him beat because you can see into the future. Maybe you see only bits
and pieces of it, and only random visions when you aren’t trying for
them, but you can see the future.”
He was shaken by her conviction. “So where’d I get all this magic?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s where it falls apart.”
“It doesn’t fall apart just because I don’t know,” she said
frustratingly.
“Yellow doesn’t stop being yellow just because I don’t know anything
about why the eye sees different colors. You have the power.
You are the power, not God or some alien under the millpond.”
He pulled his hands from hers and looked out the windshield toward the
county road and the dry fields beyond. He seemed afraid to face up to
the tremendous power he possessed-maybe because it carried with it
responsibilities that he was not sure he could shoulder.
She sensed that he was also shamed by the prospect of his own mental
illness, and unable to meet her eyes any longer. He was so stoic, so
strong, so proud of his strength that he could not accept this suggested
weakness in himself He had built a life that placed a high value on self
control and self reliance, that made a singular virtue out of self
imposed solitude, in the manner of a monk who needed no one but himself
and God. Now she was telling him that his decision to become an iron
man and a loner was not a well-considered choice, that it was a
desperate attempt to deal with emotional turmoil that had threatened to
destroy him, and that his need for self control had moved him over the
line of rational behavior.
She thought of the words on the tablet: I AM COMING. YOU DIE.
She switched on the engine.
He said, “Where are we going?”
As she put the car in gear, pulled out onto the county road, and turned
right toward New Svenborg, she did not answer him. Instead, “Was there
anything special about you as a boy?”
“No,” he said a little too quickly, too sharply.
“Never any indication that you were gifted or-”
“No, hell, nothing like that.”
Jim’s sudden nervous agitation, betrayed by his restless movement and
his trembling hands, convinced Holly that she had touched on a truth. He
had been special in some way, a gifted child. Now that she had reminded
him of it, he saw in that early gift the seeds of the powers that had
grown in him. But he didn’t want to face it. Denial was his shield.
“What have you just remembered?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Jim.”
“Nothing, really.”
She didn’t know where to go with that line of questioning, so she could
only say, “It’s true. You’re gifted. No aliens, only you.”
Because of whatever he had just remembered and was not willing to share
with her, his adamancy had begun to dissolve. “I don’t know.”
“It’s true.”
“Maybe.”
“It’s true. Remember last night when The Friend told us it was a child
by the standards of its species? Well, that’s because it is a child, a
perpetual child, forever the age at which you created it-ten years old.
Which explains its childlike behavior, its need to brag, its poutiness.
Jim, The Friend didn’t behave like a ten-thousand-year-old alien child,
it just behaved like a ten-year-old human being.”
He closed his eyes and leaned back, as if it was exhausting to consider
what she was telling him. But his inner tension remained at a peak,
revealed by his hands, which were fisted in his lap.
“Where are we going, Holly?”
“For a little ride.” As they passed through the golden fields and
hills, she kept up a gentle attack: “That’s why the manifestation of The
Enemy is like a combination of every movie monster that ever frightened
a ten-year-old boy. The thing I caught a glimpse of in my motel-room
doorway wasn’t a real creature, I see that now. It didn’t have a
biological structure that made sense, it wasn’t even alien. It was too
familiar, a ten-year-old boy’s hodgepodge of boogeymen.”
He did not respond.
She glanced at him. “Jim?”
His eyes were still closed.