sure that she was not the cause of their edginess.
Before going to sleep, she had prayed that their troubles, if they had
any, would prove to be minor and would be dealt with soon, and she had
reminded God of her selfless pledge to eat beans of all varieties.
If there was any possibility the sneaky noises were related to the
Harrisons’ uneasy state of mind, Regina supposed she had an obligation
to check it out. She looked up and back at the above her bed, and
sighed. You couldn’t rely on Jesus and Mary for everything. They were
busy people. They had a universe to run. God helped those who helped
themselves.
She slipped out from under the covers, stood, and made her way to the
window, leaning against furniture and then the wall. She was not
wearing her leg brace, and she needed the support.
The window looked onto the small backyard behind the garage, the area
from which the suspicious noises had seemed to come. Night-shadows from
the house, trees, and shrubs were unrelieved by moonlight. The longer
Regina stared, the less she could make out, as if the darkness were a
sponge soaking up her ability to see. It became easy to believe that
every impenetrable pocket of gloom was alive and watchful.
The garage window had been unlocked but difficult to open. The hinges
at the top were corroded, and the frame was paint-sealed to the jamb in
places. Vassago made more noise than he intended, but he didn’t think
he had been loud enough to draw the attention of anyone in the house.
Then just as the paint cracked and the hinges moved to granthimaccess, a
light had appeared in another window on the second floor.
He had backed away from the garage at once, even though the light went
off again even as he moved. He had taken cover in a stand of six-foot
eugenia bushes near the property fence.
From there he saw her appear at the obsidian window, more visible to
him, perhaps, than she would have been if she had left the lamp on. It
was the girl he had seen in dreams a couple of times, most recently with
Lindsey Harrison. They had faced each other across a levitated black
rose with one drop of blood glistening on a velvet petal.
Regina.
He stared at her in disbelief, then with growing excitement. Earlier in
the night, he had asked Steven Honell if the Harrisons had a daughter,
but the author had told him that he knew only of a son who had died
years ago.
Separated from Vassago by nothing but the night air and one pane of
glass, the girl seemed to float above him as if she were a vision. In
reality she was, if anything, lovelier than she had been in his dreams.
She was so exceptionally vital, so full of life, that he would not have
been surprised if she could walk the night as confidently as he did,
though fora reason different from his; she seemed to have within her all
the light she needed to illuminate her path through any darkness.
He drew back farther into the eugenias, convinced that she pose the
power to see him as clearly as he saw her.
A trellis covered the wall immediately below her window. A lush trumpet
vine with purple flowers grew up the sturdy lattice to the windowsill,
and then around one side almost to the eaves. She was like some
princess locked in a tower, pining for a prince to climb up the vine and
rescue her.
The tower that served as her prison was life itself, and the prince for
whom she waited was Death, and that from which she longed to be rescued
was the curse of existence.
Vassago said softly, “I am here for you,” but he did not move from his
hiding place.
After a couple of minutes, she turned away from the window.
vanished.
A void lay behind the glass where she had stood.
He ached for her return, one more brief look at her.
Regina.
He waited five minutes, then another five. But she did not come to the
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