The Pet

FOURTEEN

Don almost leapt over the turnstile in his panic to get in and see what he had done, what the stallion was doing to the spectators and the team. But there was a cop, and he was staring glum-faced at the latecomers, and Don fumbled for the ticket in his shirt, handed it to a red-faced woman in the cubbyhole that passed for a ticket booth at the games, and pushed the metal arm until it clicked.

And he was in — watching the stands filled with faces, with open mouths, with hands in the air waving and voices shrieking on both sides of the field, the lights glaring and turning the grass a rich green, giving a luster to the uniforms that chased each other down the gridiron after the opening kickoff.

That’s what it was, he thought in relief, and sagged against the brick wall; that’s all it was, I didn’t do a thing.

He slumped to the ground and sat there for ten minutes, seeing little more than legs hustling by, hearing nothing but the continuous screaming that merged into a roar that didn’t stop, didn’t end, made him groan and cover his ears and wonder why so many were getting so excited by a lousy high school football game. Didn’t they know Tar was dead? Didn’t they know that the guy running patterns with Brian was a lousy substitute, not the real thing?

He breathed deeply and fast until his head cleared and his hands stopped shaking.

Sure they knew. But this wasn’t murder. This was a tragic accident and no classes would be canceled and no concert would be dedicated to Tar Boston’s memory.

When the ground became too damp to sit on, he groaned to his feet and made his way toward the stands. Amazingly they were filled, and as he followed the iron railing, he couldn’t see a single space large enough for him to squeeze into, save for the open section where the band was filing in now after playing the national anthem. He tried to catch Tracey’s eye when he saw her, but she was chatting with her neighbors and trying to keep the wind from taking off her beret.

A strong wind that snapped at the pennants flying from the goal posts, that took more than a few hats and sailed them over the far wall to the houses behind. There were no stars when he looked up, only a solid shifting black, and he realized that most of the people there had brought umbrellas and ponchos and blankets for cover when the rains finally came and turned the game into a mud show.

He circled the field slowly, avoiding loud roving gangs of youngsters who were showing off for their girls, seeing Jeff on the bench and giving him a victory fist, not seeing his father but seeing Chris on the field, cheering and dancing through a dozen routines.

When he reached the main gate again, it was well into the second quarter. There was no score, and the fans on both sides were getting a little restless.

Jostled, sworn at, he stood in the middle of the track and watched the game from behind the snow fence that followed the edge of the field from one end of the goal line to the other. There were cops there, and a few photographers, and a bunch of little kids trying to see through the red slats.

North’s quarterback fumbled. His own team’s center fumbled it right back.

The electronic Scoreboard at the far end counted the time in amber lights and kept the scores at zero.

He moved to the fragile fence and crossed his arms over the top. One minute to go before the first half was over. The screaming was subdued, the cheering half-hearted. Nobody liked a good defensive battle when they had to sit in the cold and wait for the rain.

Suddenly he was watching Brian racing toward him, looking back, following the spiraled flight of an impossibly high pass as it arced over the tops of the secondary and seemed to hesitate before settling perfectly into his arms.

The screams began again, but Don only watched Brian, watched the way he dodged a potential tackle and stiff-armed another and trotted across the goal line five yards ahead of the nearest Rebel pursuit.

The stands erupted, the band blared discordantly, and Brian was grinning when he came up against the fence and saw him.

“Hey, quacker, you wanna see it again?” he said, and was immediately swarmed under by the rest of the team, practically carried away to the bench, where the coach shook his hand.

Don was pushed aside by the photographers, by the little kids, and was warned by a cop to find a seat and sit down before he was told to leave. He almost argued as he felt the tension rise again, felt a sheen of warmth begin to spread over his cheeks. But he swallowed it down and turned away, a part of him thinking, they don’t know who I am anymore, a part of him realizing that leave me alone was not a plea now, it was a threat.

That for all his aching, that might be the only Rule there was.

He found a place, a narrow place, at the end of the first row at the near end of the stands. He couldn’t see much, not during half time when the home team band went out to strut its stuff, and not when the Braves’ defense scored the second touchdown with a run from the second half kickoff. He didn’t much care. If he went home, he might see his mother; but if he stayed, he’d be able to talk to Tracey after the game. Maybe she’d be able to tell him what to do next.

By the middle of the third quarter he was unable to contain his restlessness. He jumped down to the track and started walking again, passed by the band and this time saw Tracey. She grinned and waved; he pointed to the Scoreboard clock, to his watchless wrist, and then to his chest. She frowned puzzlement, then brightened and nodded quickly. His smile was only a small part of his relief, and it clung there when his gaze drifted to the spectators behind and caught his father sitting with the mayor and the mayor’s wife. Joyce was beside Mrs. Garziana, the kerchief still around her hair, the dark glasses gone.

Don looked to Norman, back to his mother, who saw him and waved — a weak and apologetic wave in front of a smile so forced he thought her face would shatter with the effort. A polite smile. A public smile, not for him but for those around her.

He waved back and moved on, for the first time realizing that sooner or later he was going to have to make a choice— stay with his father, stay with his mother, either way losing out on a dream to help heal his friends.

The crowd roared to its feet.

Ignoring the field, he looked up to the Scoreboard and saw another touchdown recorded and Brian’s number flash. Before he reached the far end zone it happened again; and as he passed in front of the Rebels’ wooden bleachers he felt the antagonism and defeat, the growing rowdiness that comes with losing frustration.

He walked around a second time and the Rebels made their first score.

The third time, he stopped in front of the band, bracing himself against the people who were crowding around the Braves’ bench, spilling onto the track, paying no attention to the police and security guards who were trying to keep a semblance of order and still watch the game.

He stared at Tracey, and felt his father staring back, in peripheral vision saw his mother laughing at something the mayor’s wife said. His eyes narrowed, but she seemed not to understand that this wasn’t a time for laughing, for football; it was a time for her son who wasn’t named Sam.

He stayed there until, dimly, he heard the final gun and had to press against the low wall as the fans spilled over the railing and onto the field. His shoulder was punched, his back was slapped, and he did his best to keep from going down, to smile as if he were delirious at the victory they’d won, until he saw Tracey and she was pointing to the nearest steps.

“God,” she said breathlessly when he finally reached her and she fell against him. “You’d think it was the stupid Super Bowl, for crying out loud.”

Her uniform was rough to the touch, but his arm slipped naturally around her waist, the rest of him turning to form a shield while she put her instrument away and shoved her music into whatever pockets she could reach.

“You see your folks?”

He nodded stiffly.

“You have to wait or anything?”

“Do you?”

“Nope.”

With a “let’s go, then” he held her close to his hip and moved toward the gates. It would take a while; there were kids running impromptu races, football players trying to get away so they could change and return to join the celebration, and a handful of band members playing music their teacher never let them try in practice.

“Don,” Tracey said then, “what’s wrong?”

Joyce applauded and cheered when the final gun sounded, and didn’t hear a word Jean Garziana said to her as they headed up the steps toward the exit. Donald was gone, lost in the swirling bodies that spilled over the field, and she hated herself for feeling relieved. Norm was behind her and when she looked back, he gave the lifeless stare he reserved for people he did not know. Jean touched her arm, and she smiled automatically, gestured toward her ears and then at the milling crowd. The woman nodded, and they concentrated on leaving the stadium and heading up for School Street. At the corner it wasn’t quiet, but it was considerably less mobbed.

“We’re going for a drink,” the woman said then. “Would you like to join us?” When Joyce balked, she opened her raincoat to expose a nurse’s uniform. “It won’t be for long, I promise. I have to go on shift at midnight.”

“But I’m not dressed,” Joyce protested, looking down at her thin blouse, her wrinkled slacks, the ballet slippers. “I’d feel embarrassed.” A nervous laugh — you know how it is.

Anthony Garziana came up then with Norman in tow. When Jean explained the ensemble situation, he laughed heartily and slapped Norman’s arm. “No problem, ladies, no problem,” he said. “Joyce, you go on and change. I want you to have a good time tonight. Norm, you go with her, bring her back, and we’ll have a few drinks, we’ll talk, what do you say?”

He left no time for an answer. Taking his wife’s arm, he turned to the curb just as a limousine pulled up. “The Starlite, okay?” The door opened, and he was gone.

Joyce yanked the kerchief from her head as the limousine pulled away.

“I’m glad you showed,” Norman said.

“I’m not that stupid,” she told him wearily.

“Funny, I said almost the same thing to Don earlier.”

“What?” She grabbed his arm, remembered the people still pressing home, and forced her lips into a meaningless smile. “What the hell do you mean?”

“Don and I had a talk,” he said flatly, refusing to look anywhere near her.

“What did you say?”

“That you and I had to have a talk before the night is over.” He did look, then, and she would not look away. “We do, Joyce. You know we do, after that stunt you pulled today.”

“I—”

“Don saw you.”

Something hard and cold settled in her chest. “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.”

Blindly she stared at the faces moving rapidly past her, at the cars driving away. “Do we have to go?”

“Yes, we have to.”

“Then I’m going home to change.”

His fingers curled around her waist, the pads pressing deeply until she tried to pull away. “You’ll be there, right?”

“Aren’t you walking me home?”

“No,” he said. “No. If I do, we’ll never catch the mayor.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“Clearly, Norman. More clearly than you give me credit for.”

She twisted her wrist free and walked away, feeling the coarse pavement beneath the slippers, gasping once when a group of boys raced by and one stepped on her toes. Tears rose and vanished as she willed the pain away, willed away the limp after only three strides.

Don knows. He knows, and what was she going to do now?

It’s stupid, she thought as she waited on the curb and sought a break in the traffic; I’m stupid. Oh, god, what the hell am I going to do now?

She ran across the street and huddled in the shadows, berating herself for reacting to Norman’s announcement the way she had. She should have waited until he’d come home and then talked with him calmly; and if not calmly, at least with a certain logic that would show him how foolish he was being. But he kept quoting his goddamn father at her, digging in his heels the moment he sensed her resistance to his running for office — and in her panic at losing what security they had, she’d called Harold. And Harold had responded the way she’d known he would — not with sage advice or calming talk, but by kissing her cheek the minute she’d left the school behind, holding her free hand and kissing the fingers until she’d pulled into his driveway on the other side of town. And once in the apartment, when she tried to explain, he had taken her in his arms and pulled her blouse from her jeans.

The moment his hand spread across her naked back she was lost, it was all lost … and Jesus, Don had seen!

When she unlocked the front door, her teeth were chattering as much from the cold as from tension, and from the fear that she wouldn’t be able to explain to Norman that her foolishness— no, she corrected harshly as she slammed the door behind her. Not foolishness. Idiocy. Weakness. But not foolishness.

She rushed upstairs and stripped off her clothes, was reaching into the closet for something more appropriate for having drinks with the mayor and his wife, when she heard someone knocking on the front door. Don forgot his key was the first thing that came to mind, and she snatched up her bathrobe and struggled into it on the way back down. And she would have to tell him something. He was so frail that anything near the truth would have to be tempered. Your father and I are having problems — vague, unsatisfying, and something the boy already knew.

She opened the door and immediately clutched the robe’s lapels to her throat. “Harry, for god’s sake! What the hell do you want?”

Norman watched his wife rush off toward home, then turned, stopped, and found himself alone. He almost laughed — all that posturing, all the snide joy of letting her know about Don, and it was wasted. His dramatic exit spoiled because he had no way to get to the Starlite unless he walked the ten or twelve blocks.

“Nice going, jerk,” he muttered, shoved his hands into his pockets, and started to follow her, grinning at the horns that blared out the victory, waving once in a while when someone called his name, staring at the few faces he passed and wondering what in hell there was about a lousy high school football game that made people think all was right with the world.

He paused to light a cigarette, bending away from the damp wind that promised rain later on. The smoke was warm, and he enjoyed it for a minute, then scowled and tossed the butt into the gutter. He licked his lips; he swallowed. He was working himself into a bad, self-pitying mood, and that was hardly the way he had to be when he faced Garziana.

He straightened his back, let his arms swing, and whistled a silent march as he moved on, thinking to call a cab when he got home and have both of them arrive at the lounge in a flourish. A good entrance, first impressions, the mayor would be pleased.

Think about the game, he ordered; think about all that good feeling, all that cheering, the rush when Pratt caught that first pass, the lucky sonofabitch.

His stride lengthened, the whistle became audible, and when he had to stop at the Snowden driveway to let Chris pull in, he even saluted her and gave her a grin.

And waited.

To watch as she slid out, long legs white in the streetlight, braids slipping and sliding over her chest as she turned toward him and grinned, grabbed her pompons from the backseat and rounded the back of the car.

“Hi!” she said, cheeks flushed, eyes bright.

“Hi yourself.”

“Gonna celebrate?”

“Damn right.”

“Me too. See ya.”

She ran up the walk, up the steps, and he didn’t stop watching, knew what he was doing and didn’t give a damn. Right now Joyce was fussing with her hair, her makeup, and beating herself to death over what Don had seen. It wouldn’t hurt to wait a few minutes, to let her calm down.

“Mr. Boyd?”

He looked. She was standing at the open doorway.

“Mr, Boyd, my father—” And she gestured inside.

What the hell, he decided; a celebratory drink with a rich surgeon wouldn’t hurt. Maybe a check for the campaign kitty if he played his cards right.

He made a show of deliberation before nodding and following her into the house.

Where the door closed silently, where the lights were all out.

“Hey, Chris,” he said, suddenly nervous.

“I was going to say,” she said softly, “that he was out of town, but wouldn’t mind if I offered you something to celebrate the great game. Mother wouldn’t either. She’s in Florida for a vacation.”

They were shadows and half-light, and he reached for the doorknob, looked stupidly at her fingers when they caught his wrist and held it. For a second. For two. One by one lifting to release him, the rustle of the pompons as they dropped to the floor.

“Chris,” he warned, but didn’t reach again.

Dumb, Boyd. Dumb, you stupid asshole.

“I have to change,” she said, and walked slowly up the stairs he hadn’t noticed on his left. She didn’t look back, her hips and legs pulling him as if they were beckoning.

He considered only for a moment what he was doing, what he was getting himself into, then decided with a sharp nod that being a saint hadn’t kept him his wife, hadn’t kept him his son, and wasn’t it about time he took what he wanted, had what he deserved.

So he followed, on his toes, and walked into a dark bedroom where he saw her on the mattress. In dimlight, naked, her hands slipping across her breasts, across her stomach, spreading to either side and kneading the sheet.

He stood at the foot of the bed. He unbuttoned his shirt.

He almost stopped when he saw her smile and thought it was a sneer.

“Celebrate,” she said.

He nodded, undressed, and crawled over her legs, held himself above her and looked into her eyes. In the dark they were dark, showing nothing at all; and the smile was still there, the upper lip curled.

“I know what you’re doing,” he said in a whisper.

She nodded and shifted to bring his gaze to her breasts.

“It won’t work.”

“Sure,” she said, and grabbed for his shoulders.

He resisted just long enough to show her he meant it, to show her who was boss, then lowered himself while she guided him, and heard himself gasp. Felt himself thrust. Looked up at her face and saw her staring at the ceiling.

Falcone pushed in and closed the door, took Joyce by the shoulders and practically dragged her into the dark living room. “He found out, didn’t he? The sonofabitch knows what’s going on, doesn’t he?”

” Of course he does.”

“Jesus Christ!” he said, dropping his hands and turning to the bay window. “Joyce, what the hell were you thinking of?”

“Me? All I wanted was someone to talk to. You were the one who couldn’t keep his hands to himself.”

“I didn’t notice you screaming rape,” he said quietly.

Streetlight reached weakly into the room, building shadows out of furniture, adding pits and slopes to his profile.

“But you know what you do to me,” she answered. “You know, and you shouldn’t have.”

“Ah, Christ, don’t give me that, okay? That’s soap opera stuff. You’re a grown woman and—”

She saw his eyelids drop into a squint and she leaned around Norman’s chair to look out onto the lawn. No one could see in without a lamp on, but he might have seen Donald coming up the walk; or worse, it could be Norman.

“What?” she whispered.

He pointed. “You got me crazy, Joyce. I could have sworn I saw some kind of animal out there.”

She laughed. It was going to be all right. Harry was making jokes now; it was going to be all right.

“Look, Harry, this isn’t going to work. I’ve got to get back to Norman, so why don’t you—”

“Damn, there it is again.”

With a smile she shook her head and moved to his side, looked out the window and saw it in the yard.

Under the trees the slope of its back nearly reaching the lower branches. Around it a drifting fog, snaking through the grass and dropping from the leaves, blurring its outline but not the green glow of its eyes.

“It’s a gag,” Harry said. “Plaster or something. A costume. Is this one of your kid’s things?” His voice hardened. “Is that kid out there playing games with us, Joyce?”

“His name is Donald,” she said quietly, and gasped when its head rose and it looked straight at her.

“Jesus,” Harry whispered, his head shaking slightly.

A foreleg pawed the grass, and emerald flame curled into the air, strands of green webbing that poked through the fog and reached for the house.

“I haven’t been drinking,” Falcone said aloud to himself. “I swear to god I haven’t been drinking. What the hell is it, Joyce?”

But she was staring up at the ceiling, toward the back where she knew Don’s room to be, remembering the poster and the horse that had been there.

“It’s a gag,” Harry insisted, “and I don’t think it’s funny.”

She looked out the window, and could see the stallion’s muscles bunch at the shoulders, shift at its haunches, and she barely had time to scream before it leapt from the grass and came through the bay window.

She dove to one side, her leg cracking against the armrest of Norman’s chair, a snowstorm of glass winking over her to the back where it bounced from the wall and fell to the carpet, tinkling like bells in the dead cold of winter. She twisted around as she fell and saw the stallion fill the room, saw Falcone backpedal to the hearth, where he snatched up the poker and brandished it over his head.

The horse looked around and saw her pushing herself into the foyer. It snorted, and the room filled with fog; it lashed out with a rear hoof and Norman’s chair was dashed into the corner, collapsing upon itself as it writhed in greenfire; it turned back to Falcone and he swung the poker at its head, missed, and was drawn offbalance a step off the hearth.

A wedge of glass dropped from the ceiling where it had been stuck like a knife blade.

Joyce drew herself to her feet and sagged against the newel post as the stallion lifted its head, lowered it, and grabbed Harry’s jacket with its bright long teeth. He screamed and tried to hit the beast again, but the horse shook him ragdoll side to side; the smoke-fog thickened, greenfire flared, and as Joyce shrieked and took the stairs, she heard the distinct sound of bones snapping, a spine breaking, Harry’s body released and slammed against the wall.

“Don,” she whispered as she ran to the landing. “Don, save me, please save me.”

When she turned to run into the hall, the stallion was in the foyer, green eyes watching, the fog drifting up ahead of it and sweeping around her ankles, filling her with a chill that made her bones ache, that made her eyes widen, that slowed her when she ran to hide in her room.

On the stairs then — hooves against wood, echoing, hollow.

The pool in the oval was calm despite the wind, though every few minutes a gust would escape from the branches and send ripples across it, bobbing the dead leaves and sending some to the bottom. From the boulevard they could hear the continuing victory parade, but they felt no need to join it. Instead, they huddled together on a damp redwood bench and watched the black water.

“Divorce,” Tracey said with a sympathetic shake of her head. She had changed into a shirt and jeans and was wearing a light sweater under her school jacket. “God, I don’t know what to say.”

Don sniffed several times to keep back the tears, determined not to let Tracey see him cry. “They hate me, you know.”

“Don’t be silly. They do not.”

“Well, they don’t care, then. All they care about is themselves. Jesus, do you know … I can’t believe it, but do you know that last week Mom called me Sam?”

Tracey pried one of his hands loose from between his knees and held it, rubbed it to drive away the cold. “And I’m crazy, Tracey.”

“Dumb.”

“No,” he said earnestly, turning to her, leaning closer.

“No, I mean it. I’m crazy.” He kept her silent with a look and took a slow breath. Now was the time to do it, but the words he sought were impossible to order, and he shoved himself to his feet and began pacing the oval. Tracey watched him patiently, biting at her lips, lifting her shoulders when the breeze came again.

He stopped on the other side of the pond and faced her, looking up at the trees and the dark above the leaves. “I don’t get it,” he said with a tremulous smile. “I mean, your folks fight, don’t they? I mean, I know what your father is like and all, but they have fights, right? So why don’t they get divorced? Why … what’s the matter with me that Brian can’t leave me alone for one lousy minute?” His neck tightened, pulling his mouth down; he lowered his gaze and saw Tracey watching him, her hands deep in her coat pockets and forced together over her stomach. “I did something, Trace,” he said softly. “I did something.”

She stood and walked toward him, but he held out his hands to keep the water between them. “What, Don? That nonsense about killing Tar?” He nodded.

“That’s stupid. You didn’t do it.”

He nodded again, and put a hand to his forehead, massaged it, and drove it back through his hair. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand you’re upset about Tar, and Mandy, and now this stuff with your mom and dad. I can see that, Don, but you—”

“No.”

The word was quiet, and as effective as a slap. She took a step back and turned her head away from the wind that engulfed them for a moment in a shower of dead leaves.

And at that moment Don started around the pond toward her, hoping the raw edges of the leaves would cut him to shreds, would bury and smother him, and when they blew away, there would be nothing left but a pile of slow shifting dust.

She met him and embraced him, and he almost decided not to say anything more.

“Don?”

“Tracey, look, let’s go—”

She pushed him away and glared at him, black hair fanning over her eyes and fanning away. “Jesus,” she said, “do you think you’re the only kid with problems? What the hell makes you so special that you’re the only one?”

“Tracey!”

“You’ve never been called a spic, have you? You’ve never had someone try to feel you up just because you smiled at them.”

“Hey, Tracey, please, I didn’t—”

“You know why my folks don’t get divorced? Because my father is a worse Catholic than the Pope, that’s why. Because if it came to it, my mother and father would live together for the rest of their lives hating each other’s guts, but god forbid they even think about divorce.” She put a fist to her cheek and pressed it in hard. “I have to wear long skirts so you can’t see my legs, and I have to wear baggy blouses because my father doesn’t want you to know I have any tits.”

“Jesus, Tracey, I—”

“It’s like living in a convent, Don! I love him, don’t get me wrong, but there are times when I want to bust open his head. So …” She pointed at him, her hand trembling violently. “So don’t you dare tell me you’re the only one around here with problems, all right? Don’t you dare, Donald Boyd!”

“Tracey,” he said, taking a step toward her, “I didn’t mean that. I meant—”

“I know,” she said, suddenly smiling though there was a tear on her cheek. “I know. But you don’t seem to understand there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t run away, and you’re too good to end up like Brian.” She closed the gap and took his hands. “You have to live with it, Don. Like me, I guess. You have to live with it.”

She hugged him. She lifted her face and she kissed him, and he tasted the sweet of her, the soft of her, and for a second in that kiss he thought she was right.

But it ended.

And still holding her, he shook his head.

“Tracey, you’re wrong.”

“About what, Vet?”

“I did something about it.”

Joyce dragged the bench from her vanity and shoved it against the door. Then she shoved it away and dragged the vanity over, toppling bottles of perfume and lotion, stands that held her necklaces, a lamp and a pair of china figurines, and she didn’t make a sound when an ivory-handled hairbrush slipped and bounced off her bare foot.

She was sobbing noiselessly, cursing the long hair that kept falling into her eyes, cursing Norman for not being here when she needed him.

In the hall — hoofbeats sharp, slow, and steady.

An armchair was next. She couldn’t move the dresser, couldn’t move the bed and fell to the floor with her hands over her head, not wanting to listen to the thing moving toward the room, not wanting to see the slips and fingers of fog drifting under the door and over the carpet.

Then she heard something else and her head jerked around, her hands dropped to her robed lap, her eyes widened while her mouth opened in a strangled, gurgling scream.

A whickering, soft and low and deep — the thing in the hall telling her it was coming in.

They were still by the pond, and Tracey was growing angry.

“Now listen,” Don insisted. “Just one minute, okay?”

“Don, I’m trying to help. I’m not an expert, Jesus knows, but you—”

“I asked you about wishing, remember?”

Her eyes shifted side to side before returning to watch his face. “Yes.”

“Do you know …” A hesitation while he waited for something he said to make enough sense to keep that flicker of fear from returning to her eyes. “A wish, I think, isn’t just one thing. It’s whatever you want it to be. It can be like wishing for a million dollars to fall out of the sky on you, or maybe getting all A’s without doing any homework. Or it can be really wanting something with everything you’ve got— like you and your flute, y’know? You want to make records and do concerts and make the most beautiful music in the world, right?”

She gave him a nod that was touched with confusion.

“And I want to be a vet. I mean, what the hell’s wrong with wanting to be a vet? I want it so bad I dream about it, I wear it, for god’s sake, and the … the only people who understand are my friends on the wall.”

He stopped and tried to turn away, but she wouldn’t release him, only hugged him once and tightly to force him to go on.

“I talk to them,” he continued in an embarrassed whisper. “I tell them things. Everything. My stories, you know? And about Sam, and the folks, and about goddamn Brian and Tar, and even a little bit … a lot about you.”

A hard look now, to see if she was laughing. She wasn’t; she was crying.

“I needed a friend, Trace. Things felt like they were falling apart and I needed a friend, so I picked one out. A poster. A horse. I …” He looked over her head to the darkness beyond. “I made him come to me.”

He could see it then in her eyes, and the way her lips quivered though she tried to keep them still with the press of a finger. Then her eyes cleared, and he saw something else — she believed him now. She believed he had killed Tar.

When he pushed her away, she didn’t argue; when he snapped up a hand to stop her, she did; when he smiled at her to prove he was under control and she didn’t have to be afraid, the smile he received in return was rigid and pale.

“All right,” he said.

The wind strengthened, and above them, around them, branches clattered, leaves scraped, the surface of the pond distorted their reflections. West of town there was thunder.

He looked across the water and up the path, into the dark lane that led to the ball field. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to do this, but it was too late to stop it. Tracey had to know or she would run away like the others, run back to Jeff and leave him alone.

“Come here,” he said gently, as if talking to a friend too shy to leave the night for the light that began to sparkle in the cold air.

Tracey glanced toward the exit, her weight shifting to run in case he took a step nearer.

“Come on,” he said gently. “It’s me, remember?”

White globes danced in the pool to the wind, and there was a moment when the water turned in a circle, stretching his face and chest, merging his body with hers, vanishing in an explosion of pale blue when lightning forked above the trees.

He waited.

Tracey reached out a hand.

“Come on, boy,” he whispered, as if talking to a pet.

Tracey blinked back a tear.

It began in the thunder and he wasn’t sure he heard it, not until he felt her suddenly at his side, gripping his arm tightly and looking wonderingly at his face.

Slow and steady hoofbeats at the far end of the tunnel lane, part of the thunder and continuing after, unhurried and hollow, iron striking iron.

Tracey pressed her mouth against his arm when she saw it pass through the farthest pool of white. Darker than shadow. Sleek head bobbing, legs lifting as if prancing, fog and greenfire swarming up its flanks.

“Don,” she said.

But he was too intent on watching the stallion, seeing it move through its own billowing cloud, seeing the curls and streams of greenfire from its hooves, seeing the greeneyes seeing him and knowing.

The hooves echoed.

The fog thickened.

And when it reached the opposite end of the pool, it stopped and snorted and stamped a foot that lanced flame toward the lightning.

“It’s not a trick, is it,” Tracey said, shifting until she was partly behind him.

The thunder was louder, nearer, rustling the leaves.

Don shook his head.

It was there, and it was waiting, and it wouldn’t take its eyes from him, didn’t move a muscle, its mane untouched though the wind blew his hair like needles into his eyes.

“Oh, my god … Tar,” Tracey whispered, a cry caught in the name. “Oh, god, Don, you weren’t lying.”

“And I’m not crazy either.”

The fog.

Greenfire.

“I wished him dead,” Don told her without looking away from the horse. “I wished Tar dead.”

Tracey’s eyes closed. “Don, tell it to go away.”

“It helps me,” he said. “It hears me and it helps me.”

“Don?”

He smiled, open-mouthed and suddenly. “Damn, Tracey, do you have any idea what this means?”

The horse backed off, into the fog that streamed from its nostrils as it breathed and moved, until its outline was a shadowed blur and its eyes were slanted green.

Then it vanished when an explosion of sirens erupted behind them. They whirled, whirled back and the fog was snaking off into the trees, the pool raising wavelets that slapped against the apron, and they spun about a second time when they heard footsteps racing toward them.

It was Luis Quintero, revolver drawn and followed by three other men. When he saw the two standing next to the water, he slowed and holstered his weapon, but didn’t stop until he reached them and grabbed Tracey’s arms.

“Are you all right?” he demanded. Then he looked hard at Don. “You. Are you all right?”

“Dad!”

“You told me you would come here. When …” He looked at Don and gestured to one of the men. “Take my daughter home at once.”

“Dad, what’s going on?”

“Don, please come with me.” The voice was rough and solicitous, and Don looked over his shoulder at the empty dark path. “Please, Donald, we have to hurry.”

“What?” he asked.

More sirens, and the thunder, and the first spatter of rain.

“No more until we get you home.”

He balked, suddenly panicked. “Home? Mom? Is it Mom? My father?”

“Until we get you there,” Quintero repeated. “Be patient. I will help you.”