"What do you know about that?" Lisey asked.
"Nothing. He never said anything about what life was like when he was a kid. Didn't you think I noticed? Maybe Darla and Canty didn't, but I did, and he knew I did. We knew each other, Lisey - the way the only two people not drinking at a big booze-up know each other. I think that's why he cared about me. And I know something else."
"What?"
"You better pass this truck before I strangle on his exhaust."
"I can't see far enough."
"You can see plenty far enough. Besides, God hates a coward."
A brief pause. "That's something else people like Scott and me know all about."
"Manda - "
"Pass him! I'm strangling here!"
"I really don't think I have enough - "
"Lisey's got a boyfriend! Lisey and Zeke, up in a tree, K-I-SS-I - "
"Beanpole, you're being a puke."
Amanda, laughing: "Kissy-kissy, facey-facey, little Lisey!"
"If something's coming the other way - "
"First comes love, then comes marritch, then comes Lisey with a - "
Without allowing herself to think about what she was doing, Lisey mashed the Beemer's accelerator with her bare foot and swung out. She was dead even with the pulp-truck's cab when another pulp-truck appeared over the brow of the next hill, traveling toward them.
"Oh shit, somebody pass me the bong, we're f**ked now!" Amanda cried. No rusty giggles now; now she was full-out laughing.
Lisey was also laughing. "Floor it, Lisey!"
Lisey did. The BMW scooted with surprising gusto, and she nipped back into her own lane with plenty of time to spare. Darla, she reflected, would have been screaming her head off by this point.
"There," she said to Amanda, "are you happy?"
"Yes," Amanda said, and put her left hand over Lisey's right one, caressing it, making it give up its death-grip on the steering wheel. "Glad to be here, very glad you came for me.
Not all of me wanted to come back, but so much of me was just...I don't know...sad to be away. And afraid that pretty soon I wouldn't even care. So thank you, Lisey."
"Thank Scott. He knew you'd need help."
"He knew that you would, too." Now Amanda's tone was very gentle. "And I bet he knew only one of your sisters would be crazy enough to give it."
Lisey took her eyes off the road long enough to glance at Amanda. "Did you and Scott talk about me, Amanda? Did you talk about me over there?"
"We talked. Here or there, I don't remember and I don't think it matters. We talked about how much we loved you."
Lisey could not reply. Her heart was too full. She wanted to cry, but then she wouldn't be able to see the road. And maybe there had been enough tears, anyway. Which was not to say there wouldn't be more.
3
So they rode in silence for awhile. There was no traffic once they passed the Pigwockit Campground. The sky overhead was still blue, but the sun was now buried in the oncoming clouds, rendering the day bright but queerly shadeless. Presently Amanda spoke in an uncharacteristic tone of thoughtful curiosity. "Would you have come for me even if you didn't need a partner in crime?"
Lisey considered this. "I like to think so," she finally said. Amanda lifted the Lisey-hand closest to her and planted a kiss on it - truly it was as light as a butterfly's wing - before replacing it on the steering wheel. "I like to think so, too,"
she said. "It's a funny place, Southwind. When you're there, it seems as real as anything in this world, and better than everything in this world. But when you're here..." She shrugged.
Wistfully, Lisey thought. "Then it's only a moonbeam."
Lisey thought of lying in bed with Scott at The Antlers, watching the moon struggle to come out. Listening to his story and then going with him. Going.
Amanda asked, "What did Scott call it?"
"Boo'ya Moon."
Amanda nodded. "I was at least close, wasn't I?"
"You were."
"I think most kids have a place they go to when they're scared or lonely or just plain bored. They call it NeverLand or the Shire, Boo'ya Moon if they've got big imaginations and make it up for themselves. Most of them forget. The talented few - like Scott - harness their dreams and turn them into horses."
"You were pretty talented yourself. You were the one who thought up Southwind, weren't you? The girls back home played that for years. I wouldn't be surprised if there are girls out on the Sabbatus Road still playing a version of it."
Chapter 21
Amanda laughed and shook her head. "People like me were never meant to really cross over. My imagination was just big enough to get me in trouble."
"Manda, that's not true - "
"Yes," Amanda said. "It is. The looneybins are full of people like me. Our dreams harness us, and they whip us with soft whips - oh, lovely whips - and we run and we run, always in the same place...because the ship...Lisey, the sails never open and the ship never weighs its anchor..."