Sylvia glanced at Alan. His expression mirrored her own alarm and confusion. How did this stranger know so much about them? It gave her the creeps.

"All right," Alan said, shrugging resignedly. "So you do know about the Dat-tay-vao. But I'm afraid you're too late. I don't have that power anymore. The Dat-tay-vao is gone."

"The Dat-tay-vao has left you, but it is not gone," Veilleur said.

Sylvia sensed Ba stiffen where he stood behind her. Why was he suddenly on the alert?

"That may be," she said. "But I still don't see what we can do for you."

"Not what you can do for me—for everyone. We are entering a time of great strife, of darkness and madness. The days are getting shorter when they should be lengthening. The Dat-tay-vao can help forestall that. Maybe even prevent it."

Sylvia glanced at Alan again. He nodded imperceptively in agreement. This poor old man had blown a few fuses. She darted a glance at the priest. He was a good-looking man, a few years older than Alan, with heavily salted dark brown hair, a scarred face, and a nose that looked as if it had been badly broken. She wondered if he'd ever been a boxer. She also wondered how he could sit there with a straight face? Unless he was as crazy as the old fellow. Ever since yesterday's news of the sun's erratic behavior the kooks had been coming out of the woodwork, predicting the end of the world and worse. And to think she had let two of them into her house.

And then she saw something flash in the priest's eyes. A look of tortured weariness, as if he'd seen too much already and was dreading the time to come.

"But I told you," Alan said. "The Dat-tay-vao is gone."

"Gone from you, yes." Veilleur put his arm around Jeffy. "But it hasn't traveled far."

Sylvia shot to her feet, fighting the panic vaulting within her. She let anger take its place.

"Out! I want you out of here! Both of you. Now!"

"Mrs. Nash," the priest said, rising. "We mean no harm—to anyone."

"Fine," Sylvia said. "Good. But I want you both to leave. I have nothing to say to either of you, nothing more to discuss."

The priest pointed to Veilleur. "This man is trying to help you—help us all. Please listen to him."

"Please leave now, Father Ryan. Don't force me to have Ba eject you."

She looked at Ba. Over the years she'd learned to read his usually expressionless face. What she saw there now was reluctance. Why? Did he want them to stay? Did he want to hear them out?

No. It didn't matter what Ba wanted in this situation. She had to get them out of here. Now.

She strode through the foyer and opened the front door. With obvious reluctance, the old man and the priest made their exit. On the way out, Mr. Veilleur left a card on the hall table.

"For when you change your mind," he said.

He sounded so sure, she found herself unable to frame a reply. As she slammed the door behind them, she heard the sound of Alan's wheelchair rolling toward her.

"Kind of rough on them, weren't you?"

"You heard them. They're crazy." She stepped to one of the sidelights flanking the front door and watched the old man and the priest stand by their car in the driveway. "They might be dangerous."

"They might be. But neither of them struck me as dangerous. And that old fellow—he knew an awful lot about the Dat-tay-vao. All of it accurate."

"But his end-of-the-world talk…about a time of 'darkness and madness.' That's crazy talk."

"I recall someone who reacted exactly the same way when I told her that I had the power to heal with a touch."

Sylvia remembered how she'd thought Alan had gone off the deep end then. But this was different.

"You weren't talking about doomsday."

The priest and the old man were getting into the car. Thank God.

"True. But something's happening, Sylvia. It's spring, yet the days are getting shorter, and the scientists can't say why. Maybe we are heading for some sort of Armageddon. Maybe we should have listened a little longer. That man knows something."

"He doesn't know anything I care to hear. Certainly not doomsday nonsense."

"That's not what you're afraid of, is it, Sylvia?"

She turned and faced him. Sylvia still wasn't used to seeing Alan in a wheelchair. She refused to become used to it. Because Alan wouldn't be in it forever. The Dat-tay-vao had left him in a coma last summer, but he had fought back. And he was still fighting. That was why she loved him. He was a fighter. His will was as strong as hers. He'd never admit defeat.

"What do you mean?"

She knew exactly what he meant, and because of that she had trouble meeting his gaze.

"We've skirted around this for months now, but we've never really faced it."

"Alan, please." She stepped up beside the wheelchair and ran her fingers gently through his hair, then trailed them down to his neck, hoping to distract him. She didn't want to think about this. "Please don't."

But Alan wasn't going to be put off this time.

"Where's the Dat-tay-vao, Sylvia? Where did it go? We know it transferred from Erskine to me as he died. We know I still had it when it cured Jeffy of his autism. But when I came out of the coma in the hospital, it was gone. I can't cure anymore, Sylvia. The time comes and my touch is no different from anybody else's. So where'd it go? Where's the Dat-tay-vao now?"

"Who knows?" she said, angry that he was pushing her like this, forcing her to face the greatest fear of her life. "Maybe it died. Maybe it just evaporated."

"I don't believe that and neither do you. We've got to face it, Sylvia. When it left me it went to someone else. There were only three other people in the house that night. We know you don't have the Touch, and neither does Ba. That leaves only one other possibility."

She wrapped her hands around his head and pressed his face against her abdomen.

No! Please don't say it!

The possibility had kept her awake far into so many nights, and it skulked through her dreams when she finally did manage to drop off to sleep.

"You saw how Jeffy responded to Mr. Veilleur. He's attuned to him. So am I, I think. I just didn't happen into the living room earlier. I was drawn. And when I saw that old man I felt this burst of warmth inside me. I can only guess at what Jeffy felt."

She heard a noise over by the window and looked.

Jeffy was there, pressing his face and hands against the glass.

"I want to go with him, Mom. I want to Go!"

Bill let the Mercedes' diesel engine idle a bit till it was good and warm. He was disappointed and found it difficult to hide his irritation. This whole trip had been for nothing.

"Well," he said, glancing at Glaeken, "that was a fiasco."

The old man was staring out the side window at the house. He did not turn to Bill as he spoke.

"It didn't go quite as I'd hoped, but I wouldn't say it was a fiasco."

"How could it have gone worse? She kicked us out."

"I expect resistance from the people I must recruit. After all, I'm asking them to believe that human civilization, such as it is, is on the brink of annihilation, and to put their trust in me, a perfect stranger. That's a difficult pill to swallow. Mrs. Nash's dose is doubly bitter."

"I gather you think this Dat-tay-vao is in Jeffy."

"I know it is."

"Well, then, I think you've got a real selling job ahead of you. Because it's pretty clear that not only does that woman not believe it, she doesn't want to believe it."

"She will. As the Change progresses she will have no choice but to believe. And then she will bring me the boy."

"Let's hope she doesn't wait too long."

Glaeken nodded, still staring at the house. "Let's hope that the Dat-tay-vao and the other components are enough to make a difference."