8

His dreams were instant, vivid, and worse than any that had appeared on the Carson School notice board. He was operating on a dead man in an impromptu theater, knowing that the man was dead but unable to admit it to the others around the table; he was supposed to be a surgeon, but he had no idea of what had killed the man or how to proceed. The instruments in his hands were impassively foreign. Way way way way down in his guts, whispered a nurse with blond hair and passive eyes… Collected. Wasn't he? Wasn't he? Something stirred beneath his bloody hands, and the head of a vulture popped up like a toy, clean and bald, from within the open chest cavity. Great wings stirred in the mire. 'I want to see,' Tom wailed to the nurse, knowing that above all, he did not want to see…

Coleman Collins, wearing a red velvet smoking jacket, bent toward him. 'Come with me, my little boy, come along, come along… ' and Skeleton Ridpath, no age at all, leaned forward in a chair and watched with a vacant avid face. He held a glass owl in his hands and bled from the eyes…

and a black man with a square, serious, elegant magician's face was standing in a corridor of light, holding out a real owl with both hands. The owl's eyes beamed brilliantly toward him. Let him in, said the magician; let me in, commanded the owl…

He stirred, finally aware that a voice at his door was saying, 'Let me in. Let me in.' He remembered, in an unhappy flash of memory, that the man holding the owl had been Bud Copeland.

'Please,' said the voice at the door.

'All right, all right,' Tom said. 'Who is it?'

'Please.'

Tom switched on his bedside light, stepped into his jeans, and pulled a shirt over his arms. He padded to the door and opened it.

Rose Armstrong was standing in the dark hall. 'I wanted to see you,' she said. 'This place is no good for you.'

'You're telling me,' Tom said, aware of his rumpled hair and bared chest. His face felt numb with sleep. Rose stepped around him and went into his room.

'Poor grumpy Tom,' she said. 'I want to get out of here, and I want you and Del to help me.'