harder for him to accept than that a wild and savage part of him, beyond
his conscious control, was the only real danger that they faced.
He was beyond ordinary fear now. He was no longer perspiring or
shivering. He was in the grip of a primal terror that left him rigid
and DryIce dry.
“It wasn’t me,” he repeated.
“Yes, it was.” Considering that she believed he’d almost killed her
Holly was surprisingly gentle with him. She did not raise her voice; it
was softened by a note of great tenderness.
He said, “You’re still on this split-personality kick.”
“Yes.”
“So it was my dark side.”
“Yes.”
“Embodied in a giant worm or something,” he said, trying to hone a sharp
edge on his sarcasm, failing. “But you said The Enemy only broke
through when I was sleeping, and I wasn’t sleeping, so even if I am The
Enemy, how could I have been that thing in the park?”
“New rules. Subconsciously, you’re getting desperate. You’re not able
to control that personality as easily as before. The closer you’re
forced to the truth, the more aggressive The Enemy’s going to become in
order to defend itself”
“If it was me, why wasn’t there an alien heartbeat like before?”
“That’s always just been a dramatic effect, like the bells ringing
before The Friend put in an appearance.” She raised her head from her
arms and looked at him. “You dropped it because there wasn’t time for
it. I was reading that plaque, and you wanted to stop me as fast as you
could. You needed a distraction. Let me tell you, babe, it was a
lulu.”
He looked out the window again, toward the windmill and the lectern that
held the information about The Black Windmill.
Holly put a hand on his shoulder. “You were in a black despair after
your parents died. You needed to escape. Evidently a writer named
Arthur Willott provided you with a fantasy that fit your needs
perfectly. To one extent or another, you’ve been living in it ever
since.”
Though he could not admit it to her, he had to admit to himself that he
was groping toward understanding, that he was on the brink of seeing his
past from a new perspective that would make all of the mysterious lines
and angles fall into a new and comprehensible shape.
If selective amnesia, carefully constructed false memories, and even
multiple personalities were not indications of madness but only the
hooks he had used to hold on to sanity-as Holly insisted-then what would
happen to him if he let go of those hooks? If he dug up the truth about
his past, faced the things he had refused to face when he had turned to
fantasy as a child, would the truth drive him mad this time?
What was he hiding from?
“Listen,” she said, “the important thing is that you shut it down before
it reached us, before it did any harm.”
“My shin hurts like hell,” he said, wincing.
“Good,” she said brightly.
She started the engine.
“Where are we going now?” he asked.
“Where else? The library.”
Holly parked on Copenhagen Lane in front of the small Victorian house
that served as the New Svenborg library.
She was pleased that her hands were not shaking, that her voice was
level and calm, and that she had been able to drive from Tivoli Gardens
without weaving all over the road. After the incident in the park, she
was amazed that her pants were still clean. She had been reduced to raw
terror -a pure, intense emotion untainted by any other.
Diluted now, it was still with her, and she knew it would remain with
her until they were out of these spooky old woods—or dead. But she
was determined not to reveal the depth of her fear to Jim, because he
had to be worse off than she was.
After all, it was his life that was turning out to be a collage of
flimsy lies.
He needed to lean on her.
As she and Jim went up the front walk to the porch (Jim limping), Holly
noticed he was studying the lawn around him, as if he thought something