All right then, Papa, she thought. The intervals in this world seemed to be becoming shorter, those in that other, longer. There would not be time for her to make the dash from the upper hallway, through the living room and foyer, and out the front door and then across the stretch of lawn before the flood was once more filling the spaces. So, okay, she would have to be at or at least near to the front door when next the house shifted back to the dry world. If ever it did . . . ? But, furiously, she drove that seed of doubt from her mind.
Shedding her robe and kicking off the shoon, she grasped the handrail and stepped deliberately down into the icy, muddy waters, now only six inches or so below the floor of the upper hallway. She continued down the unseen steps until she was waist-deep, then, crouching slightly, she kicked herself toward the door. She dog-paddled and scissors-kicked, for the ceiling was too close to the water surface for her best swimming strokes.
Halfway across the room, she realized that the whole of the picture window had been smashed in and debated remaining there to make her frantic egress, then remembered that that window would be whole, unbroken, and impassable in the world of Whyffler Hall.
For a long, frightening moment, her seeking hands could not find the door. With an irrepressible sob of frustration and fear, she took a deep breath and dove beneath the surface, feeling blindly before her, for her eyes could see not even inches in the dark water. Down she drove her body, deeper into the swirling currents. Then, just as one outstretched hand touched the floor …
She found herself falling headfirst toward that hard, dry, sun-dappled hardwood floor!
Gasping in the welcome air, she caught almost all her weight on her hands and, completely disregarding a slightly skinned knee, dashed through the open door. The weed-grown patch of lawn lay ahead, and it seemed to stretch on to the ends of the earth. Momentarily, she expected to be engulfed in the raging, flood-level Potomac River. Suddenly she sped, full-tilt, into a thick-grown boxwood. Then Krystal surrendered to her repressed emotions. Sobbing with relief, she collapsed onto one of the graveled paths of the formal gardens of Whyffler Hall.
For almost a minute before it was forever gone, the awestruck servants and soldiers saw the always strange brick-and-board house half submerged in a rushing torrent of brownish water. Then it was gone, as if it never had been, and the shrubs and hedges in the space it had occupied—or had it ever?—stood as green and perfect as the rest of the garden expanse.
Many of the folk assembled moaned and cried out, many more crossed themselves, fumbling for crosses or relics of saints, some of the men and all of the soldiers grasped steel buckles or sword- or knife-hilts, muttering the ancient benison to ward off the Old Evil, “Cauld iron!”
EPILOGUE
State Trooper Jerry Erbach dashed the sweat from his forehead with the back of a big skinned and dirty hand, then lowered his beefy body through the hatch of the obsolete armored personnel carrier that the National Guard had contributed to the emergency. Placing the cumbersome headset over his head, he mouthed, “Thishere’s Troopuh Erbach, get me th’ough to Lootenunt Gear, rant away, too. Vheanh?”
Turning to the NG driver of the track, a pink-cheeked Spec-4 from the western part of the state, Erbach grinned. “Gotta keep awn them gals’ tails. Leave it t’ them, they’d spend awl their time a-jawin’ to each othuh ’bout guys they’s laid or guys they’s gonna lay or—”
The set crackled and Erbach answered, “Yessir. Yessir, Tuz tryin’ to get Lootenant Gear. Yessir, Lootenant Martin Gear. Right Yessir.”
Then, after a pause, “Marty? Thishere’s Jerry Erbach. We fin’ly done foun’ the roof awf Foster’s house, whut’s left of ‘er, leastways. Huh? Clear down to Quantico, almos’, thet’s where. Naw, no trace of Foster, the dumb-ass bastid, jest a ol’ cat an’ the fucker tried to bite me, too, wild as hell.
“Well, looky here, Marty, thishere driver says we needs POL, bad, so we jest comin’ awn in. Heanh? It’ll be gittin’ awn dark, soon enyhow.
“He still may turn up, y’know, Marty, what’s lef of him, enyways. But I got thishere gut feelin’, Marty, thet Mr. Foster ain’ no more in thishere world”