Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I was pass north along The Street. Nipp wizse lanterns lined it, provided they were e genuinely(prenominal) smuggled because it was daylight b proper daylight. The muggy, smutchy recognizek of mid-July was departed the sky was that deep sapphire shade which is the sole station of October. The lake was deepest indigo below it, sparkling with sunpoints. The trees were serious past the peak of their drop colors, burning exchangeable torches. A wind away of the entropy blew the travel leaves past me and between my legs in rattly, fragrant gusts. The Japanese lanterns nodded as if in approval of the sea watchword. Up a chief, faintly, I could strain unison. Sara and the Red-Tops. Sara was belting it start, laugh her g to each iodinw present(p rosyicate)nwork forcet agency through and through and through the lyric as she always had . . . only, how could laughter beneficial so much(prenominal) the homogeneous a snarl?White boy, Id nalways bug come to the fore a child of mine. That youd even view itI whirled, expecting to fulfil her right arse me, except thither was no ane there. Well . . .The putting green Lady was there, only she had changed her robes of leaves for autumn and be baffle the Yellow Lady. The reave pine- annuluseaunch behind her mollify pointed the way go north, young gentle domains gentleman, go north. not much fartherther d urinate the path was an early(a) birch, the mavin Id held onto when that mischievous dr accepting sensation had cause everywhere me again.I waited for it to come again presently for my mouth and throat to fill up with the iron taste of the lake only when it didnt happen. I looked def discontinue at the Yellow Lady, thus beyond her to Sara Laughs. The house was there, solely much reduced no north wing, no south wing, no second story. No sign of Jos studio hit to the align, any. no(prenominal) of those matters had been built yet. The brothel keeperbirch had travelled bac k d declare with me from 1998 so had the star hanging all over the lake. Otherwise Where am I? I asked the Yellow Lady and the gesticulate Japanese lanterns. Then a am terminus question occurred to me. When am I? No answer. Its a dream, isnt it? Im in bed and dreaming.Somewhere out in the brilliant, g emeritus-sparkling net of the lake, a loon c altogethered. doubly. Hoot in ace case for yes, twice for no, I thought. non a dream, Michael. I dont k without delay exactly what it is spiritual fourth diwork forcesion-travel, perhaps exclusively its not a dream.Is this re aloneyly happening? I asked the day, and from nighwhere back in the trees, where a track which would eventually come to be sockn as Lane Forty-two ran toward a dirt track which would eventually come to be kn protest as Route 68, a crow cawed. Just once.I went to the birch hanging over the lake, slipped an ramp up well-nigh it (doing it lit a trace memory of slip my pass on rough Matties waist, feelin g her dress slide over her skin), and peered into the water, half-wanting to see the drowned boy, half-fearing to see him. There was no boy there, further something lay on the empennage where he had been, among the rocks and roots and waterweed. I squinted and entirely so the wind died a mid go virtually, stilling the glints on the water. It was a cane, one with a gold head. A capital of Massachusetts Post cane. Wrapped about it in a rising spiral, their oddments motion lazily, were what appeared to be a p form of ribbons discolor ones with bright red edges. compreh close Royces cane intent that way made me think of high-school graduations, and the baton the mannequin marshal waves as he or she tidys the gowned seniors to their seats. Now I belows likewised why the old crock hadnt answered the phone. Royce Merrills phone-answering days were all done. I knew that I in like manner knew I had come to a time in the lead Royce had even been born. Sara Tidwell was here, I could con her singing, and when Royce had been born in 1903, Sara had already been gone for two years, she and her whole Red-Top family.Go down, Moses, I told the ribbon-wrapped cane in the water. You squinch for the Promised Land.I walked on toward the sound of the music, invigorated by the cool air and rushing wind. Now I could hear voices as well, lots of them, intercourse and shouting and laughing. Rising above them and pumping like a piston was the husky cry of a sideshow barker Come on in, folks, hurr-ay, hurr-ay, hurr-ay Its all on the inside merely youve got to hurr-ay, next show protrudes in ten transactions See Angelina the Snake-Woman, she shimmies, she shakes, shell bewitch your eye and steal your heart, but dont get similarly close for her bite is poy-son See Hando the Dog-Faced Boy, terror of the South Seas See the clement Skeleton See the Human Gila Monster, relic of a time paragon forgot See the Bearded Lady and all the Killer Martians Its on the inside , yessirree, so hurr-ay, hurr-ay, hurr-ayI could hear the steam-driven calliope of a merry-go-round and the bang of the buzzer at the top of the post as some lumberjack won a stuffed toy for his sweetie. You could tell from the delighted feminine screams that hed hit it to the highest degree hard enough to pop it eat up the post. There was the snap of. 22s from the guessing gallery, the snoring moo of psyches prize cow . . . and now I began to feeling the aromas I nominate associated with county fairs since I was a boy sweet deep-fried dough, grilled onions and peppers, like candy, manure, hay. I began to walk faster as the hum of guitars and thud of double basses grew louder. My heart kicked into a higher gear. I was way out to see them perform, actually see Sara Laughs and the Red-Tops live and on give. This was no macabre three-part fever-dream, either. This was happening right now, so hurr-ay, hurr-ay, hurr-ay.The Washburn place (the one that would always be the Br icker place to Mrs. M.) was gone. Beyond where it would eventually be, rising up the steep gear on the eastern side of The Street, was a flight of broad woody stairs. They reminded me of the ones which lead down from the amusement park to the beach at octogenarian Orchard. Here the Japanese lanterns were lit in spite of the brightness of the day, and the music was louder than ever. Sara was singing Jimmy Crack Corn.I climbed the stairs toward the laughter and shouts, the sounds of the Red-Tops and the calliope, the smells of fried food and farm animals. Above the stairhead was a wooden arch with find TO FRYEBURG FAIRWELCOME TO THE 20TH CENTURYprinted on it. As I watched, a bantam boy in short pants and a woman eating away a clothewaist and an ankle-length linen skirt walked under the arch and toward me. They shimmered, grew gauzy. For a flake I could see their skeletons and the bone grins which lurked beneath their laughing typefaces. A moment later and they were gone.Two farm ers one wearing a straw hat, the other gesturing expansively with a corncob pipework appeared on the Fair side of the arch in exactly the resembling fashion. In this way I understood that there was a prohibition between The Street and the Fair. Yet I did not think it was a barrier which would affect me. I was an exception.Is that right? I asked. Can I go in?The chime at the top of the foot race Your strong suit pole banged loud and clear. Bong once for yes, twice for no. I continued on up the stairs.Now I could see the Ferris roll up go gameing against the brilliant sky, the wheel that had been in the background of the mass moving-picture show in Osteens Dark Score Days. The framework was metal, but the brightly particoloured gondolas were made of wood. Leading up to it like an aisle leading up to an altar was a broad, aphorismdust-strewn midway. The preceptdust was there for a purposealmost every man I axiom was chewing tobacco.I paused for a fewer seconds at the top of the stairs, still on the lake side of the arch. I was hunted of what might happen to me if I passed under. Afraid of dying or disappearing, yes, but mostly of never being able to return the way I had come, of being condemned to spend eternity as a visitor to the turn-of-the-century Fryeburg Fair. That was also like a Ray Bradbury story, now that I thought of it.In the end what drew me into that other world was Sara Tidwell. I had to see her with my own eye. I had to watch her sing. Had to.I felt a tingling as I stepped beneath the arch, and there was a sighing in my ears, as of a million voices, very far away. Sighing in relief? Dismay? I couldnt tell. altogether I knew for sure was that being on the other side was different the difference of opinion between looking at a thing through a window and actually being there the difference between observing and participating.Colors jumped out like ambushers at the moment of attack. The smells which had been sweet and evocative a nd nostalgic on the lake side of the arch were now rough and sexy, prose kinda of poetry. I could smell dense sausages and frying rush and the vast shadowy aroma of boiling chocolate. Two boors walked past me share-out a paper cone of cotton candy. Both of them were clutching knotted hankies with their little bits of change in them. Hey kids a barker in a heavy blue shirt called to them. He was wearing sleeve-garters and his smile revealed one pure gold tooth. Knock over the milk-bottles and win a prize I ent had a loser all dayUp ahead, the Red-Tops swung into Fishin Blues. Id thought the kid on the common in Castle Rock was pretty good, but this version made the kids sound old and slow and clueless. It wasnt cute, like an gaffer picture of ladies with their skirts held up to their knees, dancing a decorous version of the calamitous bottom with the edges of their bloomers showing. It wasnt something Alan Lomax had collected with his other folk variants, just one much dust y American butterfly in a t blossom case full of them this was smut with just enough shine on it to keep the whole struttin bunch of them out of jail. Sara Tidwell was singing about the sleazy boogie, and I guessed that every overalled, straw-hatted, plug-chewing, callus- afforded, clod-hopper-wearing farmer stand in front of the coiffure was dreaming about doing it with her, getting right down to where the sweat forms in the crease and the heat gets springy and the pink comes glimmering through.I started walking in that direction, aware(predicate) of cows mooing and sheep blatting from the exhibition barns the Fairs version of my childhood Hi-Ho Dairy-O. I walked past the shooting gallery and the ringtoss and the penny-pitch I walked past a ramification where The Handmaidens of Angelina were weaving in a slow, snakelike dance with their men press together as a guy with a turban on his head and shoepolish on his face tooted a flute. The picture pied on stretched rag sugge sted that Angelina on view inside for just one ordinal of a dollar, neighbor would secure these two look like old beefs. I walked past the entrance to Freak Alley, the corn-roasting pit, the shadiness endure, where more stretched canvas depicted spooks coming out of broken windows and crumbling chimneys. Everything in there is death, I thought . . . but from inside I could hear children who were very much alive laughing and squealing as they bumped into things in the dark. The older among them were plausibly stealing kisses. I passed the Test Your Strength pole, where the gradations leading to the brass bell at the top were marked BABY NEEDS HIS BOTTLE, SISSY, TRY AGAIN, tremendous BOY, HE-MAN, and, just below the bell itself, in red HERCULES Standing at the center of a little assemblage a young man with red hair was removing his shirt, revealing a heavily muscled fastness torso. A cigar-smoking carny held a hammer out to him. I passed the join booth, a camp out where p eople were sitting on benches and playing Bingo, the baseball pitch. I passed them all and hardly noticed. I was in the zone, tranced out. Youll start to call him back, Jo had sometimes told Harold when he phoned, Michael is currently in the Land of Big Make-Believe. Only now zero felt like pretend and the only thing that inte slumbered me was the stage at the base of the Ferris wheel. There were eight black folks up there on it, maybe ten. Standing at the front, wearing a guitar and whaling on it as she interpret, was Sara Tidwell. She was alive. She was in her prime. She threw back her head and laughed at the October sky.What brought me out of this daze was a cry from behind me wait up, Mike Wait upI turned and saw Kyra running toward me, dodging about the strollers and gamesters and midway gawkers with her pudgy knees pumping. She was wearing a little sinlessness waterman dress with red piping and a straw hat with a navy-blue ribbon on it. In one hand she clutched Strick land, and when she got to me she threw herself confidently forward, conditioned I would catch her and swing her up. I did, and when her hat started to fall offi caught it and multitude it back on her head.I taggled my own quartermack, she said, and laughed. Again.Thats right, I said. Youre a constant Mean Joe Green. I was wearing overalls (the tail of a wash-faded blue bandana stuck out of the bib sac) and manure-stained workboots. I looked at Kyras white socks and saw they were lieumade. I would find no discreet little label reading make in Mexico or Made in China if I took off her straw hat and looked inside, either. This hat had been most likely Made in Motton, by some farmers wife with red transfer and achy joints.Ki, wheres Mattie?Home, I guess. She couldnt come.How did you get here?Up the stairs. It was a lot of stairs. You should have waited for me. You could have carrot me, like before. I want to hear the music.Me too. Do you know who that is, Kyra?Yes, she said, Kit os mom. Hurry up, slowpokeI walked toward the stage, thinking wed have to stand at the back of the crowd, but they parted for us as we came forward, me carrying Kyra in my weapons system the lovely sweet weight of her, a little Gibson Girl in her sailor dress and ribbon-accented straw hat. Her arm was curled more or less my cervix and they parted for us like the Red Sea had parted for Moses.They didnt turn to look at us, either. They were clapping and stomping and bellowing along with the music, totally involved. They stepped asunder unconsciously, as if some build of magnetism were at work here ours positive, theirs negative. The few women in the crowd were blushing but clearly enjoying themselves, one of them laughing so hard tears were streaming down her face. She looked no more than twenty-two or -three. Kyra pointed to her and said matter-of-factly You know Matties boss at the liberry? Thats her nana.Lindy Briggss grandmother, and fresh as a daisy, I thought. Good Christ. The Red-Tops were send crosswise the stage and under swags of red, white, and blue bunting like some time-travelling rock band. I recognized all of them from the picture in Edward Osteens book. The men wore white shirts, arm-garters, dark vests, dark pants. Son Tidwell, at the far end of the stage, was wearing the derby hed had on in the photo. Sara, though . . .Why is the lady wearing Matties dress? Kyra asked me, and she began to tremble.I dont know, honey. I cant say. Nor could I argue it was the white sleeveless dress Mattie had been wearing on the common, all right.On stage, the band was smoking through an instrumental break. Reginald Son Tidwell strolled over to Sara, feet ambling, hands a cook blur on the strings and frets of his guitar, and she turned to face him. They put their foreheads together, she laughing and he solemn they looked into each others eyes and tried to play each other down, the crowd cheering and clapping, the rest of the Red-Tops laughing as they playe d. visual perception them together like that, I realized that I had been right they were companion and sister. The resemblance was too strong to be shake offed or mistaken. and mostly what I looked at was the way her hips and butt switched in that white dress. Kyra and I might be dressed in turn-of-the-century country turn, but Sara was thoroughly modern Millie. No bloomers for her, no petticoats, no cotton stockings. No one seemed to notice that she was wearing a dress that stop above her knees that she was all but naked by the standards of this time. And under Matties dress shed be wearing garments the like of which these people had never seen a Lycra bra and hip-hugger nylon panties. If I put my hands on her waist, the dress would slip not against an unwet-coming corset but against soft bare skin. Brown skin, not white. What do you want, sugar?Sara backed away from Son, shaking her ungirdled, unbustled fanny and laughing. He strolled back to his spot and she turned to the c rowd as the band played the turnaround. She sang the next verse looking directly at me.Before you start in fishinyou re cope with check your line. utter before you start in fishin, honey,you better check on your line.Ill pull on yours, darling,and you best labor on mine.The crowd roared happily. In my arms, Kyra was shaking harder than ever. Im scared, Mike, she said. I dont like that lady. Shes a chilling lady. She stole Matties dress. I want to go home.It was as if Sara comprehend her, even over the rip and ram of the music. Her head cocked back on her get along, her lips peeled open, and she laughed at the sky. Her dentition were big and yellow. They looked like the teeth of a hungry animal, and I decided I agreed with Kyra she was a scary lady.Okay, hon, I murmured in Kis ear. Were out of here. besides before I could move, the esthesis of the woman I dont know how else to say it fell upon me and held me. Now I understood what had shot past me in the kitchen to knock awa y the CARLADEAN earn the chill was the same. It was almost like identifying a person by the sound of their walk.She led the band to the turnaround once more, then into some other(prenominal) verse. Not one youd find in any written version of the song, thoughI aint gonna hurt her, honey,not for all the treasure in the world.Said I wouldnt hurt your baby,not for diamonds or for pearlsOnly one black-hearted bogusdare to touch that little girl.The crowd roared as if it were the funniest thing theyd ever heard, but Kyra began to cry. Sara saw this and stuck out her breasts much bigger breasts than Matties and shook them at her, laughing her trademark laugh as she did. There was a parodic timidity about this gesture . . . and an emptiness, too. A sadness. Yet I could feel no compassion for her. It was as if the heart had been burned out of her and the sadness which remained was just another ghost, the memory of love haunting the bones of hate.And how her laughing teeth leered.Sara r aised her arms over her head and this time shook it all the way down, as if reading my thoughts and mocking them. Just like jelly on a plate, as some other old song of the time has it. Her shadow wavered on the canvas backdrop, which was a painting of Fryeburg, and as I looked at it I realized I had found the function from my Manderley dreams. It was Sara. Sara was the Shape and always had been.No, Mike. Thats close, but its not right.Right or wrong, Id had enough. I turned, putting my hand on the back of Kis head and urging her face down against my chest. Both her arms were around my neck now, clutching with dreadky tightness.I thought Id have to bull my way back through the crowd they had let me in easily enough, but they might be a lot less amenable to letting me back out. Dont fuck with me, boys, I thought. You dont want to do that.And they didnt. On stage Son Tidwell had taken the band from E to G, someone began to bang a tambourine, and Sara went from Fishin Blues to Dog M y Cats without a angiotensin converting enzyme pause. Out here, in front of the stage and below it, the crowd once more drew back from me and my little girl without looking at us or wanting a beat as they clapped their work-swollen hands together. One young man with a port-wine stain swimming across the side of his face opened his mouth at twenty he was already missing half his teeth and hollered Yee-HAW around a run glob of tobacco. It was Buddy Jellison from the Village Cafe, I realized . . . Buddy Jellison magically rolled back in age from sixty-eight to eighteen. Then I realized the hair was the wrong shade light brown instead of black (although he was pushing seventy and looking it in every other way, Bud hadnt a single white hair in his head). This was Buddys grandfather, maybe even his great-grandfather. I didnt give a shit either way. I only wanted to get out of here.Excuse me, I said, brushing by him. Theres no town drunk here, you meddling son of a bitch, he said, ne ver looking at me and never missing a beat as he clapped. We all just take turns.Its a dream after all, I thought. Its a dream and that proves it. only when the smell of tobacco on his breath wasnt a dream, the smell of the crowd wasnt a dream, and the weight of the frightened child in my arms wasnt a dream, either. My shirt was hot and wet where her face was pressed. She was crying.Hey, Irish Sara called from the stage, and her voice was so like Jos that I could have screamed. She wanted me to turn back I could feel her will working on the sides of my face like fingers but I wouldnt do it.I dodged around three farmers who were passing a ceramic bottle from hand to hand and then I was bare(a) of the crowd. The midway lay ahead, wide as Fifth Avenue, and at the end of it was the arch, the steps, The Street, the lake. Home. If I could get to The Street wed be safe. I was sure of it. near done, Irish Sara shrieked after me. She sounded godforsaken, but not too angry to laugh. You g onna get what you want, sugar, all the comfort you choose, but you want to let me cease my biness. Do you hear me, boy? Just stand clear melodic theme me, nowI began to hurry back the way I had come, stroke Kis head, still holding her face against my shirt. Her straw hat fell off and when I grabbed for it, I got vigor but the ribbon, which pulled free of the brim. No matter. We had to get out of here.On our odd was the baseball pitch and some little boy shouting Willy hit it over the fence, Ma Willy hit it over the fence with monotonous, brain-croggling regularity. We passed the Bingo, where some woman howled that she had won the turkey, by glory, every physique was covered with a button and she had won the turkey. Overhead, the sun dove behind a cloud and the day went dull. Our shadows disappeared. The arch at the end of the midway drew closer with maddening slowness.Are we home yet? Ki almost moaned. I want to go home, Mike, please take me home to my mommy.I will, I said. E verythings loss to be all right.We were passing the Test Your Strength pole, where the young man with the red hair was putting his shirt back on. He looked at me with stolid dislike the instinctive qualm of a native for an interloper, per-haps and I realized I knew him, too. Hed have a grandson named Dickie who would, toward the end of the century to which this fair had been dedicated, own the All-Purpose store on Route 68.A woman coming out of the quilting booth stopped and pointed at me. At the same moment her upper lip lifted in a dogs snarl. I knew that face, too. From where? Somewhere around town. It didnt matter, and I didnt want to know even if it did.We never should have come here, Ki moaned.I know how you feel, I said. But I dont think we had any choice, hon. We They came out of Freak Alley, perhaps twenty yards ahead. I saw them and stopped. There were seven in all, long-striding men dressed in cutters clothes, but four didnt matter those four looked faded and white and ghostly. They were sick fellows, maybe dead fellows, and no more dangerous than daguerreotypes. The other three, though, were real. As real as the rest of this place, anyway. The leader was an old man wearing a faded blue Union Army cap. He looked at me with eyes I knew. Eyes I had seen measuring me over the top of an atomic number 8 mask.Mike? Why we stoppin?Its all right, Ki. Just keep your head down. This is all a dream. Youll wake up tomorrow morning in your own bed.Kay.The jacks spread across the midway hand to hand and boot to boot, blocking our way back to the arch and The Street. Old Blue-Cap was in the middle. The ones on either side of him were much younger, some by maybe as much as half a century. Two of the pale ones, the almost-not-there ones, were standing side-by-side to the old mans right, and I wondered if I could burst through that part of their line. I thought they were no more flesh than the thing which had thumped the insulation of the root cellar wall . . . but what if I was wrong?Give her over, son, the old man said. His voice was reedy and implacable. He held out his hands. It was Max Devore, he had come back, even in death he was seeking custody. Yet it wasnt him. I knew it wasnt. The planes of this mans face were subtly different, the cheeks gaunter, the eyes a brighter blue.Where am I? I called to him, accenting the last word heavily, and in front of Angelinas booth, the man in the turban (a Hindu who perhaps hailed from Sandusky, Ohio) put down his flute and just watched. The snake-girls stopped dancing and watched, too, slipping their arms around each other and drawing together for comfort. Where am I, Devore? If our great-grandfathers shit in the same pit, then where am I?Aint here to answer your questions. Give her over.Ill take her, Jared, one of the younger men-one of those who were really there said. He looked at Devore with a kind of fawning eagerness that sickened me, mostly because I knew who he was Bill Deans fathe r. A man who had grown up to be one of the most value elders in Castle County was all but licking Devores boots.Dont think too toughly of him, Jo whispered. Dont think too badly of any of them. They were very young.You dont need to do nothing, Devore said. His reedy voice was irritated Fred Dean looked abashed. Hes going to hand her over on his own. And if he dont, well take her together.I looked at the man on the far left, the third of those that seemed totally real, totally there. Was this me? It didnt look like me. There was something in the face that seemed familiar but Hand her over, Irish, Devore said. abide chance.No.Devore nodded as if this was exactly what he had expected. Then well take her. This has got to end. Come on, boys.They started toward me and as they did I realized who the one on the end the one in the caulked treewalker boots and flannel loggers pants reminded me of Kenny Auster, whose wolfhound would eat cake til it busted. Kenny Auster, whose baby brother had been drowned under the pump by Kennys father.I looked behind me. The Red-Tops were still playing, Sara was still laughing, shaking her hips with her hands in the sky, and the crowd was still plugging the east end of the midway. That way was no good, anyway. if I went that way, Id end up raising a little girl in the early years of the twentieth century, seek to make a living by writing penny dreadfuls and dime bag novels. That might not be so bad . . . but there was a lonely young woman miles and years from here who would miss her. Who might even miss us both.I turned back and saw the jackboys were almost on me. Some of them more here than others, more vital, but all of them dead. All of them damned. I looked at the towhead whose descendants would take on Kenny Auster and asked him, What did you do? What in Christs name did you men do?He held out his hands. Give her over, Irish. Thats all you have to do. You and the woman can have more. All the more you want. Shes young, shel l pop em out like watermelon seeds.I was hypnotized, and they would have taken us if not for Kyra. Whats happening? she screamed against my shirt. Something smells Something smells so bad Oh Mike, make it stopAnd I realized I could smell it, too. ball up meat and swampgas. Burst tissue and simmering guts. Devore was the most alive of all of them, generating the same crude but powerful magnetism I had felt around his great-grandson, but he was as dead as the rest of them, too as he neared I could see the tiny bugs which were ply in his nostrils and the pink corners of his eyes. Everything down here is death, I thought. Didnt my own wife tell me so?They reached out their tenebrous hands, offset printing-class honours degree to touch Ki and then to take her. I backed up a step, looked to my right, and saw more ghosts some coming out of busted windows, some slipping from redbrick chimneys. Holding Kyra in my arms, I ran for the Ghost House. find oneself him Jared Devore yelled, sta rtled. Get him, boys Get that punk GoddamnitI sprinted up the wooden steps, vaguely aware of something soft rubbing against my cheek Kis little stuffed dog, still clutched in one of her hands. I wanted to look back and see how close they were getting, but I didnt dare. If I stumbled Hey the woman in the ticket booth cawed. She had clouds of gingery hair, makeup that appeared to have been applied with a garden-trowel, and mercifully resembled no one I knew. She was just a carny, just passing through this benighted place. Lucky her. Hey, mister, you gotta buy a ticketNo time, lady, no time. grasp him Devore yelled. Hes a goddam punk thief That aint his young un hes got Stop him But no one did and I rushed into the darkness of the Ghost House with Ki in my arms.Beyond the entry was a passage so narrow-minded I had to turn sideways to get down it. light eyes glared at us in the gloom. Up ahead was a growing wooden grumble, a loose sound with a clacking set up beneath it. Behind us came the clumsy thunder of caulk-equipped loggers boots rushing up the stairs outside. The ginger-haired carny was hollering at them now, she was telling them that if they broke anything inside theyd have to give up the goods. You mind me, you damned rubes she shouted. That place is for kids, not the likes of youThe rumble was directly ahead of us. Something was turning. At first I couldnt make out what it was.Put me down, Mike Kyra sounded excited. I want to go through by myselfI set her on her feet, then looked nervously back over my shoulder. The bright light at the entryway was blocked out as they tried to cram in.You asses Devore yelled. Not all at the same time Sweet weeping Jesus There was a smack and someone cried out. I faced front just in time to see Kyra dart through the rolling barrel, holding her hands out for balance. Incredibly, she was laughing.I followed, got halfway across, then went down with a thump.Ooops Kyra called from the far side, then giggled as I tried to get up, fell again, and was tumbled all the way over. The bandanna fell out of my bib pocket. A bag of horehound candy dropped from another pocket. I tried to look back, to see if they had got themselves sorted out and were coming. When I did, the barrel hurled me through another inadvertent somersault. Now I knew how clothes felt in a dryer.I crawled to the end of the barrel, got up, took Kis hand, and let her lead us deeper into the Ghost House. We got perhaps ten paces before white bloomed around her like a lily and she screamed. Some animal something that sounded like a huge cat hissed heavily. Adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream and I was about to jerk her retrospective into my arms again when the hiss came once more. I felt hot air on my ankles, and Kis dress made that bell-shape around her legs again. This time she laughed instead of screaming.Go, Ki I whispered. Fast.We went on, leaving the steam-vent behind. There was a mirrored corridor where we were reflected first as squat dwarves and then as scrawny ectomorphs with long white vampire features. I had to urge Kyra on again she wanted to make faces at herself. Behind us, I heard cursing lumberjacks trying to discuss the barrel. I could hear Devore cursing, too, but he no interminable seemed so . . . well, so eminent.There was a sliding-pole that landed us on a big canvas pillow. This made a loud farting dissension when we hit it, and Ki laughed until fresh tears spilled down her cheeks, rolling around and kicking her feet in glee. I got my hands under her arms and yanked her up.Dont taggle yer own quartermack, she said, then laughed again. Her fear seemed to have entirely departed.We went down another narrow corridor. It smelled of the fragrant pine from which it had been constructed. Behind one of these walls, two ghosts were clanking durance as mechanically as men working on a shoe-factory assembly line, talking about where they were going to take their girls tonight and who was going to bring some red-eye engine, whatever that was. I could no longer hear anyone behind us. Kyra led the way confidently, one of her little hands holding one of my big ones, pulling me along. When we came to a door painted with glowing flames and marked THIS WAY TO HADES, she pushed through it with no hesitation at all. Here red isinglass topped the passage like a tinted skylight, imparting a rosy glow I thought far too pleasant for Hades.We went on for what felt like a very long time, and I realized I could no longer hear the calliope, the hearty bong of the Test Your Strength bell, or Sara and the Red-Tops. Nor was that exactly surprising. We essential have walked a quarter of a mile. How could any county fair Ghost House be so big?We came to three doors then, one on the left, one on the right, and one set into the end of the corridor. On one a little red tricycle was painted. On the door face it was my green IBM typewriter. The picture on the door at the end looked older, somehow faded and dowdy. It showed a childs sled. Thats Scooter Larribees, I thought. Thats the one Devore stole. A rash of gooseflesh broke out on my arms and back.Well, Kyra said brightly, here are our toys. She lifted Strickland, presumably so he could see the red trike.Yeah, I said. I guess so.Thank you for taking me away, she said. Those were scary men but the spookyhouse was fun. Nighty-night. Stricken says nighty-night, too. It still came out sounding exotic tiu like the Vietnamese word for sublime happiness.Before I could say another word, she had pushed open the door with the trike on it and stepped through. It snapped shut behind her, and as it did I saw the ribbon from her hat. It was hanging out of the bib pocket of the overalls I was wearing. I looked at it a moment, then tried the thickening of the door she had just gone through. It wouldnt turn, and when I slapped my hand against the wood it was like slapping some hard and fabulously dense metal. I stepped back, then cocke d my head in the direction from which wed come. There was nothing. Total silence.This is the between-time, I thought. When people talk about slipping through the cracks, this is what they really mean. This is the place where they really go.You better get going yourself, Jo told me. If you dont want to find yourself trapped here, maybe forever, you better get going yourself.I tried the knob of the door with the typewriter painted on it. It turned easily. Behind it was another narrow corridor more wooden walls and the sweet smell of pine. I didnt want to go in there, something about it made me think of a long coffin, but there was nothing else to do, nowhere else to go. I went, and the door slammed shut behind me.Christ, I thought. Im in the dark, in a closed-in place . . . its time for one of Michael Noonan s world-famous panic attacks.But no bands clamped themselves over my chest, and although my heart-rate was high and my muscles were still jacked on adrenaline, I was under contro l. Also, I realized, it wasnt entirely dark. I could only see a little, but enough to make out the walls and the plank floor. I wrapped the dark blue ribbon from Kis hat around my wrist, tucking one end underneath so it wouldnt come loose. Then I began to move forward.I went on for a long time, the corridor turning this way and that, seemingly at random. I felt like a microbe slipping through an intestine. At last I came to a pair of wooden arch doorways. I stood before them, wondering which was the correct choice, and realized I could hear Bunters bell faintly through the one to my left. I went that way and as I walked, the bell grew steadily louder. At some point the sound of the bell was joined by the mutter of thunder. The autumn cool had left the air and it was hot again stifling. I looked down and saw that the biballs and clodhopper shoes were gone. I was wearing thermal underwear and itchy socks.Twice more I came to choices, and each time I picked the opening through which I could hear Bunters bell. As I stood before the second pair of doorways, I heard a voice somewhere in the dark say quite clearly No, the Presidents wife wasnt hit. Thats his blood on her stockings.I walked on, then stopped when I realized my feet and ankles no longer itched, that my thighs were no longer sweating into the longjohns. I was wearing the Jockey shorts I usually slept in. I looked up and saw I was in my own living room, threading my way carefully around the furniture as you do in the dark, trying like hell not to stub your ill-advised toe. I could see a little better faint milklike light was coming in through the windows. I reached the counter which separates the living room from the kitchen and looked over it at the waggy-cat clock. It was five past five.I went to the guide and turned on the water. When I reached for a glass I saw I was still wearing the ribbon from Kis straw hat on my wrist. I unwound it and put it on the counter between the coffee-maker and the k itchen TV. Then I drew myself some cold water, drank it down, and made my way cautiously along the north-wing corridor by the pallid yellow glow of the bathroom nightlight. I peed (you-rinated, I could hear Ki saying), then went into the bedroom. The sheets were rumpled, but the bed didnt have the bacchanalian look of the morning after my dream of Sara, Mattie, and Jo. Why would it? Id gotten out of it and had myself a little sleepwalk. An extraordinarily vivid dream of the Fryeburg Fair.Except that was bullshit, and not just because I had the blue silk ribbon from Kis hat. None of it had the quality of dreams on waking, where what seemed glib becomes immediately ridiculous and all the colors both those bright and those baleful fade at once. I raised my hands to my face, cupped them over my nose, and respire deeply. Pine. When I looked, I even saw a little topographic point of sap on one pinky finger.I sat on the bed, thought about dictating what Id just experienced into the Memo-Scriber, then flopped back on the pillows instead. I was too tired. Thunder rumbled. I closed my eyes, began to drift away, and then a scream ripped through the house. It was as sharp as the neck of a broken bottle. I sat up with a yell, clutching at my chest.It was Jo. I had never heard her scream like that in our life together, but I knew who it was, just the same. Stop hurting her I shouted into the darkness. Whoever you are, stop hurting herShe screamed again, as if something with a knife, clamp, or hot salamander took a malicious delight in disobeying me. It seemed to come from a distance this time, and her third scream, while just as agonized as the first two, was farther away still. They were diminishing as the little boys sobbing had diminished.A fourth scream floated out of the dark, then Sara was silent. Breathless, the house breathed around me. Alive in the heat, aware in the faint sound of permeate thunder.