Winter Moon

"No."

"Remember what?" Heather demanded. "What the hell was there to

remember?"

"Toby," Jack said, "are you able to remember now because . .

. because you're half under its spell again but only half . . .

neither here nor there?"

"Between," the boy acknowledged. "Tell me about this 'it' you're

talking to," Jack said. "Jack, don't," Heather said. She looked

haunted. He knew how she felt. But he said, "We have to learn about

it."

"Why?"

"Maybe to survive." He didn't have to explain. She knew what he

meant. She had endured some degree of contact in her sleep. The

hostility of the thing. Its inhuman rage. To Toby, he said, "Tell me

about it."

"What do you want to know?" -On the screen: blues of every shade,

spreading like Japanese fans but without the sharp folds, one blue over

the other, through the other.

"Where does it come from, Toby?"

"Outside."

"What do you mean?"

"Beyond." ..

"Beyond what?"

"This world." Is it ... extraterrestrial?" - Heather said, "Oh, my

God." "Yes," Toby said. "No."

"Which, Toby?"

"Not as simple as ... E.T. Yes.

And no."

"What is it doing here?"

"Becoming."

"Becoming what?"

"Everything." Jack shook his head. "I don't understand."

"Neither do I," the boy said, riveted to the display on the computer

monitor. Heather stood with her hands fisted against her breast.

Jack said, Toby, yesterday in the graveyard, you weren't just

between.

like now."

"Gone."

"Yes, you were gone all the way."

"Gone."

"I couldn't reach you."

"Shit," Heather said furiously, and Jack didn't look up at her because

he knew she was glaring at him. "What happened yesterday, Jack? Why

didn't you tell me, for Christ's sake? Something like this, why didn't

you tell me?" Without meeting her eyes, he said, "I will, I'll tell

you, just let me finish this."

"What else haven't you told me," she demanded. "What in God's name's

happening, Jack?"

To Toby, he said, "When you were gone yesterday. son, where were

you?"

"Gone."

"Gone where?"

"Under."

"Under? Under what?"

"Under it."

"Under. . . ?"

"Controlled."

"Under this thing? Under its mind?"

"Yeah. In a dark place."

Toby's voice quavered with fear at the memory. "A dark place, cold,

squeezed in a dark place, hurting."

"Shut it off, shut it down!" Heather demanded. Jack looked up at

her.

She was glaring, all right, red in the face, as furious as she was

frightened. Praying that she would be patient, he said, "We can shut

the computer off, but we can't keep this thing out that way. Think

about it, Heather. It can get to us by routes through dreams, through

the TV. Apparently even while we're awake, somehow. Toby was awake

yesterday when it got to him."

"I let it in," the boy said. Jack hesitated to ask the question that

was, perhaps, the most critical of all. "Toby, listen ... when it's in

you ... does it have to be actually in you? Physically? A part of it

inside you somewhere?"

Something in the brain that would show up in a dissection. Or attached

to the spine. The kind of thing for which Eduardo had wanted Travis

Potter to look.

"No," the boy said. "No seed . . . no egg .. . no slug . .. nothing

that it is."

"No." That was good, very good, thank God and all the angels, that was

very good. Because if something was implanted, how did you get it out

of your child, how did you free him, how could you cut open his brain

and tear it out? Toby said, "Only thoughts. Nothing in you but

thoughts."

"You mean, like it uses telepathic control?"

"Yeah." How suddenly the impossible could seem inevitable.

Telepathic control. Something from beyond, hostile and strange, able

to control other species telepathically. right out of a science

fiction movie, yet it felt real and true. "And now it wants in

again?"

Heather asked Toby. "Yes."

"But you won't let it in?" she asked. "No." Jack said, "You can

really keep it out?"

"Yes." They had hope. They weren't finished yet. Jack said, "Why did

it leave you yesterday?"

"Pushed it."

"You pushed it out?"

"Yeah. Pushed it. Hates me."

"For pushing it out?"

"Yeah." His voice sank to a whisper. "But it's ... it . .

. it hates . . . hates everything."

"Why?" With a fury of scarlet and orange swirling across his face and

flashing in his eyes, the boy still whispered: "Because ... that's what

it is."

"It's hate?"

"That's what it does."

"But why?"

"That's what it is."

"Why?" Jack repeated patiently. "Because it knows."

"Knows what?"

"Nothing matters."

"It knows ... that nothing matters?"

"Yes."

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing means." Dizzied by the only half-coherent exchange, Jack

said, "I don't understand." Ikl still lower whisper: "Everything can

be underd, but nothing can be understood." I want to understand it."

everything can be understood, but nothing can be stood." Hether's

hands were still fisted, but now she pressed to her eyes, as if she

couldn't bear to look at him in this half-trance any longer. Nothing

can be understood," Toby murmured again.

frustrated, Jack said, "But it understands us." No." What doesn't it

understand about us?" Lots of things. Mainly ... we resist."

"Resist?"

"We resist it."

"And that's new to it?"

"Yeah. Never before."