, whatever she was feeling, he had never seen such a look on a human face as on Chandal’s. And as she watched, she moved her lips, quickly and jerkily, waited a moment, then disappeared from view.

It might have been a moment, or it might have been an hour. He wasn’t really sure how long it was before he finally climbed the stairs for the last suitcase.

When he opened the bedroom door Chandal was lying face down across the bed. The floorboard creaked as he stepped into the room. Chandal turned with a start to face him. She did not say anything, but he could see abject pleading in her eyes.

Slowly, quietly, he moved across the room to the window and looked out. From the corner of his eye he saw her lie back again, her forehead deeply furrowed.

Ron sighed. “Is Kristy ready to go?”

“She’s with Mrs. Taylor saying good-bye.”

“I’ll just go take a look,” he said and turned.

“For Chrissakes, Ron. Have we been brought to this? Spying on people?”

Ron held back his anger. “Ah, I just want to make sure she’s all right.” He stole a quick look at her and added hastily, “You still don’t believe me, do you?”

Chandal cleared her throat. “I’ve listened very carefully to what you’ve had to say.”

“Then what makes you hesitate?”

“I didn’t think I had. I merely—”

“Then you had better take a good look inside yourself.” He reached for the last suitcase.

She thought for a moment. “I guess I feel there’s a reasonable explanation for all that you’ve said.”

Ron stared at her across the small space between them. “These people are using us, Del. Don’t you understand that?”

Her eyes dropped for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “They’ve been nothing but kind to Kristy and me. My God, they took a complete stranger outside their own community and made her queen.”

“Why, Del? Why do you think they did that?”

She looked up at him. “Because, in all honesty, she was the prettiest.”

Ron sighed. “Yeah, right,” he said and turned to face the window again. He did not move. He heard her coming toward him. Soft steps that weren’t in any hurry. She was wearing a perfume today he could not identify; an odd scent. She slid in front of the balcony doors gracefully, facing him, away from the sun. Her hair haloed in the stark light. “She is special, you know.”

“What?”

She’d said it so softly that even this close he had not heard her. She repeated what she had said.

“In what way?” he wanted to know.

Chandal shrugged. “Many ways.” She gave him a little conspiratorial smile. “Looks, intelligence...”

“I don’t believe this!” he said excitedly. “For the last six days we’ve been trapped here, and you’re—”

“Trapped?”

“That’s right. Trapped.” He looked into her eyes pleadingly. “Please, Del—don’t you understand? It’s all beginning again. The past—it’s all here. I can feel it. Why can’t you?”

Abruptly she turned away. “Because that was seven years ago. Oh, Christ! Seven years,” she cried. “Can’t we get past all that? Once and for all—forget it?”

“Del, I’m pleading with you—let’s not argue. Let’s just get Kristy and leave here now, before it’s too late.”

“No—no, I can’t.” She shook her head. “I can’t leave here now.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

“How?” she shrilled.

“How? Just get in the goddamn car and leave. That’s how.” He reached for her.

Chandal drew back, her face tense, her eyes riveted on him.

“Kristy has been crowned queen,” she said slowly. “These people have given her that honor. Tomorrow is the last day of the carnival. Kristy must be there. We must be there. We can’t let these people down. Oh, Ron—they would hate us. Always hate us.”

Ron became quite calm now. The feeling seeped through him gradually, each part of his body touched by a local anesthetic, deadening his emotions and sharpening his senses. He was all at once possessed by the power of cool-headed logic. “All right, Del. But hear me out. Seven years ago—”

“Don’t, Ron—”

“We’re responsible for something, Del. No matter how grim the situation.”

“We agreed—no explanations.”

“The old lady in the brownstone, Elizabeth Krispin—”

“She has nothing to do with me! She’s gone. Stop trying to push me into a thumb-sucking, analysis-ridden category.”

“It was you who was in the clinic!”

Chandal turned away in desperation.

Ron hesitated. “I’m sorry. I—I shouldn’t have said that.”

She wheeled around to face him. “The last of all human freedoms—the ability to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance. I choose to be free of her. Free of that woman. Just as I choose to be free of the past.”

Ron looked at her sharply. “No, Del... we’re not free. Not of her, not from the past.”

“I think we are,” she said flatly.

He could see she was visibly shaken. Sweat had begun to cover her forehead. She rubbed her arms instinctively, shivering as if caught by a sudden chill.

“All right, then.” He sat. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll ask you to do something that anyone ought to be able to do. If you can do it, I’ll stay in Brackston until Saturday. And if you can’t, we’ll get in the car now and leave. Is it a deal?”

“Name it,” she said.

“Tell me about your past,” he said. “The old woman in the brownstone.”

Chandal laughed. “Tell you about her? I can write a book.”

“Good. You sit down on the bed. I’ll stay seated here.”

Chandal dropped on the bed. “This is all quite silly, you know.”

“Maybe yes. Maybe no. Describe her. Tell me what she was like. Looks, personality, you know? Give me an image. Did she look like a Duncan Phyfe chair—a Victorian couch, an armadillo?” He paused. “If you’re free of her, then you should be able to tell me what she was like.”

Chandal let loose a ventilating breath. Her hands began to shake, and she quickly folded them together. Ron lighted a cigarette and held out the pack. She shook her head.

Several minutes later he glanced at his watch. He flexed his legs and pressed the soles of his shoes solid to the floor. Chandal’s fingernails had begun to dig into the flesh of her hands.

She smiled nervously. “What’s the reward for prolonged observation?”

He stared at her without smiling.

Chandal said, “She was... interesting looking.”

“She was nice looking. Beautiful eyes.”

“Nice, beautiful—I didn’t say that!”

“No, I did.” He paused. “Did you enjoy her company?”

“She was irritating.”

“Why?”

“She just was, that’s all.”

“Everyone is irritating at times.”

Chandal sneered. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Better, worse, it’s a simple statement of fact.”

“Simple statement of fact—I like that. The fact is, that when I was with her I got this gnawing kind of pain in my stomach. It was like having a rat in my belly which was methodically eating through my diaphragm trying to get to my heart. But it wasn’t a rat at all—it was her with that insipid smile of hers.” She paused. “She was horrible.”

“Then why did you let her... possess you?”

“Possess,” she said in a faraway tone.

“Yes, Del. Have you forgotten? You were—”

“So now you want us to start calling each other names. Neurotic, schizophrenic, hebephrenic, obsessive and so on. All right, it sounds like fun. My turn.”

Ron shook his head. “I didn’t mean that.”

“GOD!” Chandal burst into tears. “I’m sick to death of you! Of always forcing me into the past. Leave it alone. For Chrissakes, leave it alone. It hurts... it really hurts.” She tried desperately to wipe the tears away. “But you don’t seem to know or care. I’m tired of the past. I want it ended. Now!”

He took hold of her. “Del, don’t you understand? Can’t you understand?”

“Understand what!” she screamed.

“That you’re obsessed with this goddamn town! Can’t you see that? Or maybe you do see it. Why, Del? Why are you accepting this?” He stopped suddenly, his eyes riveted on her face. “You’re part of it, aren’t you? Del?” He shook her violently. “Tell me what is going on. You know, don’t you! Tell me what you know!”

She stood silent, her eyes brimming with tears. And something else. A dazed look. A vacant stare as wide as the canyons beyond. A stare that was impossible to fill.

He nodded. He understood. He had hoped that what he had said would have meant something, but of course it hadn’t. He understood. For the first time he fully realized she no longer wanted anything but to remain in Brackston. She was obsessed with the town as she’d been possessed with the old woman in the brownstone years ago. The inevitable somehow had a way of being... inevitable.

Moments later, Chandal followed him out to the car. She stood motionless by the car door. “Do you really need to get away?”

“For a while. I’ll be back soon. I just need time to clear my head.” He slipped the key into the ignition. He tried to suppress the sob which rose in his throat, desperately tightening the muscles of his larynx.

“Kiss me once more,” she said.

He leaned out the window and kissed her. There was a moment’s hesitation. Neither one knew quite what to do. What to say. Finally he started the car, shifted into drive. There were still a few tears on Chandal’s cheeks. They caught the sun. Glistened.

“I’ll see you later,” he said. He aimed the car out the drive. He drove slowly at first, easing away from the house.

When he looked into the rearview mirror, Chandal was gone.

He hit the accelerator hard.