Winter Moon

tightly it hurt, a surge of bitter bile in the back of his throat, no

sound in the world but the pile-driving thunder of his own heart.

Because this wasn't just his life on the line.

More important lives were involved here. His wife, in whom his past

and future resided, the keeper of all his hopes. His son, born of his

own heart, whom he loved more than he loved himself, immeasurably

more.

From outside, at least, the fire appeared to be confined to the second

floor.

He prayed that Heather and Toby weren't up there, that they were on the

lower floor or out of the house altogether.

He vaulted the porch railing and kicked through the snow that had been

thrown up against the front wall by the plow. The door was standing

open in the wind.

When he crossed the threshold, he found tiny drifts beginning to form

among the pots and pans and dishes that were scattered along the front

hall.

No gun. He had no gun. He'd left it in the grader. Didn't matter.

If they were dead, so was he.

Fire totally engulfed the stairs from the first landing upward, and it

was swiftly spreading down from tread to tread toward the hallway,

flowing almost like a radiant liquid. He could see well because drafts

were sucking nearly all the smoke up and out the roof: no flames in the

study, none beyond the living-room or dining-room archways.

"Heather! Toby!"

No answer.

"Heather!"

He pushed the study door all the way open and looked in there, just to

be sure.

"Heather!"

From the archway he could see the entire living room. Nobody. The

dining-room arch.

"Heather!"

Not in the dining-room, either.

He hurried back through the hall, into the kitchen.

The back door was shut, though it had obviously been opened at some

point, because the tower of housewares had been knocked down.

"Heather!"

"Jack!"

He spun around at the sound of her voice, unable to figure where it had

come from.

"HEATHER!"

"Down here--we need help!"

The cellar door was ajar. He pulled it open, looked down.

Heather was at the landing, a five-gallon can of gasoline in each

hand.

"We need all of it, Jack."

"What're you doing? The house is on fire! Get out of there!"

"We need the gasoline to do the job."

"What're you talking about?"

"Toby's got it."

"Got what?" he demanded, going down the steps to her.

"It. He's got it. Under him," she said breathlessly.

"Under him?" he asked, taking the cans out of her hands.

"Like he was under it in the graveyard."

Jack felt as if he'd been shot, not the same pain but the same impact

as a bullet in the chest. "He's a boy, a little boy, he's just a

little boy, for Christ's sake!"

: "He paralyzed it, the thing itself and all its surrogates. You

should've seen! He says there isn't much time. The goddamned thing is

strong, Jack, it's powerful. Toby can't keep it under him very long,

and when it gets on top, it'll never let him go. It'll hurt him,

Jack.

It'll make him pay for this. So we have to get it first. We don't

have time to question him, second-guess him, we just do what he

says."

She turned away from him, retreated down the lower steps.

"I'll get two more cans."

"The house is on fire!" he protested.

"Upstairs. Not here yet."

Madness.

"Where's Toby?" he called as she turned out of sight below.

"The back porch!"

"Hurry and get yourself out of there," he shouted as he lugged ten

gallons of gasoline up the basement stairs of a burning house, unable

to repress mental images of the flaming rivers of gasoline in front of

Arkadian's station.

He went onto the porch. No fire there yet. No reflections of

second-story flames on the backyard snow, either. The blaze was still

largely at the front of the house.

Toby was standing in his red-and-black ski suit at the head of the

porch steps, his back to the door. Snow churned around him. The

little point on the hood gave him the look of a gnome.

The dog was at Toby's side. He turned his burly head to look at Jack,

wagged his tail once.

Jack put down the gasoline cans and hunkered beside his son. If his

heart didn't turn over in his chest when he saw the boy's face, he felt

as if it did.

Toby looked like death.

"Skipper?"

"Hi, Dad."

His voice had little inflection. He seemed to be in a daze, as he had

been in front of the computer that morning. He didn't look at Jack but

stared uphill toward the caretaker's house, which was visible only when

the dense shrouds of snow were drawn apart by the capricious wind.

"Are you between?" Jack asked, dismayed by the tremor in his voice.

"Yeah. Between."

"Is that a good idea?"

"Yeah."

"Aren't you afraid of it?"

"Yeah. That's okay."

"What're you staring at?"

"Blue light."

"I don't see any blue light."

"When I was asleep."

"You saw a blue light in your sleep?"

"In the caretaker's house."

"Blue light in a dream?"

"Might have been more than a dream."

"So that's where it is?"

"Yeah. Part of me too."

"Part of you is in the caretaker's house?"

"Yeah. Holding it under."

"We can actually burn it?"

"Maybe. But we've got to get all of it."

Harlan Moffit clumped onto the back porch, carrying two cans of

gasoline.

"Lady in there give me these, told me to bring em out here. She your

wife?"