1
Tom took the gun out of his shirt and put it in his waistband at the small of his back. 'What's that?' Del asked. 'That's a gun. What do you need a gun for?'
'Probably we won't even need it,' Tom said. 'I took it out of the cabinet. I'm just being careful, Del.'
'Careful. If we were careful, we'd still be in our rooms.'
'If we were careful, we'd never have come here in the first place. Let's find Rose.' He started down the rickety iron ladder. It moved away from the bluff a half-inch. Tom swallowed. The ladder had felt wobbly every time he had climbed it. 'Anything wrong?' Del called out. Tom answered by going down the ladder as fast as he could. He started to walk across the beach in the darkness. He could hear Del's feet hitting the sand as he ran to catch up.
'He wanted to keep you here, didn't he? Forever.'
'He was going to do worse to Rose,' Tom said. 'We have to get to that beach on the other side of the lake. That's where she'll be.'
'And then what?'
'She'll tell us.'
'But what'll we say to her, Tom? I can't even stand… '
Tom could not stand it either. 'Do you want to try to swim across or walk through the woods?'
'Let's walk,' Del said. 'But don't lose me. Don't lose me, Tom.'
'I'm not going to. Not losing you was the real reason I came here,' Tom said. Curls of fog still leaked from the woods. He slid between two trees and started toward the first platform.
'Maybe we could bring her back to Arizona with us,' Del said.
'Maybe.'
'Hold my hand,' Del said. 'Please.' Tom took his outstretched hand.
Rose was waiting for them on the little beach. They saw her before she noticed them - a slender girl in a green dress, high-heeled shoes dangling from her hand. They padded toward her, and she turned jerkily to face them - frightened. 'I'm sorry,' she said. She glanced at Del, but her eyes probed Tom. 'I didn't know if you'd come.'
'Well, I saw this,' he said, and took the broken shepherdess from his pocket.
'What is it? Let me see.' Tentatively, as if she were afraid to stand too near him, she came a few steps closer. 'It does look like me. That's funny.' Rose probed his face again: gave him a taut, bitter half-smile. 'Don't you think that's funny?' Because he did not smile back, her eyes moved again to the broken shepherdess. Something in her posture told him that she wanted to step away. Then he understood. She was afraid that he would hit her.
'You don't think it's funny,' she said. 'Oh, well.' 'Hey, I'm here too,' Del said.
Instantly more at ease, Rose altered the set of her shoulders and turned to him. 'I know you are, darling Del. Thank you for coming.' Her eyes flicked at Tom. 'I wasn't sure if… '
'You had to, right?' Del said. His voice trembled. 'He's crazy, that's all. Not half-crazy, all crazy.'
'Everything here is a lie,' Rose said. 'Just because you saw it doesn't mean it really happened.'
Tom nodded. He was curiously reluctant to take up this hope she offered. If he reached out, it might bite his hand. Del, however, had not only reached out, but embraced it. His face was glowing. 'Well, we're here, anyhow. Now, where do we go?'
'Where you were before,' Rose said. 'This way.' She led them back into the woods. 'Where he was before?' Del asked. 'Where's that?' 'An old summerhouse,' Rose said, walking through fog and night but needing no light to see her way. 'The men were living there, but they're gone now.'
'Wait a second,' Tom said, stopping short. 'That house? What's the point of going there?'
'The point is the tunnel, grumpy Tom,' she said. 'And the point of the tunnel is that it takes us out of here. I spent the whole day getting this ready - you'll see.'
'A tunnel,' Tom said; and Del repeated, 'A tunnel,' as if now they were truly on the way home.
'I've never gone all the way through it,' Rose said, still moving ahead through the fog, 'but I know it's there. I think it g-s almost to Hilly Vale. We can stay in it all night. Then in the morning we can get out, walk to the station, and get on a train. There's an early train to Boston. I checked. They won't even miss you until late in the morning, and by then we'll be out of Vermont.' 'What about your grandmother?' Tom said. 'I'll call her from wherever we get to.' Her eyes rested questioningly on him for a moment.