Outside the gray sky was mottled now with ugly clouds that were nearly black.
The rain eased up, but Tessa sensed that they were entering a brief lull, after which the downpour would continue with greater fury than ever.
Both the spiritual and the physical gloom deepened.
Moose whined softly.
Tears shimmered in Chrissie’s eyes, and she seemed unable to bear looking at Harry. She went to a north window and stared down at the house next door and at the street beyond—staying just far enough back from the glass to avoid being spotted by anyone outside.
Tessa wanted to comfort her.
She wanted to comfort Harry too.
More, than that … she wanted to make everything right.
As writer-producer-director, she was a mover and shaker, good at taking charge, making things happen. She always knew how to solve a problem, what to do in a crisis, how to keep the ball rolling once a project had begun. But now she was at a loss. She could not always script reality with the assurance she brought to the writing of her films; sometimes the real world resisted conforming to her demands. Maybe that was why she had chosen a career over a family, even after having enjoyed a wonderful family atmosphere as a child. The real world of daily life and struggle was sloppy, unpredictable, full of loose ends; she couldn’t count on being able to tie it all up the way she could when she took aspects of it and reduced them to a neatly structured film. Life was life, broad and rich … but film was only essences. Maybe she dealt better with essences than with life all its gaudy detail.
Her genetically received Lockland optimism, previously as bright as a spotlight, had not deserted her, though it definitely had dimmed for the time being.
Harry said, “It’s going to be all right.”
“How?” Sam asked.
“I’m probably last on their list,” Harry said. “They wouldn’t be worried about cripples and blind people. Even if we learn something’s up, we can’t try to get out of town and get help. Mrs. Sagerian—she lives over on Pinecrest—she’s blind, and I’ll bet she and I are the last two on the schedule. They’ll wait to do us until near midnight. You see if they don’t. Bet on it. So what you’ve got to do is go to the high school and get through to the Bureau, bring help in here pronto, before midnight comes, and then I’ll be all right.”
Chrissie turned away from the window, her cheeks wet with tears. “You really think so, Mr. Talbot? You really, honestly think they won’t come here until midnight?”
With his head tilted to one side in a perpetual twist that was, depending on how you looked at it, either jaunty or heartwrenching, Harry winked at the girl, though she was farther away from him than Tessa and probably didn’t see the wink. “If I’m jiving you, honey, may God strike me with lightning this instant.”
Rain fell but no lightning struck.
“See?” Harry said, grinning.
Though the girl clearly wanted to believe the scenario that Harry had painted for her, Tessa knew that they could not count on his being the last or next to last on the final conversion schedule. What he’d said made a little sense, actually, but it was just too neat. Like a narrative development in a film script. Real life, Tessa had just reminded herself, was sloppy, unpredictable. She desperately wanted to believe that Harry would be safe until a few minutes till midnight, but the reality was that he would be at risk as soon as the clock struck six and the final series of conversions was under way.
35
Shaddack remained in Paula Parkins’s garage through most of the afternoon.
Twice he put up the big door, switched on the van’s engine, and pulled into the driveway to better monitor Moonhawk’s progress on the VDT. Both times, satisfied with the data, he rolled back into the garage and lowered the door again.
The mechanism was clicking away. He had designed it, built it, wound it up, and pushed the start button. Now it could go through its paces without him.