'Yeah. A little lightheaded for a few seconds, that's all. Ernie?'
'I saw my wife. And the hotel room we stayed in on our honeymoon. It was as clear as day'
He thought again of her coming to him. He hadn't thought of that in years, and what a shame to neglect such an excellent memory. The whiteness of her thighs below her shortie nightgown; the neat dark triangle of her pubic hair; her ni**les hard against silk, almost seeming to scrape the pads of his palms as she darted her tongue into his mouth and licked the inner lining of his lower lip.
This time we don't have to stop, honey.
Ernie leaned back and closed his eyes.
4
Rusty drove up the ridge - slowly now - and parked the van between the barn and the dilapidated farmhouse. The Sweetbriar Rose van was there; the Burpee's Department Store van; also a Chevrolet Malibu. Julia had parked her Prius inside the barn. Horace the Corgi sat by its rear bumper, as if guarding it. He did not look like a happy canine, and he made no move to come and greet them. Inside the farmhouse, a couple of Coleman lanterns glowed.
Jackie pointed at the van with EVERY DAY IS SALE DAY AT BURPEE'S on the side. 'How'd that get here? Did your wife change her mind?'
Rommie grinned. 'You don't know Misha if you ever t'ink dat. No, I got Julia to thank. She recruited her two star reporters. Dose guys - '
He broke off as Julia, Piper, and Lissa Jamieson appeared from the moonlit shadows of the orchard. They were stumbling along three abreast, holding hands, and all of them were crying.
Barbie ran to Julia and took her by the shoulders. She was on the end of their little line, and the flashlight she had been holding in her free hand dropped to the weedy dirt of the dooryard. She looked up at him and made an effort to smile. 'So they got you out, Colonel Barbara. That's one for the home team.'
"What happened to you?' Barbie asked.
Now Joe, Benny, and Norrie came running up with their mothers close behind them. The kids' shouts cut short when they saw the state the three women were in. Horace ran to his mistress, barking. Julia went to her knees and buried her face in his fur. Horace sniffed her,|then suddenly backed away. He sat down and howled. Julia looked at him and then covered her face, as if in shame. Norrie had grabbed Joe's hand on her left and Benny's on her right. Their faces were solejrm and scared. Pete Freeman,Tony Guay, and Rose Twitchell came out |of the farmhouse but did not approach; they stood clustered by the kitchen door.
'We went to look at it,' Lissa said dully. Her usual gosh-the-world-is-wonderful brightness was gone.'We knelt around it. There's a symbol on it I've never seen before... it's not kabbalah...'
'It's awful,' Piper said, wiping at her eyes.'And then Julia touched it. She was the only one, but we.... we all...'
'Did you see them?' Rusty asked.
Julia dropped her hands and looked at him with something like wonder. 'Yes. I did, we all did. Them. Horrible.'
'The leatherheads,' Rusty said.
' What?' Piper said. Then she nodded. 'Yes, I suppose you could call ithem that. Faces without faces. High faces.'
High faces, Rusty thought. He didn't know what it meant, but he knew it was true. He thought again of his daughters and their friend Deatina exchanging secrets and snacks. Then he thought of his best childhood friend - for a while, anyway; he and Georgie had fallen out violently in second grade - and horror rolled over him in a wave.
Barbie grabbed him. 'What?' He was almost shouting. 'What is it?'
'Nothing. Only... I had this friend when I was little. George Lathrop. One year he got a magnifying glass for his birthday. And sometimes... at recess we...'
Rusty helped Julia to her feet. Horace had come back to her, as if whatever had scared him was fading like the glow had faded on the tvan.
'You did what?'Julia asked. She sounded almost calm again.'Tell.'
'This was at the old Main Street; Grammar. Just two rooms, one for grades one to four, the other for five to eight. The playground wasn't paved.' He laughed shakily. 'Hell, there wasn't even running water, just a privy the kids called - '
'The Honey House,' Julia said. 'I went there, too,'
'George and I, we'd go past the monkey bars to the fence. There were anthills there, and we'd set the ants on fire.*
'Don't take on about it, Doc,' Ernie said. 'Lots of kids have done that, and worse.' Ernie himself, along with a couple of friends, had once dipped a stray cat's tail in kerosene and put a match to it. This was a memory he would share with the others no more than he would tell them about the details of his wedding night.
Mostly because of how we laughed when that cat took off, he thought. Gosh, how we did laugh.
'Go on,' Julia said.
'I'm done.'
'You're not,' she said.
'Look,' said Joanie Calvert. 'I'm sure this is all very psychological, but I don't think this is the time - '
'Hush, Joanie,' Claire said.
Julia had never taken her eyes from Rusty's face.
'Why does it matter to you?' Rusty asked. He felt, at that moment, as though there were no onlookers. As if it were only the two of them.
'Just tell me.'
'One day while we were doing... that... it occurred to me that ants also have their little lives. I know that sounds like sentimental slop - '
Barbie said, 'Millions of people all over the world believe that very thing. They live by it.'
'Anyway, I thought "We're hurting them. We're burning them on the ground and maybe broiling them alive in their underground houses." About the ones who were getting the direct benefit of Georgie's magnifying glass there was no question. Some just stopped moving, but most actually caught fire.'
'That's awful,' Lissa said. She was twisting her ankh again.
'Yes, ma'am. And this one day I told Georgie to stop. He wouldn't. He said, "It's jukular war." I remember that. Not nuclear but jukular. I tried to take the magnifying glass away from him. Next thing you know, we were fighting, and his magnifying glass got broken.'