"There's a bad man. A crazy man. He's a little like that sonofabitch Cole in Nashville - a lot like him, actually - only I can't take care of this one on my own. You have to come back from wherever you are and help me."
No answer. Amanda stared out at the croquet players. Through the croquet players. The power-mower blatted. The paper cups of bug-juice sat on a patio table that had no corners, in this place corners were as verboten as caffeine.
"Do you know what I think, Manda-Bunny? I think you're sitting on one of those stone benches with the rest of the gorked-out goners, staring at the pool. I think Scott saw you there on one of his visits and said to himself, 'Oh, a cutter. I recognize cutters when I see em because my Dad was a member of the tribe. Hell, I'm a member of the tribe.' He said to himself, 'There's a lady who's going to take early retirement here, unless somebody puts a spoke in her wheel, so to speak.' Does that sound about right, Manda?"
Nothing.
"I don't know if he foresaw Jim Dooley, but he foresaw you ending up in Greenlawn, just as sure as shite sticks to a blanket. Do you remember how Dandy used to say that sometimes, Manda? Just as sure as shite sticks to a blanket? And when Good Ma yelled at him, he said shite was like drat, shite wasn't swearing. Do you remember?"
More nothing from Amanda. Just a vacant, maddening gape.
Lisey thought of that cold night with Scott in the guest room, when the wind thundered and the sky burned, and put her mouth close to Amanda's ear. "If you can hear me, squeeze my hands," she whispered. "Squeeze just as hard as you can."
She waited and the seconds passed. She had almost given up when there came the faintest twitch. It could have been an involuntary muscle spasm or just imagination, but Lisey didn't think so. She thought that somewhere far away, Amanda heard her sister hollering her name. Hollering her home.
"All right," Lisey said. Her heart was pounding so hard she felt it might choke her.
"That's good. That's a start. I'm going to come get you, Amanda. I'm going to bring you home and you're going to help me. Do you hear? You have to help me. "
Lisey closed her eyes and once more tightened her grip on Amanda's hands, knowing she might be hurting her sister, not caring. Amanda could complain later, when she had a voice to complain with. If she had a voice to complain with. Ah, but the world was made of if, Scott had told her that once.
Lisey summoned her will and concentration and created the clearest version of the pool she could, seeing the rocky cup in which it lay, seeing the clean white arrowhead of beach with the stone benches stepped above it in mild curves, seeing the break in the rock and the secondary path, something like a throat, that led to the graveyard. She made the water a brilliant blue, sparkling with thousands of sunpoints, she made it the pool at midday, because she'd had her fill of Boo'ya Moon at dusk, thank you very much.
Now, she thought, and waited for the air to turn and the sounds of Greenlawn to fade. For a moment she thought those sounds did fade, then decided that really was her imagination.
She opened her eyes and the patio was still rah-cheer, with Amanda's cup of bug-juice on the round table; Amanda remained in her deep catatonic placidity, so much breathing wax within her mint-green pajamas, which closed with Velcro because buttons could be swallowed. Amanda with the matching green ribbon in her hair and the oceans in her eyes.
For a moment Lisey was assailed with terrible doubt. Perhaps the whole thing had been nothing but her madness - all except for Jim Dooley, that was. There were no screwed-up families like the Landons outside of V. C. Andrews novels, and no places like Boo'ya Moon outside of children's fantasy tales.
She had been married to a writer who died, that was all. She had saved him once, but when he got sick in Kentucky eight years later there had been nothing she could do, because you couldn't swat a microbe with a shovel, could you?
She began to relax her hold on Amanda's hands, then tightened it again. Every bit of her strong heart and considerable will rose up in protest. No! It was real! Boo'ya Moon is real! I was there in 1979, before I married him, I went there again in 1996, to find him when he needed finding, to bring him home when he needed bringing, and I was there again this morning.
All I have to do is compare how my breast felt after Jim Dooley finished with it to what it feels like now, if I start to doubt. The reason I can't go -