“Fear not, dear lady. I’ll not touch the least hair upon your head.

Not if you’re calm… and remain quite still…”

And Polly did become calm. She did become still. She stood with her hands (still encased in the woolly mittens) crossed demurely in front of her, and allowed Mr. Gaunt to drop the silver chain over her head. He did it with the gentleness of a father turning down his daughter’s bridal veil. She felt far away from Mr. Gaunt, from Needful Things, from Castle Rock, even from herself. She felt like a woman standing high on some dusty plain and under an endless sky, hundreds of miles from any other human being.

The azka dropped against the zipper of her leather car-coat with a small clink.

“Put it inside your jacket. And when you get home, put it inside your blouse, as well. It must be worn next to the skin for maximum effect.”

“I can’t put it in my jacket,” Polly said in slow, dreaming tones.

“The zipper… I can’t pull down the zipper.”

“No? Try.”

So Polly stripped off one of the mittens and tried. To her great surprise, she found she was able to flex the thumb and first finger of her right hand just enough to grasp the zipper’s tab and pull it down.

“There, you see?”

The little silver ball fell against the front of her blouse. It seemed very heavy to her, and the feel of it was not precisely comfortable.

She wondered vaguely what was inside it, what had made that dusty slithery sound. Some sort of herb, he had said, but it hadn’t sounded like leaves or even powder to Polly. It had seemed to her that something in there had shifted on its own.

Mr. Gaunt seemed to understand her discomfort. “You’ll get used to it, and much sooner than you might think. Believe me, you will.”

Outside, thousands of miles away, she heard more sirens. They sounded like troubled spirits.

Mr. Gaunt turned away, and as his eyes left her face, Polly felt her concentration begin to return. She felt a little bewildered, but she also felt good. She felt as if she had just had a short but satisfying nap. Her sense of mixed discomfort and disquiet was gone.

“My hands still hurt,” she said, and this was true… but did they hurt as badly? It seemed to her there had been some relief, but that could be nothing more than suggestion-she had a feeling that Gaunt had imposed a kind of hypnosis on her in his determination to make her accept the azka. Or it might only be the warmth of the shop after the cold outside.

“I doubt very much if the promised effect is instantaneous,” Mr.

Gaunt said dryly. “Give it a chance, though-will you do that, Polly?”

She shrugged. “All right.”

After all, what did she have to lose? The ball was small enough so it would barely make a bulge under a blouse and a sweater. She wouldn’t have to answer any questions about it if no one knew it was there, and that would be just fine with her-Rosalie Drake would be curious, and Alan, who was about as superstitious as a tree-stump, would probably find it funny. As for Nettle… well, Nettle would probably be awed to silence if she knew Polly was wearing an honest-to-goodness magic charm, just like the ones they sold in her beloved Inside View.

“You shouldn’t take it off, not even in the shower,” Mr. Gaunt said. “There’s no need to. The ball is real silver, and won’t rust.”

“But if I do?”

He coughed gently into his hand, as if embarrassed. “Well, the beneficial effect of the azka is cumulative. The wearer is a little better today, a little better still tomorrow, and so on. That’s what I was told, at least.”

Told by whom? she wondered.

“If the azka is removed, however, the wearer reverts to his or her former painful state not slowly but at once, and then has to wait for days or perhaps weeks in order to regain the lost ground once the azka is put back on.”

Polly laughed a little. She couldn’t help it, and was relieved when Leland Gaunt joined her.

“I know how it sounds,” he said, “but I only want to help if I can. Do you believe that?”

“I do,” she said, “and I thank you.”

But as she allowed him to usher her from the shop, she found herself wondering about other things, too. There was the near trance-state she’d been in when he slipped the chain over her head, for instance. Then there was her strong dislike of being touched by him.

Those things were very much at odds with the feelings of friendship, regard, and compassion which he projected like an almost visible aura.

But had he mesmerized her somehow? That was a foolish idea… wasn’t it? She tried to remember exactly what she had felt like when they were discussing the azka, and couldn’t do it. If he had done such a thing, it had no doubt been by accident, and with her help. More likely she had just entered the dazed state which too many Percodans sometimes induced. It was the thing she disliked most about the pills.

No, she guessed that was the thing she disliked second to the most.

What she really hated about them was that they didn’t always work the way they were supposed to anymore.

“I’d drive you home, if I drove,” Mr. Gaunt said, “but I’m afraid I never learned.”

“Perfectly all right,” Polly said. “I appreciate your kindness a great deal.”

“Thank me if it works,” he replied. “Have a lovely afternoon, Polly.”

More sirens rose in the air. They were on the east side of town, over toward Elm, Willow, Pond, and Ford streets. Polly turned in that direction. There was something about the sound of sirens, especially on such a quiet afternoon, which conjured up vaguely threatening thoughts-not quite images-of impending doom. The sound began to die out, unwinding like an invisible clockspring in the bright autumn air.

She turned back to say something about this to Mr. Gaunt, but the door was shut. The sign reading

hung between the drawn shade and the glass, swinging gently back and forth on its string. He had gone back inside while her back was turned, so quietly she hadn’t even heard him.

Polly began to walk slowly home. Before she got to the end of Main Street another police car, this one a State Police cruiser, blasted past her.

“Danforth?”

Myrtle Keeton stepped through the front door and into the living room. She balanced the fondue pot under her left arm as she struggled to remove the key Danforth had left in the lock.

“Danforth, I’m home!”

There was no answer, and the TV wasn’t on. That was strange; he had been so determined to get home in time for the kick-off.

She wondered briefly if he might have gone somewhere else, up to the Garsons’, perhaps, to watch it, but the garage door was down, which meant he had put the car away. And Danforth didn’t walk anywhere if he could possibly avoid it. Especially not up the View, which was steep.

“Danforth? Are you here?”

Still no answer. There was an overturned chair in the dining room. Frowning, she set the fondue pot on the table and righted the chair. The first threads of worry, fine as cobweb, drifted through her mind. She walked toward the study door, which was closed.

When she reached it, she tipped her head against the wood and listened. She was quite sure she could hear the soft squeak of his desk chair.

“Danforth? Are you in there?”

No answer… but she thought she heard a low cough. Worry became alarm. Danforth had been under a great deal of strain lately-he was the only one of the town’s selectmen who worked really hard-and he weighed more than was good for him. What if he’d had a heart attack?

What if he was in there lying on the floor?

What if the sound she had heard was not a cough but the sound of Danforth trying to breathe?