Part 10 (2/2)

Perhaps it had in some way been connected with the ”death” of the girl, the wh.o.r.e he'd thought was Gabrielle. The Master had been testing him with her, to see if the strength was in him, the strength to fight back, to kill if necessary. He didn't completely understand why he had had to do that, but supposed that the Master had his reasons. Strange, almost funny, that the girl should be the one who was killed all those years ago. By the poet, probably.

What had he killed, he wondered. And what had he made love to? A ghost, but whether a real ghost or a ghost of his own mind, he couldn't tell. But why had she called him ”dream lover,” almost as if the dream were hers?

A knot laced in his stomach as an impossible thought hit him and he remembered that here there was no such word as impossible: what if the dream had been hers, almost sixty years ago?

What if he had bridged the gap of years and gone back to her, rather than she coming to him?

If the poet were innocent?

If he, Seth c.u.mmings, had murdered the girl twenty years before he was even born?

”No ... ” he whispered into the silence of the gym.

But no voice came back either to confirm or deny. The Master was silent.

The canvas was blank, the bottle of scotch half empty. She looked at the brush, then at the empty gla.s.s by her side, and picked up the gla.s.s. Adding two fingers of scotch to it, she sat again in the straight-backed wooden chair, and stared at the canvas.

White. Nothing but pure untouched white, all hers to daub on, to turn blue and green and dark brown and whatever else took her fancy. She picked up her sketches and examined them, then looked at the four huge volumes, the compa.s.s, and the s.e.xtant she'd arranged so artistically so long ago. So long ago that she couldn't remember doing it.

She tossed the sketches on the floor, stood up, and prowled unsteadily about the room. It was larger than any room intended as a nursery had a right to be. Whole families could live in it, she thought in an uncommon moment of humanitarianism that made her feel drunkenly ashamed that such a thought had never occurred to her before. One by one she picked up the toys placed around the room. They gleamed newly after sixty years, as though they'd never been touched.

Perhaps they haven't. How long did the children stay before the boy died? Only a few weeks at most, she thought. Such a waste-all these shelves full of toys-huge wooden trains, s.h.i.+ny tin windups in bright reds and yellows, stuffed bears and elephants waiting half a century for a bedtime hug. She picked up a plushy armful and embraced them, scotch tears in her eyes, ignoring the small delicate clouds of white dust that puffed from them as she squeezed them. Then she set them down carefully, as if they would bruise, and recalled for the first time in years the stuffed animals and dolls that had littered her canopy bed until she'd entered her late teens. But try as she would, she couldn't remember any of their names.

Or had they even had names? Had they just been there in their place as everything else had always been there in its place waiting for her all her life? She tried again, but she couldn't remember their names.

A tin trolley sat on top of a polished shelf, and she picked it up to banish the memory of her girlhood bed. She wound the key in its side and set it down on the hardwood floor. It whirred and rattled madly, then skittered unevenly along, the pressed metal trolleyman jerking the power stick back and forth, rocking on his tin heels. The four wheels were purposely mounted helter-skelter, so that the trolley in motion gave the impression of riding on a notoriously b.u.mpy track, and Gabrielle laughed as it lurched and jolted its way along, the mechanical trolleyman trying frantically to control its unpredictable surges.

And for a moment she forgot, forgot where she was and why she was there, forgot her husband and McNeely and Wickstrom and c.u.mmings and who and what else was there in The Pines, and she laughed and laughed until the tears came and the trolley s.h.i.+vered and slowed and finally stopped, letting her remember again so that the tears of drunken joy turned to sobs of drunken grief that shook her like a giant's fist. The giant who laughed, she thought wildly in the second before she heard the voice.

”Things don't run forever.”

She swung around toward the door, losing her balance, and would have fallen if McNeely hadn't grabbed her. When she saw it was him, she clutched at him as though she wanted, in a second of madness, to kiss him, to pull him close to her. But when she saw the utter lack of intensity in his eyes, she stepped back, pus.h.i.+ng his arms away, and stood there, s.h.i.+vering.

”Machines, I mean,” he said, his face solemn. He picked up the now silent trolley and examined it. ”Sorry I shook you up. I seem to have gotten into the habit lately.” He looked at her, showing concern for the first time. ”Are you sick?”

She laughed. ”Who isn't?”

”It seems you've been taking some medication for it.” He smiled, nodding at the depleted bottle of Glenlivet. ”What's wrong, Gabrielle?”

”Nothing.” Her voice was choked, on the edge of tears.

”An artist with an empty canvas? That's wrong in itself. Is it David?”

”No.”

He watched her for a minute. Liar or not, she met his gaze clearly and directly. ”He's very ill, isn't he?”

She was incapable of hiding her surprise; her eyes widened.

”I see I'm right.”

”How ... how did you know?”

”I've been around death all my life, death and the fear of death. That fear's very strong in your husband.” McNeely shook his head and sat down in one of the small straight-backed chairs. His large frame made it look Lilliputian. ”I knew there was something about him that first day. I knew he wasn't here out of curiosity. And once I realized he might be dying, it was easy to figure out why he'd come.”

He paused as if to give her time to corroborate his conclusions, but she remained silent.

”To live forever,” he said softly. ”That's why he came, wasn't it?”

Finally she nodded.

”What did he expect? What in h.e.l.l did he expect to find here?” McNeely laughed unbelievingly. ”A welcoming party of ghosts to escort him painlessly to the other side?”

Gabrielle Neville's cry made her body tremble with its power. ”Yes! Yes, that's exactly what the d.a.m.ned fool hoped he'd find! But since that first day no one, no one has seen a f.u.c.king thing!” McNeely winced at the word coming from her lips. ”I think he's insane,” she said, ”I honestly do. And I don't think even a week's gone by in this h.e.l.lhole. What'll he be like when we finally get out?” Her face went rigid, and she whispered, ”What will any of us be like?”

”All right,” McNeely said firmly. ”This place is odd, that's certain, and we all heard something that day, be it a ghost or an earth tremor or a cosmic boom. Kelly's had some bad dreams, but that's it. c.u.mmings and I haven't seen a thing out of the ordinary.” He didn't mention the change in c.u.mmings's physical appearance, as his goal was to calm Gabrielle, not alarm her. ”What about you?” he asked her. ”Have you seen anything, heard anything that would lead you to believe there really is something out of the ordinary here?”

”I've been changing!” she cried.

”Changing? How?”

”I've been ... saying things to David, things I never intended to say. Things I didn't even know I was thinking, horrible things....” Her face went blank, invaded by memories, and McNeely walked over to her and took her by the shoulders.

”Listen,” he said, ”we're in this place with nothing to amuse ourselves but ourselves, and we're five people who, in our own way, have led rich lives. Not all of us in money, but at least in experience. It's only natural that certain barriers should break down, that certain thoughts will come out. Now, if we'd all spend a very uneventful and leisurely month, like characters in a Noel Coward weekend, that's what would be odd.”

She was looking up at him now, concentrating on what he was saying. Her feeling of helplessness had begun to subside.

He smiled at her gently. ”It doesn't matter whether there are ghosts or not. The only thing that matters is how we respond to them. And that's up to each one of us.”

She nodded then, and stepped away from him, sitting Indian-style on the floor and cradling her forehead in her hands. ”I'm sorry, George. I've had too much to drink.”

”There's not much else to do here.”

”I shouldn't have told you. About David, I mean.”

”You didn't have to. I told you I knew.” He sat down beside her. ”How long does he have?”

”A few months. No more.”

”I'm very sorry.”

She tried to smile and failed. ”Do you really believe,” she said after a pause, ”that there's nothing here?”

McNeely considered for a moment, then spoke the truth. ”I don't know. I only know that if there's anything here, it hasn't approached me.” He rose and looked at the blank canvas, then at the books and astronomical instruments Gabrielle had posed. ”How long have you been staring at this? Or,” he corrected himself, ”how long has it seemed?”

<script>