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Chapter 3

An enchanted princess, recu the years away until awakened by a kiss, could not have been lovelier than Barbara Mandel abed at the Whispering Pines

In the caress of laolden hair spilled across the pillow, as lustrous as bullion poured fro at her bedside, Billy Wiles had never seen a bisque doll with a complexion as pale or as flawless as Barbara’s Her skin appeared translucent, as though the light penetrated the surface and then brightened her face from within

If he were to lift aside the thin blanket and sheet, he would expose an indignity not visited on enchanted princesses An enteral-nutrition tube had been inserted surgically into her sto The drip pump purred softly as it supplied a perpetual dinner

She had been in a coma for almost four years

Hers was not the hed, ht hand to her face, her throat, her breast

Occasionally she spoke, though never more than a few cryptic words, not to anyone in the room but to some phantom of the mind

Even when she spoke oraround her She was unconscious, unresponsive to external stimulation

At the moment she lay quiet, brow as s behind their lids, lips slightly parted No ghost breathed with less sound

From a jacket pocket, Billy took a small wire-bound notebook Clipped to it was a half-size ballpoint pen He put thehtstand

The shtstand, one chair Long ago Billy had added a barstool that allowed hi Pines Convalescent Hoood care but an austere environ; the other half werewarehoused

Perched on the stool beside the bed, he told her about his day He began with a description of the sunrise and ended with Lanny’s shooting gallery of cartoon celebrities

Although she had never responded to anything he’d said, Billy suspected that in her deep redoubt, Barbara could hear him He needed to believe that his presence, his voice, his affection coaze at her He did not always see her as she was now He saw her as she’d once been--vivid, vivacious--and as she ht be today if fate had been kinder After a while he extracted the folded ain

He had just finished when Barbara spoke inmelted almost faster than the ear could hear: "I want to knohat it says…"

Electrified, he rose from the stool He leaned over the bed rail to stareshe’d said, in her co that he said or did while visiting "Barbara?"

She remained still, eyes closed, lips parted, apparently noon a catafalque

"Can you hear ertips, he touched her face She did not respond He had already told her what the strange e said, but now he read it to her just in case her murmured words had referred to it When he finished, she did not react He spoke her na on the stool once htstand With the small pen, he recorded her seven words and the date that she had spoken them

He had a notebook for each year of her unnatural sleep Although each contained only a hundred three-by-four-inch pages, none had been filled, as she did not speak on every--or eventhat unusually coh the notebook, reading not the dates but just some of her words LAMBS COULD NOT FORGIVE BEEF-FACED BOYS MY INFANT

TONGUE THE AUTHORITY OF HIS TOMBSTONE PAPA, POTATOES, POULTRY, PRUNES, PRISM SEASON OF DARKNESS IT SWELLS

FORWARD ONE GREAT HEAVE ALL FLASHES AWAY TWENTYTHREE, TWENTY-THREE

In her words, Billy could find neither coherence nor a clue to any Froh the weeks, the months, she shed softly

On other occasions, however, her whispered words disturbed him, sometimes chilled him TORN, BRUISED, PANTING, BLEEDING GORE

AND FIRE HATCHETS, KNIVES, BAYONETS RED IN THEIR EYES,

THEIR FRENZIED EYES

These dis utterances were not delivered in a tone of distress They came in the sa words

Nevertheless, they concerned Billy He worried that at the bottom of her coma, she occupied a dark and fearsome place, that she felt trapped and threatened, and alone

Now her brow furrowed and she spoke again, "The sea…"

When he wrote this down, she gave hirewatmosphere pressed all currents from the air, so that her soft voice carried to Billy

To her lips, her right hand rose as though to feel the texture of her words

"What it is that it keeps on saying"

This was the most coherent she had been, in cole visit

"Barbara?"

"I want to knohat it says… the sea"

She lowered her hand to her breast The furrows faded from her brow Her eyes, which as she spoke had roved beneath their lids, grew fixed once more Pen poised over paper, Billy waited, but Barbara matched the silence of the room And the silence deepened, and the stillness, until he felt that he o or meet a fate similar to that of a prehistoric fly preserved in amber She would lie in this hush for hours or for days, or forever He kissed her but not on the mouth That would feel like a violation Her cheek was soft and cool against his lips

Three years, ten months, four days, she had been in this co an engage from Billy

Chapter 4