"What's left of it. She's dying and she says she has to tell us something. And I don't know if I want to hear it."
Outside the night was cold - not just chilly but cold. The jacket Stu had pulled from the closet felt good, and he zipped it all the way to the neck. A frosty moon hung overhead, making him think of Tom, who had instructions to come back to them and report when the moon was full. This moon was just a trifle past the first quarter. God knew where that moon was looking down on Tom, on Dayna Jurgens, on Judge Farris. God knew it was looking down on strange doings here.
"I got Ralph up first," Glen said. "Told him to go over to the hospital and get Fran."
"If the doctor wanted her up and around, he would have sent her home," Stu said angrily.
"This is a special case, Stu."
"For someone who doesn't want to hear what that old woman has to say, you seem to be in an all-fired hurry to get to her."
"I'm afraid not to," Glen said.
The jeep drew up in front of Larry's house at ten minutes past three. The place was blazing with light - not gaslamps now, but good electric lights. Every second streetlamp was on, too, not just here but all over town, and Stu had stared at them all the way over in Glen's jeep, fascinated. The last of the summer bugs, sluggish with the cold, were beating lackadaisically against the sodium globes.
They got out of the jeep just as headlights swung around the corner. It was Ralph's clattering old truck, and it pulled up nose to nose with the jeep. Ralph got out, and Stu went quickly around to the passenger side, where Frannie sat with her back resting against a plaid sofa cushion.
"Hey, babe," he said softly.
She took his hand. Her face was a pale disk in the darkness.
"Bad pain?" Stu asked.
"Not so bad. I took some Advil. Just don't ask me to do the hustle."
He helped her out of the truck and Ralph took her other arm. They both saw her wince as she stepped away from the cab.
"Want me to carry you?"
"I'll be fine. Just keep your arm around me, huh?"
"Sure will."
"And walk slow. Us grammies can't go very fast."
They crossed behind Ralph's truck, more shuffling than walking. When they reached the sidewalk, Stu saw Glen and Larry standing in the doorway, watching them. Against the light they looked like figures cut from black construction paper.
"What is it, do you think?" Frannie murmured.
Stu shook his head. "I don't know."
They got up the walk, Frannie very obviously in pain now, and Ralph helped Stu get her in. Larry, like Glen, looked pale and worried. He was wearing faded jeans, a shirt that was untucked and buttoned wrong at the bottom, and expensive mocs on bare feet.
"I'm sorry like hell to have to get you out," he said. "I was in with her, dozing off and on. We've been keeping watch. You understand?"
"Yes. I understand," Frannie said. For some reason the phrase keeping watch made her think of her mother's parlor... and in a kinder, more forgiving light than she had ever thought of it before.
"Lucy had been in bed about an hour. I snapped out of my doze, and - Fran, can I help you?"
Fran shook her head and smiled with an effort. "No, I'm fine. Go on."
" - and she was looking at me. She can't talk above a whisper, but she's perfectly understandable." Larry swallowed. All five of them were now standing in the hallway. "She told me the Lord was going to take her home at the sunrise. But that she had to talk to those of us God hadn't taken first. I asked her what she meant and she said God had taken Nick and Susan. She knew." He let out a ragged breath and ran his hands through his long hair.
Lucy appeared at the end of the hall. "I made coffee. It's here when you want it."
"Thank you, love," Larry said.
Lucy looked uncertain. "Should I come in with you folks? Or is it private, like the committee?"
Larry looked at Stu, who said quietly, "Come on along. I got an idea that stuff don't cut ice anymore."
They went up the hall to the bedroom, moving slowly to accommodate Fran.
"She'll tell us," Ralph said suddenly. "Mother will tell us. No sense fretting."
They went in together, and Mother Abagail's bright, dying gaze fell upon them.
Fran knew about the old woman's physical condition, but it was still a nasty shock. There was nothing left of her but a pemmican-tough membrane of skin and tendon binding her bones. There was not even a smell of putrescence and oncoming death in the room; instead there was a dry attic smell... no, a parlor smell. Half the length of the IV needle hung out of her flesh, simply because there was nowhere for it to go.
Yet the eyes had not changed. They were warm and kind and human. That was a relief, but Fran still felt a kind of terror... not strictly fear, but perhaps something more sanctified - awe. Was it awe? An impending feeling. Not doom, but as though some dreadful responsibility was poised above their heads like a stone.
Man proposes - God disposes.
"Little girl, sit down," Mother Abagail whispered. "You're in pain."