The camera angle swung around to show the approach of a jeep. The lawman emerging from the vehicle was identified as the county sheriff. The reporter approached him, microphone extended, excitement mounting. "Are you here to investigate the smell?"
"No," said the sheriff. "I understand you've been fooling with a nine-one-one operator." He handed a folded sheet of paper to the reporter. "That's a summons to appear in court tomorrow morning. Then you can explain why a smelly library constitutes an emergency."
"There could be a dead body in there! Aren't you going to investigate?"
"Well, no," said the sheriff. "The library's closed."
"What about the smell? The reporter pointed to the brick building, as if it might be hard to find. "You have to get closer to-"
"No, son, I can smell it just fine, thanks. Are we on live television?"
"You bet."
Sheriff Babitt turned his smile on the camera and tipped his hat. "It smells like a pair of really ripe socks." He stepped back to look down at the reporter's feet.
And so ended the statewide coverage of the Coventry Library.
When the lawman and the news crew had departed, lights came on inside the library, and they burned late into the night. A figure could be seen pacing across the window shades, but this was such a common sight, no one passing by took any notice.
The moon was on the rise and guiding Oren's steps down the mountain road that would lead him home. He spared the flashlight battery for pitch-black moments when clouds blocked the moon.
A pair of headlights came up behind him, rounding a hairpin turn in the road. Minding Cable Babitt's request that he not be caught near the cabin, Oren dove into the woods as the hotel van sped by. More cars came around the curve, their headlights aimed straight at him. He was back-stepping deeper into the cover of tall ferns, moving quickly, when his boots clipped a tree root behind him, and he fell to ground, but not to a hard landing. He rolled down a steep incline. Reflex kicked in. He covered his face, only scratching his hands on shoots and deadwood, rolling, rolling, and finally coming to rest flat on his back.
Fool.
He lay at the center of a depression shaped like the hollow of a giant hand. Above the rise of encircling land, he could see a glow from the parade of cars in the distance. Seduced by lack of sleep, he meant to close his eyes for only a moment. When he opened them again, all the light had been sucked out of the world. There was no demarcation line between sky and earth, no sense of up and down. Blackness only. Where was his compass, the moon?
Killed by clouds.
Where was the flashlight? Crawling sightless, he searched the ground by fingertips, touching brush and dirt until his hand finally closed on the metal casing.
Click.
No light. The batteries were dead.
On all fours, he climbed up the slope of the hollow and crawled toward the road. He crawled forever. The road was gone. He had gotten turned around in the fall and traveled the wrong way. For how long? How far? By touch, he found the root and rough-bark column of a tree and sat down to lean his back against it.
So tired.
He clicked the useless flashlight in his hand, desperate for a miracle, just a few seconds of light. Darkness was another dimension, where natural law did not apply. Separated from every visual clue to the solid world, he hugged himself for reassurance that mind and body had not gone their separate ways, but he could not lose that sensation of being suspended in a void.
The road could not be far. He listened for the sound of cars.
Useless.
There was only one cabin on the fire road, and the séance was long over. All the players had gone home by now. He rose to his feet and walked two steps into an alien land, hands outstretched to fend off low-hanging branches that might reach out for his blind eyes.
Which way?
He might be on a parallel route, only twenty feet from the road-or twenty yards. How long had he crawled in the wrong direction? Space and time had no meaning here.
This is not the first time you've been lost in the woods in the dead of night. Sit down and wait. At sunup, you'll see the road, the way out.
Whenever he listened to that inner voice of reason, it always sounded a lot like Hannah. She would be worried, and so would the judge. How long would they wait before the alarm was sounded? He remembered other nights in these woods and the sight of waving yellow stalks of light, hundreds of voices calling his name. Every woodland creature had been awakened to flee on the wing or on the run, frightened by an army of searchers, their shoes and boots shaking earth and bough.
Not again-not one more time.
Even when he was a teenager, he would have known better than to move on tonight. And yet he did. Every soldier's survival skill was forgotten as he felt his way from tree to tree. All that he could count on was the natural circle of one who was lost. His feet might bring him back to the beginning-and just as likely carry him away again.
High in the invisible canopy of tall trees, an owl called out. Hoof Huh-hu-hu. Hoo! Hoo!
Another night bird answered with hollow whistles in the rhythm of a bouncing ball or footfalls losing their momentum, slowing, slowing.
All stop.
Wits lost.
Oren screamed his brother's name.
All around him, he could hear things moving in the dark, small animals alarmed and stirring in the underbrush, creeping, running. He felt their panic, the same old fear, a coldness stealing up his throat. Shivering, he hugged himself for warmth. And what of Josh? His brother had left his jacket behind.
Josh is dead. You've seen his bones.
How many days had he gone without food or water?
No hunger, no thirst. Today you had a chicken sandwich in the kitchen with Cable Babitt.
Oren turned toward the sound of a car engine in the distance, and he heard it die-suddenly-switched off.
He sucked in his breath and held it.
A small ball of light floated on the air, appearing and disappearing behind the trunks of trees. Was he dreaming this? Every time he dreamed, he died.
12
Hannah Rice was the resurrection and the light.
Oren fell to his knees on the dirt road. "How did you find me?"
She brushed the hair away from his eyes. "I got a telephone call to ask if you made it home from the séance." Hannah gently coaxed him to stand up. Then she took him by the hand and led him to the car, treating him as a handicapped person-and he was one tonight. "Evelyn Straub saw you dive off the road when her van came around a curve. Everybody knows you have a penchant for getting lost in the woods."
After settling him into the passenger seat, she leaned across his body to fasten the safety belt. And here, all concept of road safety ended. The little woman provided him with the medicine of comic relief as she turned the car toward home. She strained to see over the steering wheel, sometimes using the wheel as leverage to raise her body up. Raising the seat was not an option, not if she wanted to reach the foot pedals. Yet Hannah loved to drive. She lived to drive.
"Odd-this sudden interest of yours." She leaned toward him-big smile. "Séances, Oren?"
"I heard you and the judge were big fans of Alice Friday," he said- big smile.
"Oh, everybody went up to that cabin at least once or twice." Hannah looked at the dashboard clock and then put on some speed. "Dave Hardy called tonight. He wants to buy you a beer sometime."
"I didn't expect to see him this morning. Most kids leave the day they come of age." His brother had been the rare boy who never dreamed of escaping from his small coastal town. Josh had loved Coventry -and he had loved his life.