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Oliver followed as best he could, wondering how long this side trip to find the Dustman would take, and if they would survive it He wondered where Collette was, even now, and whether she understood as happening any better than he did He wondered what the Sandman had done to her, there in his dreadful place

And how long she could stand it without losing her ht, Collette could hear a child cry A little boy, she thought He sobbed and whiun perhaps two hours before dawn, rousing her from sleep In her prison chamber in the Sandure out the source of the crying It cauished boy and at others further away She had stood and walked the circuazed up at the arched s of the sand pit, and at the stars that showed through, even as they were bleached out of the sky by i

She wondered if it was the Vittora, taunting her with , not a spark of light within the walls of her prison

"Who are you?" she called into the eht "Where are you?"

There ca But in spite of the lack of response she kept calling, speaking words of comfort, just in case he could hear her

Her heart broke for the boy She wanted to get to hiers into the hard-packed sand of the walls, to climb, if she could, but there was no purchase She knew that, of course Once, and only once, just before the Sandman had appeared within the walls of her prison for the first tiive way and been able to scoop away at the wall, digging into it But since then she had begun to believe it had been a hallucination, for she had atte to make handholds for herself so that she could climb to the s

She knew the walls were solid But the terrified whiot under her skin and forced her to try again

In time, all she could do was pace and try to cover her ears The tor unable to help him, was more than she could bear She had no children of her own, but Collette wanted them, wished to find a man someday ould be a better husband than the asshole she’d married and divorced…wished for a little boy And here was this child, no different than the son shein fear and despair, and she could do nothing to soothe him

At daybreak, the child began to screaasps She stared at the slow of the carved sand all around her Once, twice, three tiin of that scream

She could not just let it happen Could not just do nothing Shaking, skin prickling with gooseflesh, she raced to the wall and put her palin her life The screaony that went on and on--echoed around the chain was nearby

Close, but not here Not right here

To the left Her eyes still closed, she slid her palain she froze, focused, listening

Here Just here

The screa in the air just a few feet fro

"Ion the air, so close, as if it hispering right in her ear "I should have known our relationship was dooain and again into her favorite movies, played them on the screen inside her head There were a handful of movies she loved with a passion, and this was her favorite line from one of them The Vittora spoke in the voice of John Cusack fro, as if it could coibberish in the panic of this --" it began

Collette drowned its voice out with her screaht, the knowledge that it existed there on the periphery of her i for her to die so that it could be released froet in her way

"Where are you? What is it?" she shouted, palan screaain, but this tiuish Absolute despair and surrender

"No," she whispered, gritting her teeth "No"

Collette tore at the wall, grit getting up under her fingernails The pads of her fingers scraped on the sandlike concrete Her heart hammered Fresh tears traced lines in the dirt on her face She shouted back to hi what he looked like, where he as happening to hiuish clutched her heart, and so it was ain sand Then her eyes widened as it caan to spill down froh so at her feet

"I’ stopped again Collette kept digging, but fell silent Perhaps shouting her intentions was not wise Should the Sandman hear her, ould he do?

"Coers hurt They were bleeding But she kept digging, trying to figure out what she was digging toward

Another prisoner That had to be it The boy must be a prisoner in the castle, just as she was, and now so hi the little boy

Her breath ca and now she could see clearly She cupped her hands into claws and she dug quickly, both hands at the saer and larger, digging deeper

There ca scream of sorrow

"No!" Collette shouted

She thrust her hands, fingers outstretched, into the hole, into the sand, and felt the on to the edges of the hole in the wall, she braced herself and kicked at the sand Gray nothing light showed through from the other side Almost darkness But it was another rooe chunks of hardened sand fell away, collapsing and cru

The Vittora began singing a song called "Joe Lies"

The hole she’d dug in the as more a tunnel, its shape an arch almost like a door or the s of her cell Collette’s heart soared She started through, praying it was not too late for the boy In the darkness on the other side it was all gray light, but she sa that it was not another cha boy’s bedrooue of Alow into the roo had spilled onto the carpet, but otherwise the place looked entirely ordinary, as though she had opened up a tear in this world and back into her own

With the glare of et a better look at the figure that lay on the bed The covers were a tangle, the spread half on the ground The boy had his ar lines upon his face

She stood in the opening as her vision adjusted to the diht of the bedroom Then she saw that the lines on his face were not shadows They were streaks of blood And the deepest of shadoere the indents where his eyes ought to have been Instead they were gaping, empty, bloody holes

"Oh," Collette whispered

All the strength went out of her and she collapsed to her knees, sand spilling all around her, down the back of her pajamas, into her hair, into the rooitself froray

The Sandht at first, but now he swept toward her, his hideously bony forers bent and contorted, hands held up in front of him like solared at her with those terrible leht hand pal blood and vitreous fluid, optic nerves hanging frorinned and opened his s, then let the boy’s eyes dangle froan to chew So spilled over his lips and down his chin