TWELVE

It was going to happen again.

Frances knew that now, knew it so deep in her bones that her body quaked with the knowledge. The barber pole was just a barber pole now; not the Northern Star, the red and white of His passion and pain, His protecting veil over her. There was only the open Book before her, open to the last page of the last chapter, where the screaming things of judgment were—the screaming red things that would not go away and would only die and die.

Would this finally be the last time he made her witness?

Other times came to her: a long, white, empty boat, the sound of booming gun blasts fading over the long water and a spreading red-ink stain over the bow and stern, spreading to meet the horizon. . . . A high tower, the misleading pop of rifle shots, a mother trying to fall protectively over her baby carriage and then falling down to the concrete: another rifle crack and then another. . . . A lick of night flame creeping up the side of a tent and whipping around the base and rising up with a sonic boom to form a ball of hell that grew and grew, engulfing everything, the animals, the circus, the spectators.

Him I mourn. . . .

Where was Jeb now? Where had he been then? She wanted him to be here, to tell her it was all right, that Ash would not come back, that what they had done was not wrong, that it would happen no more, that those faces in the flames, those horrible, surprised faces, would not stare at her anymore.

It's going to happen again.

"Frances?"

"Jeb?"

The voice came soft and soothing, like Jeb's voice when he was kind, when she was sick that time with the measles, when he came and covered her with a blanket and then made the doctor come out to their place against his will, the doctor who cringed when he entered the house, looking at the paintings on the walls, trying to make small talk as he bent over her, his hands trembling as he examined her, waiting for perhaps the hammer blow on his head or worse, wanting only to leave, to leave even his bag and run back to town, to be away from them. She was sure it must be Jeb's voice.

"Frances?"

She knew it was Ash before she turned around. He could make his voice soft if he wanted to, could do anything with it that he wanted: make it sound like animals, like a train whistle at night, a cricket, a mouse, the sigh of chilly wind, like a roaring ball of fire.

"What do you want?"

"It's time, Frances.–

His voice was not as soft now. It would change, soon, to something as long and white as a knife, and as hungry.

It will happen again.

"What do you want?" she repeated.

"You know what I want," he answered. His voice still soothed. "This will be better than the first time. Do you remember the first time, Frances?"

"I don't—" she began, but she remembered, and then Ash was gone and she didn't remember. She was in a white place. At first she thought it was heaven, the heaven that Jeb had sometimes talked about with fear and longing on his face. He always made sure she went to church. He insisted she go, even walking with her as far as the dirt path that led up to the steps of the clapboard chapel. He never went in himself. She would sometimes sit by one of the stained windows with a little clear glass at the bottom and look out at him, standing straight against the oak tree by the front gate. He stood tall, and his head was thrown back. In a strange, cold way, he seemed to be praying. She asked him once, on one of those Sunday mornings that always smelled like Sunday, with sharp, wooden-bench smells in the air, along with coffee and flowers in the spring, or in the winter with a cold clean smell, and he looked at her and told her about heaven.

"Go to church when I tell you, read His Book, and go to heaven when it's time," he said. "Love only life." He would say no more. It was Jeb who had given her her Bible, and he took it from her now, showing her the passages he wanted her to know, the ones he had outlined with a shaking pencil, the ones he had made her say over and over until she had memorized them:

I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

And also:

. . . by his death he could take away all the power of he who had power over death, and set free all those who had been held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.

That day he locked himself in the barn and painted, and just before sunset she heard him yelling and breaking things, his voice rising to a horrid screech like a dog's yowling. There was a huge, tearing crash followed by silence. She tried to open the barn door, and then his voice came clear and icy, more icy than ever before.

"Come in and I'll kill you," he said. He stayed in the barn for two days. When he came out, she did not go near him for nearly a week.

But the white place she was in now was not heaven. It was quite like heaven might be, but when she looked close, she saw that even this was an illusion. The walls were dirty. At one time, after they had just been painted, they must have been very white, but now there were streaks on them, smudges and tiny red dots.

She was not alone. Around her there were others dressed in white, sitting up in bed and staring at the ceiling or walls or doing things with their hands. Some picked at imaginary bits of dust. One young girl was hitting herself on the leg repeatedly, in the same spot, in rhythm: another was trying to tear out her hair but could not reach her head because her hands were tied to the sides of the bed. There were flies everywhere. A dirty screen window was ajar, leaning against the bars that formed the real window. There was a door at one end of the room, white, with a lot of stains on it and a small glass porthole.

"We were going to kill you," a chilling voice said from Frances' left. The face was young, fifteen, perhaps sixteen, with blonde hair pulled straight back and knotted, giving the head a skeletal appearance; the face was thin and emaciated. The eyes were gray-blue steel, the gaze the most direct Frances had ever seen.

The lips pulled away from the girl's teeth, showing a crooked bite and a few gaps. They looked as shark-like as if they had been two level rows of razors.

"We were going to climb on you while you were asleep and rip the flesh from your body with our mouths. We weren't going to use our hands." The girl tried to gesture, but her hands were bound loosely to her sides with straps, giving her only a few inches of movement. Her nails were bitten almost to the cuticles. "All of us here, every one. We would have gulped your blood through our teeth and then spit it out." Her razor-thin lips pulled back even farther. "We would have done it, too," the girl continued, "only the doctor told us not to. He wants you himself." Then she turned her head away, snapping it downward, trying to gnaw at her left hand, barely reaching the fingers to rip at a small bit of skin.

What am I doing here? Frances thought. And then, in a panic, she realized that she didn't remember anything about herself.

When she tried to move, she discovered that she, too, was bound to her bed. She could move her hands and arms, but the lower part of her body was securely fastened.

The girl in the bed next to hers was once again smiling at her from her serpent-like head.

"Please let me out!" Frances shouted, hoping that someone might hear her through the door and open it. Instead, there was instant silence in the room. Every face turned toward her. "Please!" she yelled again. "Please let me out!"

The blonde girl began to laugh. Her voice started as a low, dry tick, quickly working up to a lurid squeal. The others in the room followed her, and soon the entire ward was filled with rabid laughter.

A face appeared at the porthole in the door and then retreated. Abruptly the door was pushed open and two men came in, scared, pinched looks on their faces. Behind them was another man, hard-looking, and he had a hose in his hands. He held it loosely draped across one arm with the nozzle in one hand. When Frances saw the hose, the nozzle, something opened in her mind and she remembered who she was; there was something horrible about a hose. . . .

The two attendants walked briskly up one side of the room and down the other, holding up their hands for silence. The noise only increased. One of the men motioned to the third, who brought the hose into the room and made a signal behind him, out into the hallway. The hose hissed and swelled and then the nozzle came to life, sending out a hard spray of water. The man expertly swiveled it back and forth. Some were hit in the chest, some in the face. The flood of water knocked Frances back against her pillow, and for a moment it filled her mouth and she was unable to breathe, or even to see. She gagged, and when she was about to lose consciousness, the stream turned to the next bed. She was left gasping and drenched. When the man with the hose finished, he left the room and the other two followed close behind him.

Before long Frances was shivering in her bed, unable to move. Everything was soaking wet: the bed, the pillows, her nightgown and the sheets. She waited for something to happen, but nothing did. The others around her were stunned into silence, most of them turned on their sides, pulled into balls, hands around their knees to retain warmth. The screen had been knocked aside, and swarms of bugs were finding their way into the room. It was late afternoon now, and a cool breeze drifted in, only adding to the dampness.

Frances tried to curl up like the others. She could not stop shaking; her teeth were rattling, and the sheets felt like lead upon her body. The shadows on the side of the window lengthened as the sun began to set.

There was a commotion outside the door. An argument was going on in the hallway; someone was yelling loudly, and someone else was answering in a gruff, low voice. “Don't believe . . ." a voice shouted, and then the door swung open.

Someone flicked a light switch, and a long neon light that stretched the length of the room flickered into life. "Holy Christ!" the loud voice said, and there were tramping footsteps into the room. You think this is a goddamn zoo?" The other voice, the gruff one, said, "No," and then the first voice said, after a pause. "Which bed is she in?" The other voice mumbled something.

Frances saw that they were approaching her bed. She tried to close her eyes, but the presence of the two men standing over her was too strong and she opened them. She caught a glimpse of the man with the strong voice just as he was turning away from her. His features were as solid as his voice; his face was full and squarish with a broad nose, and he had a head of thick, graying hair. His eyes were powerful and slate-gray.

"Good God Almighty!" the man screamed at his companion. He raised his hand as if to strike him, and then lowered it, regaining his composure. "I should fire you for this. Get new linen for everyone—I don't care if you have a coffee break or go off in half an hour or whatever in hell," he said, cutting off a complaint the other man began. "Just do it or you're out."

The orderly turned away, and the man with the gray eyes bent over Frances. She looked up into his face. He was startled for a moment, but then his face suddenly expanded into a warm smile.

"I see you're with us now."

She shivered in answer.

"I know you're cold. We'll take care of that. When did you wake up?"

Mutely, she continued to stare up at him.

"If you can speak to me, I can get you out of this ward."

In shivery breaths, she said, "I can talk."

"Don't worry," he said. His eyes held what looked like kindness, which she hadn't seen in a long time. "We'll take care of you. You really shouldn't be in here, but there was nowhere else to put you." He looked around at the other girls in the ward; they were beginning to come out of their stupor; some were staring at Frances and the doctor; others were involved in their own pursuits, trying their bonds. The girl who had been hitting her leg resumed her monotonous activity.

The doctor said wryly, "This is a state hospital. Since you were in a coma, there didn't seem to be anything else to do with you." And then his face grew solemn. "Do you know how long you've been here?”

Frances stared at him, unblinking.

"You're nineteen years old. You've been in this bed for four years."

Frances shivered, looking up at him steadily. "Do you have the Book?" she said suddenly.

His eyebrows frowned, but he kept the warm smile.

"I don't understand."

"Jeb told me to always read it."

Dawning comprehension came into the doctor's eyes. He looked up at the doorway, where the orderly, along with two women from the laundry, were entering with a cart. He motioned them over to Frances' bed.

He said to her, "We'll see what we can do about getting you a Bible. And into another room. We have some talking to do, Frances."

Frances nodded as the doctor stood up.

The girl with the piercing blue eyes in the bed next to hers sat bolt upright and began to scream.

"Fuck her! Then let us eat her flesh! Fuck her! Fuck her now!"

The doctor talked in a low voice to the orderly, who left the room and returned a moment later with a tray. The whole ward began to scream again. Some of the girls lashed their bodies back and forth against their bonds; the girl who was pounding her leg continued to do so, each hard, dull whack audible as her body swayed, her mouth open to emit a continuous, unthinking shriek.

"Fuck her! Fuck her!"

The orderly began to administer shots, starting with the bed by the door. When he came to Frances, he looked at the doctor, who seemed to consider for a moment and then nodded. Frances felt a jab in her cold, wet arm. The screams and other noises, the pounding of the girl's clenched fist on her leg, began to fade. She heard one last tearing cry from the girl in the bed next to hers before she heard nothing. . . .

 

She was in another white room, this one whiter than the other. Was this heaven? She remembered speaking of the Book to the doctor. Perhaps that speaking, her last act, had been enough to redeem her abomination in His eyes. Perhaps this was finally redemption. This whiteness was pure, unblemished—but then she saw that there were corners where the white met, forming walls and a ceiling.

She pushed herself up in the bed. There was a window in this room, with bars set into it, and a real screen securely fastened on it. There was a moth on the screen. Slowly it lifted its wings and then quickly let them fall. She was alone. The bed was white; the door was white with silver hinges, a regular door, without a porthole in it. But there was no knob on it. She was warm, dressed in a new linen, a starched white robe fastened at the top and back with white cloth strips. The bed was warm and dry, too. Through the window she could just make out the top of an oak; its leaves had started to turn. She heard bird sounds outside, sounds as though the birds were making ready for winter.

There was a small table with a smooth wooden top next to the bed. There was a white lamp on it. Next to the lamp was a book.

It was the Book. Carefully she lifted it and brought it to her lap. It was heavy, and she almost dropped it. The black, rough-grained cover felt thick in her fingers. She pulled at it, and saw a marker opening to:

I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

A fierce trembling began in her body. It was a trembling of mingled fear and joy, for these were the words that had suckled her, had held up for her the only hope for her salvation. These were the words by which she knew that He watched over her. Without these words, she was lost. A sob escaped her throat. She dropped the Book into her lap, holding her hands up to the ceiling and closing her eyes, letting rapture enshroud her. There was redemption possible; He would bring it to her. He would shield her—

"Frances?"

The door to the room opened and then closed again. Someone stood there motionless. Frances felt a surge of fear and then one of joy—maybe this was heaven after all, and He had heard her heart, had come to her Himself.

"Frances, my name is Doctor Payton."

It was not Him. And this was not heaven. But at least it was not the other come to her, he whom she sought to push away. At least it was not he who had the power over her.

"Frances, are you all right?"

The doctor approached her bed. His shoes had rubber soles that made a slight squeaking noise as he walked. His face, now furrowed as he bent over her, was as kind as it had been when he talked to her in the other white room; his body gave off warmth.

"What's wrong, Frances?" He felt her forehead, took her limp hand, held it.

She said, "I . . . nothing."

There was something about him that calmed her, something about the assurance he had given her that made her feel he might have been sent—maybe by Him!—to save her. He had taken her from that ward of madwomen, put her in this room by herself. He would heal her, make her whole again, and cleanse the memory of the other from her.

"Are you sure nothing's wrong?" he asked. "Should I send for something to help you sleep?"

"I'm all right."

He looked at her sternly, and then smiled. Despite herself, Frances smiled too.

"That's better," the doctor said. His white hair smelled of oil, anointment. His eyes had moved to the Book on her lap, and she rested her hand on it.

"Thank you," she said.

He smiled and settled himself next to her on the bed.

"I'm a Bible reader myself." He looked away, and his face assumed a serious expression. "Do you know why you're here, Frances? Do you remember anything of what happened before you . . . slept?"

She waited a long moment before answering, "Some."

"Do you feel we should talk about it now?"

She hesitated again, probing her feelings. "Not yet."

"All right, then. Whenever you feel ready." Suddenly he put his large, warm hand on hers, both their hands settling on the Book. "I want to help you, you know. You must love life very much to have come back this far.”

"I know," Frances said, and again she found herself warming into a smile.

Somewhere far in the recesses of the hospital, someone gave a piercing cry and then was silent. The doctor was looking at the window, at the falling darkness outside. There was a strange expression on his face. He looked as though he were battling with himself over some dilemma. Once again there came a short cry from far off, and then silence.

"Frances," the doctor said in a low voice.

"Yes?"

"You're very sick, you know that?"

"I know that, Doctor."

"I want to help you."

His voice had changed, was less soothing.

"You're a very attractive young woman, Frances."

He was a different person now. The broad, soft features had steeled; the gray, moist eyes hardened into walls. The kindly exterior had been pulled inside to reveal something animal-like, mindless, filled with blind force.

"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth," he gasped, "for thy love is better than wine."

He put his hands on her arms, pinning her against the pillows. "It won't do you any good to scream," he said, "because no one will care. They all know you're a sick woman." He stood up and fingered the belt on his white smock trousers. Frances stared at his large hands, at the trousers, at the belt. "No one would believe you," he said again. "When I first saw you, when you were confined to a ward at the county hospital, I knew I had to have you here." He was speaking as if she was not in the room, as if he was alone, repeating a litany to himself. "Strange things happen all the time in places like this, and no one cares." He loosened his belt, and his trousers slid down. Frances saw that his legs were thick and hairy. "You understand all of this, don't you?"

Frances said nothing but only stared, terrified, at his thick legs.

The doctor was lost in himself now; he pulled his underpants down quickly.

"I don't want you to say anything. I don't want you to scream or call out." He talked in little breaths as he moved toward her.

Frances' eyes were locked to the thing between his legs. It was the thing the boys around the schoolyard, and sometimes Billy Bayer after Sunday school, called "cock." Once she heard Billy Bayer call after her, in a voice that was taunting but at the same time hushed and uneasy, "You want to touch my cock, Frances?" The thing between the doctor's legs was bloated. She knew what that meant: sex. Down deep inside she tightened like a spring, and her insides went cold as though water was soaking her all over again.

"I won't hurt you," the doctor said. He was next to the bed, bending closer to her. Frances stared at the thing between his legs—it reminded her of something. . . . The bed creaked, sagging as the doctor kneeled on it, and suddenly everything dawned on her. As the doctor's cock moved closer to her, as he arched it up over her, she looked at it and it came to her what it was. It was something else, long and serpentine, uncoiling, growing longer and longer

A hose; it was a long and evil hose, and the full memory of Jeb unlocked in her brain and she was standing next to the truck waiting for Jeb, holding the Book that he had mysteriously told her to take. The truck was gaily painted with circus clowns in red, white and yellow and had big flowers on the doors; and on the back of the tank, where the hose was wrapped, was the word 'FUN!' spelled in large, crooked, balloon-like letters.

She was alone next to the truck, and then she heard Jeb's boots crunch on the gravel as he approached. "Into the truck," he said, and as she climbed up, there was a roar, and the barn and the house exploded into high flames. Frances saw a row of Jeb's paintings, neatly stacked on the front porch, melt in a riot of colors and disappear into orange fire.

"Jeb—" Frances began as he climbed into the cab, settling himself down, but her words died in her throat. The face he turned on her was not his, was worse than any face she had ever seen on him before, a mix of his own face and white bones, something possessed. He gunned the truck into loud life and they pulled out, leaving a mountain of flame and a growing burned stench behind.

Jeb was silent, but as the art fair rose into view, his lips stretched into a cracked smile. He turned his hard eyes for a moment on the little cluster of roped-off tables where paintings hung on clothesline or were strung from boards; then he turned them back on the road again.

They circled the art show, slowly. At first no one noticed, but then a few children caught sight of the painted truck. Soon others, adults bored with ill-defined landscapes and paintings of children holding flowers, gathered at the perimeter. At each appearance of the truck, they cheered.

"Drive," Jeb said, pulling Frances by the arm over to the driver's side.

"Jeb—"

"Do it," he said, squeezing her arm tight.

She slid across the seat, noting that the spot where Jeb had been sitting was still cool. She kept the truck moving in a slow circle, arching her back to see over the steering wheel and out past the hood. Jeb climbed over her and out the passenger side onto the running board. He slammed the door behind him and made his way to the back of the truck, where he threw a switch, and then twin horns on the roof of the cab began playing loud circus music. Another cheer went up, and someone said, "That's Jeb." A hush fell over the crowd until Jeb waved and grinned.

Slowly he began to unravel the hose at the back of the truck. It had a huge bronze nozzle, and he suddenly twisted it, sending a fine spray of rainbow colors out over the spectators. Bright dots mixed in midair, forming beautiful shades, then separated to combine with other colors in a continuous shower of bright glitter.

"Jeb's painting us a picture in the air!" someone said.

The truck circled. Everyone from the art show was watching now. Jeb spun the nozzle to a tighter spray so it would reach out over them all. On the second pass, the colors hung a little longer in the air and didn't dissolve as quickly, some in the crowd began to complain that little oily bits of color were sticking to them. Jeb wound the hose in. There was another small hose, set in the side of the truck. Jeb pulled it out and snapped the nozzle open. Flame leaped out, catching those in front and setting them instantly ablaze.

There was panic, but it was already too late. The flames spread through the air, each dot of color exploding into a miniature fireball, the heat leaping from one to the next in a tornado around the art show.

As Frances saw the flames wrap around the crowd in front of her, she pulled her foot from the accelerator. "Keep going!" Jeb shouted menacingly from the back, but she sat stunned. The door opened with a loud creak, and he pushed her aside roughly, jamming his foot to the gas pedal. The fire quickly spread from the outer fringes of the crowd inward: there was no escape. A heaving, flaming ring of people were trying in a mindless rush to find some way out of the fire. Frances saw some of them go down in the wake of a forming stampede. Some tried to move inward, but this was no escape because the fire was spreading in all directions. The art pieces now caught fire, and tongues of multicolored flame were licking across clotheslines and outlining wooden walls and tables.

Frances began to weep, her eyes fastened to what was happening. Jeb made one more slow arc around as, with a great whoosh, the judging stand in the center caught fire, balling into heat all at once, its red-and-white painted sides mingling and then disappearing into a globe of yellow and blue. The flames were still spreading outward. As Jeb pulled the truck into a leaning turn away, Frances saw, just at the edge of the fire, a little girl wandering in a circle bordered by the inferno, shouting, "Mommy, Mommy." The circle swept in at her like a closing iris.

Frances screamed and grabbed at the steering wheel. Jeb pushed her back against the seat, but she had taken him unaware. As he fought to regain control of the truck, it swerved wildly, back and forth, and then tipped over. As Frances climbed out, she saw Jeb escape behind her. Somewhere she heard "Mommy. . .” and then silence.

Jeb looked stunned, confused; he stared dumbly at the wall of fire for a moment, and then a wail of despair leaped from his throat. He sounded like a wounded animal. Frances put her hand on him, and he looked down at her as if seeing her for the first time.

"Go away," he said.

"Jeb, we have to get out of here." She saw now that she was still holding the Book in one hand, had been clutching it all along.

"Go!" Jeb said, and his face had that look on it, that look of caring, that she had seen so rarely but knew was always there. "Run," he said desperately. "1 can't be with you anymore. For God's sake, love only life."

"Jeb!" she shouted at him.

And then he screamed, but not for her. His arms, black and red, flew up over his head, reaching for something above him that wasn't there and couldn't be reached. His knuckles cracked and ripped with the strain, his thin arms and hands and each finger, each stretched muscle, standing out taut against the flames behind him; and then his mouth opened, and opened, and the scream got louder and louder as his mouth became wider and wider, the lips pulling away and the skin peeling back from the face, the skull and skin and blood flying and flaking from his bones. Still the scream continued. The naked skull, with its horrid bone mouth screamed, and the eyes, melting away, leaving black holes, still pointed at the sky. The whole skeleton strained. The scream reached its peak—and Frances put her hands to her ears as the bones turned in an instant to dust. For one moment Jeb's skeleton hands reached out to her, empty eyes pleading with her—and then there was a huge inrush of air, and the bones flew to bits and were gone, sucked away into the fire.

For a brief moment there was silence. Frances pulled her hands from her ears. She heard a roar and she looked up to see a wall of flame advancing on her, and in the midst of it, an uncoiling hose, its nozzle undulating like a snake's head. She held out the Book to keep it away, and above the roar came a deep, mirthless laugh, a hollow rumble of laughter.

She held up the Bible, and the doctor hesitated above her. The glazed look in his eyes cleared and he opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Someone was laughing in one corner of the room. The doctor fell back, his face turning as red as blood, and dropped away from her to the floor. After a moment he was still, his heaving chest as hard as rock. Frances stared at him, at the dead, wilted hose between his legs, and then there was a noise from the corner of the room.

She dropped the Book and lay back against the starched pillows, frozen.

Someone backed toward the window, and she saw the outline of a thin, short coat as the figure settled itself against the wall. There was a tiny flash of blue light and the sound of someone drawing on a cigarette. A dark plume of smoke drifted up across the screen.

Frances lay motionless. Her hand went out, feeling for the Bible, but she could not find it.

"Leave it," Ash said, and he smoked for a moment before saying anything more.

"Did you miss me, Frances? It's been a long time."

She was shivering as though she were back in that wet room again, wearing those starched, wet clothes.

"I thought you would have missed me. I was holding your hand always, you know."

His hand rose lazily, outlined like gloved bone against the window.

"Thought I was gone forever?" Ash queried. "Thought that with Jeb's passing I would dissolve also?"

Frances pressed herself into the pillows, trying to shut him out.

"What did you think, Frances?"

He came to her bed, stepping over the silent body of the doctor, looming over her. His head came down to her face. She felt a cold space envelope her, as if all the heat in the room had been sucked away, leaving a vacuum. She could breathe, but still she choked. His face, his non-face, was like a balloon being lowered by an invisible hand. There was a mouth but no mouth—the maw of a fish turned inside out. The eyes were there except when she tried to look directly into them. His flesh was too white; the red line around his mouth was not red, but merely the absence of every color save red. He was solid, and yet he was not there.

She wanted to whimper, to cry out for mercy, but could do nothing except stare up into the face that sank slowly, slowly. . . .

"Kiss me, Frances," the non-mouth said. It opened into an oval, and inside it she heard a rushing cold wind and saw only blackness.

"Kiss me. . . ."

She threw her hands up in front of her eyes against the horrible cold and black, and then she was off the bed, her hand brushing over something hard and grabbing it, and out the door and in the corridor, empty, neon-lit with light-blue floor tiles and white walls. There was no sound from either end of the hallway. She moved toward the front of the building, past the guard asleep by the desk and the nurse at the admissions counter, her back to the reception area and her ear to the phone—"I don't care what he says, he'd better have that goddam alimony check to me by Monday, or my lawyer. . . ."—and then she was through the double swinging doors and out on the front walk, white concrete leading twenty steps down to a long, sloping lawn and a gate just swinging open to let a long, black car through. She ran out after it, stopping a block away under a dull street lamp in the night, alone. She looked down and saw that she was clutching the Book. She looked up at the street lamp, at the light on the top, and at that moment it became the Northern Star.

She wandered away, but the star stayed with her, and as she prayed, clutching the Book to her breast, muttering into the night, praying only for life, the veil came down around her. . . .

But it will happen again.

Now.

"This will be better than the first time,” Ash said. His death mask spread into a grin. "This will be better than all the times. Do you know why, Frances? Because I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." He bent down over her. "Do you believe in me, Frances?"

She looked up at him, and she knew it was true. He had been the Northern Star, the veil that had dropped upon her, to lift and fall again and again. There had never been, never could be, salvation. She was lost and always had been. Abomination. So there had been no third Him after all, only him she sought to push away (who had suckled her all along) and him she mourned. Jeb. Her brother. Her father. The Northern Star, the Book, had been illusions, hope turned inside out. There would be no redemption.

She let the Book drop at her feet and looked up. Ash's strange, grinning face was as the rising sun.

The Northern Star.

"You can love me just as much, Frances." he said.

"Yes."

His face lowered, and then his lips touched hers. It was as though magnetic poles had been reversed within her; white had become black. She felt no great hatred, but rather a great love moved from north to south. Yes, she thought; yes. Ash's lips were locked upon her, and she drew deeply of his kiss. She saw a long tunnel, a burst of far light that rushed toward her but was quickly extinguished. Something within her, her single precious thing, was gone, and in its place was another love, equally—if oppositely—fulfilling.

Yes.

She opened her eyes, and Ash was there, smiling, bathed in a blood-warm light, his face flushed and satisfied.

"I waited a long time for you, Frances," Ash whispered. "I knew that when I finally had you, you would be all I ever needed."

"Yes," Frances said. Yes.

It will happen again. Now.

And again.

And again.