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Holly held Jio He still looked through her more than at her and seemed to be in a trance

"Ji out toward his grandson

After a hesitation, Jim slid off the bench, onto his knees in front of the old man He took the withered hand and kissed it

Without looking up at either Holly or Henry, Ji out of the wall First time it happened, first time I saw it, too" His voice sounded faraway, as if a part of hirateful that there had not been as ht

"She saw it, and it frightened her, and she stumbled back into the stairs, tripped, fell" He pressed his grandfather’s hand to his cheek and said, "I didn’t kill her"

"I know you didn’t, Jim," Henry Ironheart said "My God, I know you didn’t"

The old man looked up at Holly with a thousand questions about birds and enes in walls But she kneould have to wait for answers until another day, as she had waited-as Ji the drive over the mountains and down into Santa Barbara, Jim slumped in his seat, eyes closed He seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep She supposed he needed sleep as desperately as any man could need it, for he’d enjoyed aler afraid to let hione, with The Friend, and that only one personality inhabited his body now Drea, she did not want to return to the ear there She’d had enough of Svenborg, too, and all it represented in Jim’s life She wanted to hole up in a new place, where neither of theed with no taint of the past

As she drove through that parched land under the ashen sky, she put the pieces together and studied the resulting picture: an enorifted than even he knows, lives through the slaughter in the Dixie Duck, but comes out of the holocaust with a shattered soul In his desperation to feel good about hiain, he borrow’s Arthur Willott’s fantasy, using his special power to create The Friend, an embodiment of his most noble aspirations, and The Friend tells him he has a e that The Friend alone is not enough to heal hi into which he can shove all his negative feelings, all the darkness in hihtens hi Willott’s story structure

Alone in the wind conversations with The Friend -and works out his rage through the ht, Lena Ironheart walks in at the wrong htened, she falls backward

In shock because of what The Enemy has done, et the fantasy, both The Friend and Eneot his alien encounter after saving the life of the future president of the United States For twenty-five years, he struggles to keep a lid fir both his very best and his very worst qualities, leading a relatively quiet and colorless life because he dares not tap his stronger feelings

He finds purpose in teaching, which to some extent redeems him-until Larry Kakonis co that he has failed Kakonis as he failed his parents and, even s to live out Ji adventure, whichThe Friend

But when he frees The Friend, he frees The Ene bottled inside hie has only intensified, become blacker and more bitter, utterly inhu even o, a creature of singularly murderous appearance and temperament

So Jim was like any victi One little thing He created nonhuman entities to embody aspects of hiive them flesh of their own He hadn’t been like Sally Field playing Sybil, sixteen people in one body He had been three beings in three bodies, and one of theh it rees outside, she was chilled The heat fro to waristration desk showed 1:11 PM when Holly checked thee in Santa Barbara While she filled out the form and provided her credit card to the clerk, Jim continued to sleep in the Ford

When she returned with their key, she was able to rouse hiet him out of the car and into their room He was in a stupor and went directly to the bed, where he curled up and once ot diet sodas, ice, and candy bars froain, she closed the drapes She switched on one laht