"U.S. Gypsum," she said. "Only Sparky called it U.S. Gyppum." And then, low and fierce, almost growling it: "Stop, now. That's enough. You stop."
But could she? That was the question. And it was an important question, because her late husband wasn't the only one who had squirreled away certain painful and frightening memories. She'd put up some sort of mental curtain between LISEY NOW and LISEY!
THE EARLY YEARS! , and she had always thought it was strong, but this evening she just didn't know. Certainly there were holes in it, and if you looked through them, you ran the risk of seeing things in the purple haze beyond that you maybe didn't want to see. It was better not to look, just as it was better not even to glance at yourself in a mirror after dark unless all the lights in the room were on, or eat
( nightfood)
an orange or a bowl of strawberries after sundown. Some memories were all right, but others were dangerous. It was best to live in the present. Because if you got hold of the wrong memory, you might -
"Might what? " Lisey asked herself in an angry, shaky voice, and then, immediately: "I don't want to know."
A PT Cruiser going the other way came out of the declining sun, and the guy behind the wheel tipped her a wave. Lisey tipped him one right back, although she couldn't think of anyone of her acquaintance who owned a PT Cruiser. It didn't matter, out here in Sticksville you always waved back; it was plain country courtesy. Her mind was elsewhere, in any case. The fact was, she did not have the luxury of refusing all her memories just because there were some things
( Scott in the rocker, nothing but eyes while the wind howls outside, a killer gale all the way down from Yellowknife)
she didn't feel capable of looking at. Not all of them were lost in the purple, either; some were just tucked away in her own mental booksnake, all too accessible. The business of the bools, for instance. Scott had given her the complete lowdown on bools once, hadn't he?
"Yes," she said, lowering her visor to block the declining sun. "In New Hampshire. A month before we got married. But I don't remember exactly where."
It's called The Antlers.
All right, okay, big deal. The Antlers. And Scott had called it their early honeymoon, or something like that -
Frontloaded honeymoon. He calls it their frontloaded honeymoon. Says "Come on, babyluv, pack it up and strap it on."
"And when babyluv asked where we were going - " she murmured.
- and when Lisey asks where they're going he says "We'll know when we get there."
And they do. By then the sky is white and the radio says snow is coming, incredible as that might seem with the leaves still on the trees and only starting to turn...
They'd gone there to celebrate the paperback sale of Empty Devils, the horrible, scary book that put Scott Landon on the bestseller lists for the first time and made them rich. They were the only guests, it turned out. And there was a freak early autumn snowstorm. On Saturday they donned snowshoes and walked a trail into the woods and sat under ( the yum-yum tree)
a tree, a special tree, and he lit a cigarette and said there was something he had to tell her, something hard, and if it changed her mind about marrying him he'd be sorry...hell, he'd be broken-smucking- hearted, but -
Lisey swerved abruptly over to the side of Route 17 and stopped, scrunching up a cloud of dust behind her. The light was still bright, but its quality was changing, edging toward the silky extravagant dream-light that is the exclusive property of June evenings in New England, the summerglow adults born north of Massachusetts remember most clearly from their childhoods.
I don't want to go back to The Antlers and that weekend. Not to the snow we thought was so magical, not under the yum-yum tree where we ate the sandwiches and drank the wine, not to the bed we shared that night and the stories he told - benches and bools and lunatic fathers. I'm so afraid that all I can reach will lead me to all I dare not see. Please, no more.
Lisey became aware that she was saying this out loud in a low voice, over and over:
"No more. No more. No more."
But she was on a bool hunt, and maybe it was already too late to say no more. According to the thing in bed with her this morning, she'd already found the first three stations. A few more and she could claim her prize. Sometimes a candybar! Sometimes a drink, a Coke or an RC! Always a card reading BOOL! The End!
I left you a bool, the thing in Amanda's nightgown had said...and now that the sun was going down, she was once more finding it hard to believe that thing had really been Amanda. Or only Amanda.
You have a blood-bool coming.