Part 23 (1/2)

Bethany said, ”And I held Elric 'cause I was afraid he'd go right up with her.”

Bewildered by this tale, which on any other night would have sounded like a report of a nightmare or a hallucination and might have been easily dismissed, Molly said, ”What do you mean through through the ceiling?” the ceiling?”

”Through,” said Eric. ”Like the ceiling wasn't solid at all, just a dream dream of a ceiling.” of a ceiling.”

Elric said, ”Like when a magician puts his a.s.sistant in a box and saws her in half, and the blade goes right through her legs but she isn't hurt and the blade isn't bent.”

”We thought we would float up, too, since they did,” Bethany recalled, ”but we didn't.”

Eric said, ”We climbed the pull-down ladder into the attic, and they were screaming up there.”

”Not Grandma,” Bethany reminded him.

”No. She was getting ready to go crazy later.”

”Not true.”

”Is true.”

”Anyway,” Elric continued, ”they were screaming and trying to hold on to things, like the attic rafters.”

Eric said, ”Screaming at me and Elric, 'You little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, do do something.'” something.'”

”They used lots of words, all worse than 'b.a.s.t.a.r.ds,'” Bethany said. ”But we agreed months months ago never to talk like they do.” ago never to talk like they do.”

”We would've done something,” Eric said, ”but there wasn't anything we could could do, and they couldn't hold, so they went right through the roof.” do, and they couldn't hold, so they went right through the roof.”

They turned the corner into a street where half the trees were festooned with gray moss, like a scene from the swamps of Louisiana or from the mind of Poe on opium. The gnarled trunks were embossed with luminous lichen and deformed by growths that Molly had not seen before, ringworm forms the size of ashcan lids, fat and festering under the bark.

”We couldn't get onto the roof,” Elric told Molly, ”we couldn't see what happened after that.”

”But we could hear them out there,” Bethany said solemnly.

”Screaming,” Eric said, ”out there in the rain above the house.”

”We were scared.”

”Real scared.”

”So pretty quick their voices faded in the rain,” Eric said.

”They were beamed up,” Bethany explained.

”To the mother s.h.i.+p,” the twins said in unison, shaped by the enduring age of techno-fantasy that their parents and grandparents had bequeathed them.

”Mother s.h.i.+p. That's what we think,” their sister agreed. ”So they'll be back. People who get beamed up sooner or later get beamed down again, but sometimes in other places.”

Even in the middle of the street, they had to pa.s.s under the spreading boughs of the infected trees. Molly almost turned back, but they were on the last leg of the shortest route to the tavern.

In the windless stillness, Molly thought she heard furtive noises overhead. Squinting up into the fretwork of branches, which at fifteen feet vanished in the purple fog, she could not see much, for where the limbs were not leafed or hung with moss, they were leafed and and hung with moss. hung with moss.

The kids, creeped out as well, resorted to more chatter to talk themselves through this haunted woods.

”When we went up into the attic, after Grandma,” Elric told Molly, ”this thing was there, though we didn't see it at first.”

”We smelled it though, right away,” said Eric.

Bethany said, ”It smelled like rotten eggs and burnt matches.”

”It smelled like s.h.i.+t,” Elric said bluntly.

”p.o.o.p,” Bethany corrected, clearly disapproving of his use of the vulgarity. ”Rotten eggs, burnt matches, and p.o.o.p.”

Through the piercings in the woody fretwork above them, against the purple backglow of the luminous overcast, Molly saw quick and fluid movement. She glimpsed too little to judge the form or size of whatever tracked them from branch to branch.

”We didn't see the thing until Grandma was gone through the roof,” said Elric.

”And then we didn't exactly see it,” Bethany recalled.

”The power hadn't gone off yet,” Eric said, ”so there was a light in the attic.”

Elric remembered: ”But when you looked at the thing straight on, you couldn't see any details, only this shape.”

”And it kept changing changing shape,” said Bethany. shape,” said Bethany.

”You could see it clearest like from the corner of your eye,” said Eric. ”It was between us and the attic trapdoor, and it was coming toward us.”

”Then we were way way scared,” said Bethany. scared,” said Bethany.

”s.h.i.+tless,” said Elric, but he at once apologized to his sister, although perhaps not with complete sincerity. ”Sorry, Grendel.”

”Dork,” said the girl.

”Geek.”

”Walking fart,” she countered.

The longer they proceeded beneath the canopy of branches, the more movement that Molly detected above them, although it remained stealthy. She suspected that they were accompanied by many arboreal presences, not just a single creature.

When she glanced back at Neil, Abby, Johnny, and Virgil, she saw that they, too, were aware of the secretive travelers in the trees.

Neil held the shotgun in both hands, in a semi-relaxed grip, the muzzle pointed upward as he walked, ready to swivel left or right and fire into the branches at the first provocation. This lovely man had pa.s.sed thirty-two years in gentle pursuits-scholar, shepherd, cabinetmaker-but this night he'd proved to be a courageous protector in a pinch.

”The thing in the attic,” Elric said, ”might've got us if she hadn't made it back off.”

”Would've gotten us for sure, for sure,” said Bethany.