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it see at two o’clock in the "

As the librarian recounted what she could recall of Lena’s death, confir that Holly’s dream had really been Jim’s memory, Holly was touched by both dread and nausea What Eloise Glynn did not seem to knohat perhaps no one kneas that Lena had not been in that mill alone

Jim had been there, too

And only Jilanced at hiain

He was not ray as the sky outside

Mrs Glynn asked Holly for her driver’s license, to coh Holly didn’t want the card, she produced the license

The librarian said, "Jih all that pain and loss, , was books You pulled way into yourself, read al! the time, and I think you used fantasy as sort of a painkiller"

She handed Holly the license and library card, and said to her; "Jiet totally into a book, it became real for him"

Yeah, Holly thought, did it ever

"When he first came to town and I heard he’d never been to a real school before, been educated by his parents, I thought that was just terrible, even if they did have to travel all the tiallery of photographs on Jiuel: Miaas

"-but they’d actually done a pretty fine job At least they’d turned him into a booklover, and that served him well later" She turned to Jirandpa about Lena’s death because you figure it ht upset hiile as you iine, and he’d know more about it than anyone, of course" Mrs

Glynn addressed Holly again: "Is so with the blue library card in her hand, statue-still, like one of those waiting-to-be-reanimated people in the worlds within the books upon the shelves within these rooms For a moment she could not respond to the woman’s question

Jirandfather was alive so I just realized how late it’s getting-" A shatter of static, a vision: her severed head screa like spiders across a floor, her decapitated body writhing and twisting in agony; she was dismembered but not dead, impossibly alive, in a thrall of horror beyond endurance Holly cleared her throat, blinked at Mrs Glynn, as staring at her curiously

"Uh, yeah, quite late And we’re supposed to go see Henry before lunch

It’s already ten I’ve nevernow, couldn’t stop "I’ forward to it"

Unless he really did die over four years ago, like Ji forward to it at all But Mrs Glynn did not appear to be a spiritualist ould blithely suggest conjuring up the dead for a little chat

"He’s a niceto move off the farm after his stroke, but he can be thankful it didn’t leave him worse than he is My mother, God rest her soul, had a stroke, left her unable to walk, talk, blind in one eye, and so confused she couldn’t always recognize her own children At least poor Henry has his wits about him, as I understand it He can talk, and I hear he’s the leader of the wheelchair pack over there at Fair Haven"

"Yes," Ji post, "that’s what I hear"

"Fair Haven’s such a nice place," Mrs Glynn said, "it’s good of you to keep hi hoes at a public phone booth provided an address for Fair Haven on the edge of Solvang Holly drove south and west across the valley

"I remember he had a stroke," Jie County, he was in the intensive-care unit I hadn’thadn’t seen him in thirteen years or enerated a hot wave of sharandfather in thirteen years?" "There was a reason"

"What?" He stared at the road ahead for a while, then let out a guttural sound of frustration and disgust "I don’t know There was a reason, but I can’t remember it Anyway, I ca in the hospital And I remember him dead, damn it"

"Clearly reht of him dead in the hospital bed, all his monitor lines flat?" He frowned "No"

"Re you he’d passed away?" "No"

"Reements for his burial?" "No"

which case she wasn’t looking forward to it at all But Mrs Glynn did not appear to be a spiritualist ould blithely suggest conjuring up the dead for a little chat

"He’s a niceto move off the farm after his stroke, but he can be thankful it didn’t leave him worse than he is My mother, God rest her soul, had a stroke, left her unable to walk, talk, blind in one eye, and so confused she couldn’t always recognize her own children At least poor Henry has his wits about him, as I understand it He can talk, and I hear he’s the leader of the wheelchair pack over there at Fair Haven"

"Yes," Ji post, "that’s what I hear"

"Fair Haven’s such a nice place," Mrs Glynn said, "it’s good of you to keep hi hoes at a public phone booth provided an address for Fair Haven on the edge of Solvang Holly drove south and west across the valley

"I remember he had a stroke," Jie County, he was in the intensive-care unit I hadn’thadn’t seen him in thirteen years or enerated a hot wave of sharandfather in thirteen years?" "There was a reason"