"How do you know?"
It's right in front of you, he said.
"Where, damn it?" she said, scanning the intersection in all four directions.
Up a couple offeet, Raul said.
Tesla looked up. There was a banner strung across the street, announcing WELCOME to THE EVERVILLE FESTIVAL WEEKEND in blue letters three feet high.
"How come I didn't see that?" she thought, confounded (as ever) by the fact that she and Raul could look through the same eyes and see the world so differently.
You were concentrating on your stomach, Raul replied.
She ignored the remark. "rhis isn't an accident," she said.
What isn't? "Us being here the weekend they're having a festival. It's some kind of synchronicity." if you say so. She watched the traffic in silence for a time. Then she asked Raul, "Do you feel anything?" Like what? "I don't know. Anything out of the ordinary?" What am I, a bloodhound? "All right," she said,
"forget I spoke." There was another silence. Then, very softly, Raul said, Above the banner.
She lifted her gaze, past the blue letters, past the roofs. "The mountain?" she said.
Yes...
"What about it?" she said.
Something, he replied. I don't know, but something...
She studied the peak for a little time. There wasn't that much to see; the summit was wreathed in mist. "I give up," she said, "I'm too hungry to think."
She glanced back at the diner. Two of its customers were up from their table, chatting to the waitress.
"About time," she muttered, and getting to her feet, headed inside.
"Just for one is it?" the waitress said, leading her to the vacated table and handing her a menu. "Everything's good, but the chicken livers are really good. So's the peach cobbler. Enjoy."
Tesla watched her pass between the tables, bestowing a word here and a smile there.
Happy little soul, Raul remarked dryly.
"Looks like Jesus is cookin' today," Tesla replied, eyeing the simple wooden cross hung above the serving hatch.
Better go for the fish then, Raul said, at which Tesla laughed out loud.
A few querulous glances came her way, but nobody seemed to much mind that this woman was so entertained by her own company she was weeping with laughter.
"Something funny?" the waitress wanted to know.
"Just a private moment," Tesia said, and ordered the sh.
Erwin could not remember what terrible thing had happened in his house; he only knew that he wanted to be out of it and away.
He stood at the unopened front door with his thoughts in confusion, knowing there was something he had to take with him before he left, but unable to remember what. He turned and looked back down the hallway, hoping something would jog his memory.
Of course! The confession. He couldn't leave the house without the confession. He started back down the hallway, wondering where he'd set it down. As he came to the living room, however, his desire to have the papers suddenly evaporated, and without quite knowing how he got there he found himself standing outside his house again with the sun beating down on him. It was altogether too bright, and he dug in his pockets, looking for his sunglasses, only to discover that he was wearing an old tweed jacket that he thought he'd given away to charity years before. The gift had been spontaneous (which was rare for him) and he'd almost instantly regretted it. All the more wonderful then to have chanced upon it again, however mystifying the circumstances.
He found no sunglasses, but he did find a host of mementoes in the various pockets: ticket stubs for concerts he'd attended in Boston two decades before; the muchchewed remains of a cigar he'd smoked to celebrate passing the bar exam; a little piece of wedding cake, wrapped up in a napkin; the stiletto heel of a scarlet shoe; the little bottle of holy water his mother had been clutching when she died. Every pocket contained not one but four or five such keepsakes and tokens, each one unleashing a deluge of memories-scents, sounds, faces, feelings-all of which might have moved him more had the mystery of the jacket not continued to trouble him. He was certain he'd given it away. And even if he hadn't, even if it had languished unseen at the back of his wardrobe for a decade, and by chance he'd plucked it out of exile this morning without realizing he'd done so, that still didn't solve the problem of where the memorabilia in its pockets had appeared from.
Something strange was going on; something damned strange.
Next door, Ken Margosian emerged from his house whistling, and sauntered among his rose bushes with a pair of scissors, selecting blooms. "The roses are better than ever this year," Erwin remarked to him.
Margosian, who was usually a neighborly sort, didn't even look up.
Erwin crossed to the fence. "Are you okay, Ken?" he asked.
Margosian had found a choice rose, and was carefully selecting a place to snip it. There was not the slightest sign that he'd heard a syllable.
"Why the silent treatment?" Erwin demanded. "If you've got some bitch with me@'
At this juncture, Mrs. Semevikov came along, a woman whom under normal circumstances Erwin would have happily avoided. She was a voluble woman, who took it upon herself to organize a small auction every Festival Saturday, selling items donated by various stores to benefit children's charities. Last year she had attempted to persuade Erwin to donate a few hours of his services as a prize. He had promised to think about it, and then not returned her calls. Now here she was again, after the same thing, no doubt. She said hello to Ken Margosian, but didn't so much as cast a glance in Erwin's direction, though he was standing five yards from her.
"Is Erwin in?" she asked Ken.
"I don't think so," Ken replied.
"Joke over," Erwin piped up, but Ken hadn't finished.
"I heard some odd noises in the night," he told Mrs. Semevikov, "like he was having a brawl in there."
"That doesn't sound like him at all," she replied.
"I knocked on his door this morning, just to see that he was okay, but nobody answered."
"Stop this," Erwin protested.
"Maybe he's at his office," Mrs. Semevikov went on. "I said stop it!" Erwin yelled. It was distressing him hearing himself talked about as though he were invisible. And what was this nonsense about a brawl? He'd had a perfectly peaceable The thought faltered, and he looked back towards the house, as a name rose from the murk of his memory.
Fletcher. Oh my God, how could he have forgotten Fletcher?
"Maybe I'll try him at his office," Mrs. Semevikov was saying, "because he promised me last year-"
"Listen to me," Erwin begged.
"He'd donate a few hours-2'
"I don't know why you're doing this, but you've got to listen."
"to the auction."
"There's somebody in my house."
"Those are beautiful roses, by the way. Are you entering them in the flower competition?"
Erwin could take no more of this. He strode towards the fence, yelling at Ken, "He tried to kill me! " Then he reached over and caught hold of Ken's shirt. Or at least he tried to. His fingers passed through the fabric, his fist closing on itself. He tried again. The same thing happened.
"I'm going crazy," he thought. He reached up to Ken's face and prodded his cheek, hard, but he got not so much as a blink for his efforts.
"Fletcher's been playing with my head."
A wave of panic rose in him. He had to get the meddler to fix his handiwork, now, before there was some serious damage done. Leaving Ken and Mrs. Semevikov to their chatter about roses, Erwin headed back up the path to the front door. It looked to be closed, but his senses were utterly unreliable, it seemed, because two strides carried him over th( threshold and into the hallway.
He called out for Fletcher. There was no reply, but the meddler was somewhere in the house, Erwin was certain of it. Every angle in the hallway was a little askew, and the halls had a yellowish tinge. What was that, if not Fletcher's influence?