When they finally stepped back, they grinned at each other as if the world were a happy place and they weren’t dealing with murder, conspiracies, and horror.
“Well,” said Dana breathlessly, “I guess there’s that.”
“Um, yeah,” he said.
They stood there, awkward and uncertain. Then they kissed again. And again. Afterward, Ethan looked dazed and glassy-eyed. That made her laugh. It also made her feel warm inside.
“Bye,” she said, and then she was gone into the night. When she looked back from halfway down the block, Ethan was standing exactly where she’d left him. That made her smile, too.
CHAPTER 56
Scully Residence
10:17 P.M.
The porch light was on, and she moved toward it like a lost ship drawn to a lighthouse beacon.
The day had gone from frightening to surreal to broken, and Dana didn’t quite know who she was. Or what she was. After leaving Ethan’s, she had been happy for almost three blocks, but then the dizziness came back, and with it came her doubts and all the various fears that seemed to define her life here in Craiger. Those fears brought with them a strange, huge, complicated depression that settled heavily on her shoulders and made each step as difficult as if she were wading through mud. All the happiness leaked away.
Nothing about her seemed to fit right anymore. Ever since they’d moved here from San Diego, Dana felt like she was losing the connection with her own identity. She used to be an orderly person. Good in school, always on time, didn’t run with the wild crowd, went to church. Prayed. All of that.
Now she was having psycho dreams, hunting a mass murderer, going on mind trips, and beating the crap out of people.
Was this still her? Still Dana Katherine Scully?
Or was Sunlight right, and she was transforming into someone and something else? If so … what?
The porch light was rich and warm and safe-looking. Then she paused when she saw a figure sitting there.
“Dad…,” she murmured.
She stood a hundred feet away, in a pool of shadows beneath a big tree across from the old church, watching her father. Dad was a big man. Blocky and hard, with a bullet head on a bull neck. He looked as tough as he was. But now she saw him in an unguarded moment. Dad was sitting on the porch swing, head bent as he read a book. Not being tough. Not being Captain William Scully of the United States Navy. Not being anything except a middle-aged man relaxing on a spring evening. Wearing a soft flannel shirt. The red-and-black one that he liked so much. It was old and worn, and Dana knew every place where it had been patched and stitched, and she knew that Dad wouldn’t let Mom throw it out. Not that shirt. It was familiar, and he loved wearing it when he wanted to step out of the skin of his job and responsibilities. He was wearing that shirt in so many of Dana’s best memories. Family camping trips. The day Dad taught her how to ride a bicycle, and when he’d taken her to the ice cream shop at the big old hotel in Coronado after she’d broken her arm falling out of a tree. He’d been wearing it the day they brought Charlie home from the hospital as a tiny baby. He’d worn it the first night they’d started reading Moby-Dick together when Dana was nine.
That shirt.
Dad.
She stood there and buried her face in her hands and started to cry.
“Dana…?” said a voice. Dad. She looked through her fingers and saw him come down off the porch. “Dana, is that you?” he growled. “Melissa said you were out studying, but you’re seriously pushing it, young lady. It’s after ten. What could you be thinking? With everything that’s happening in town, I think we need to talk about your judgment and common sense.”
She wanted to run away right then. Instead Dana broke and ran toward him, racing the rest of the way to her house, and her dad came down the steps and jogged forward, arms out, to gather her in. He hesitated for a fragment of a moment, and then he pulled her to him and held her close in those strong arms, kissing her hair as she clung to him, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Daddy … oh, Daddy.”
William Scully held his daughter firmly as if he were the anchor that held her to the world. Stopped scolding and did not ask her what was wrong. He did not pollute the moment with questions. They would come later. Instead he held her and whispered her special, secret name.
“Starbuck,” he said, and there was the thickness of tears in his voice, too.
*
Later they sat together on the porch swing. She had her sweater on and lay with her head against his chest. Silence was a friend to both of them, and they welcomed it.
It was only when it was getting late that her father spoke.
“You know you can tell me anything,” he said gently.
She said nothing.
“Is it a boy?”
“What? No.”
“School?”
“No.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Dana, is it the kids who have been getting themselves killed?” When she did not answer that, her father sighed, deep and heavy. “I know it was hard on you when that teacher died back in San Diego.”