Sure would be in a fix if Harold picked right now to come back, she thought. The idea made her look suddenly over her shoulder. She half expected to see Harold standing by the door which led into the living room, grinning at her. There was no one there, but her heart had begun to knock unpleasantly against her ribcage.

There was nothing in the kitchen, so she went into the living room.

It was dark, so dark it made her uneasy. Harold not only kept his doors locked, he kept his shades pulled. Again she felt as if she were witnessing an unconscious outward manifestation of Harold’s personality. Why would anyone keep their shades pulled down in a small city where that was the way the living came to know and mark the houses of the dead?

The living room, like the kitchen, was astringently neat, but the furniture was stodgy and a little seedy-looking. The room’s nicest feature was the fireplace, a huge stone job with a hearth wide enough to sit on. She did sit down for a moment, looking around thoughtfully. As she shifted, she felt a loose hearthstone under her fanny, and she was about to get up and look at it when someone knocked on the door.

Fear drifted down on her like a smothering weight of feathers. She was paralyzed with sudden terror. Her breath stopped, and she would not be aware until later that she had wet herself a little.

The knock came again, half a dozen quick, firm raps.

My God, she thought. The shades are down at least, thank heaven for that.

That thought was followed by a sudden cold certainty that she had left her bike out where anyone could see it. Had she? She tried desperately to think, but for a long moment she could summon nothing to mind except a babble of gibberish that was unsettlingly familiar: Before removing the mote from thy neighbor’s eye, remove the pie from thine own —

The knock came again, and a woman’s voice: “Anybody home?”

Fran sat stockstill. She suddenly remembered that she had parked her bike around back, under Harold’s clothesline. Not visible from the front of the house. But if Harold’s visitor decided to try the back door—

The knob of the front door—Frannie could see it down the short length of hall—began to turn back and forth in frustrated half-circles.

Whoever she is, I hope she’s no better at locks than I am, Frannie thought, and then had to squeeze both hands over her mouth to stop an insane bray of laughter. That was when she looked down at her cotton slacks and saw how badly she had been frightened. At least she didn’t scare the shit out of me, Fran thought. At least, not yet. The laughter bubbled up again, hysterical and frightened, just below the surface.

Then, with an indescribable sense of relief, she heard footfalls clicking away from the door and down Harold’s concrete path.

What Fran did next she did with no conscious decision at all. She ran quietly down the hall to the front door and put her eye to the small crack between the shade and the edge of the window. She saw a woman with long dark hair that was streaked with white. She climbed onto a small Vespa motorscooter that was parked at the curb. As the motor burped into life, she tossed her hair back and clipped it.

It’s the Cross woman—the one who came over with Larry Underwood! Does she know Harold?

Then Nadine had the scooter in gear. She started off with a little jerk and was soon out of sight. Fran uttered a huge sigh, and her legs turned to water. She opened her mouth to let out the laugh that had been bubbling below the surface, knowing already how it would sound—shaky and relieved. Instead, she burst into tears.

Five minutes later, too nervous now to search any further, she was boosting herself back through the cellar window from the seat of a wicker chair she had pulled over. Once out, she was able to push the chair far enough so that it wouldn’t be obvious someone had used it to climb out. It was still out of position, but people rarely noticed things like that… and it didn’t look as if Harold used the basement at all, except to store his Coca-Cola.

She reclosed the window and got her bike. She still felt weak and stunned and a little nauseated from her scare. At least my pants are drying, she thought. Next time you go housebreaking, Frances Rebecca, remember to wear your continence pants.

She pedaled out of Harold’s yard and left Arapahoe as soon as she could, coming back to the downtown area on Canyon Boulevard. She was back in her own apartment fifteen minutes later.

The place was utterly silent.

She opened her diary and looked down at the muddy chocolate fingerprint and wondered where Stu was.

She wondered if Harold was with him.

Oh Stu please come home. I need you.

After lunch, Stu had left Glen and had come home. He had been sitting blankly in the living room, wondering where Mother Abagail was and also wondering if Nick and Glen could possibly be right about just letting the matter be, when there was a knock.

“Stu?” Ralph Brentner called. “Hello, Stu, you home?”

Harold Lauder was with him. Harold’s smile was muted today but not entirely gone; he looked like a jolly mourner trying to be serious for the graveside service.

Ralph, heartsick over Mother Abagail’s disappearance, had met Harold half an hour ago, Harold being on his way home after helping with a water-hauling party at Boulder Creek. Ralph liked Harold, who always seemed to have time to listen and commiserate with whoever had a sad tale to tell… and Harold never seemed to want anything in return. Ralph had poured out the whole story of Mother Abagail’s disappearance, including his fears that she might suffer a heart attack or break one of her brittle bones or die of exposure if she stayed out overnight.

“And you know it showers just about every damn afternoon,” Ralph finished as Stu poured coffee. “If she gets soaked, she’d be sure to take a cold. Then what? Pneumonia, I guess.”

“What can we do about it?” Stu asked them. “We can’t force her to come back if she doesn’t want to.”

“Well, no,” Ralph conceded. “But Harold had a real good idea.”

Stu’s eyes shifted. “How you doing, Harold?”

“Pretty good. You?”

“Fine.”

“And Fran? You watching out for her?” Harold’s eyes didn’t waver from Stu’s, and they kept their slightly humorous, pleasant light, but Stu had a momentary feeling that Harold’s smiling eyes were like sunshine on the water of Brakeman’s Quarry back home—the water looked so pleasant, but it went down and down to black depths where the sun had never reached, and four boys had lost their lives in pleasant-looking Brakeman’s Quarry over the years.

“As best I can,” he said. “What’s your thought, Harold?”

“Well, look. I see Nick’s point. Glen’s, too. They recognize that the Free Zone sees Mother Abagail as a theocratic symbol… and they’re pretty close to speaking for the Zone now, aren’t they?”

Stu sipped his coffee. “What do you mean, ‘theocratic symbol’?”

“I’d call it an earthly symbol of a covenant made with God,” Harold said, and his eyes veiled a little. “Like Holy Communion, or the Sacred Cows of India.”

Stu kindled a little at that. “Yeah, pretty good. Those cows… they let em walk the streets and cause traffic jams, right? They can go in and out of the stores, or decide to leave town altogether.”

“Yes,” Harold agreed. “But most of those cows are sick, Stu. They’re always near the point of starvation. Some are tubercular. And all because they’re an aggregate symbol. The people are convinced God will take care of them, just as our people are convinced God will take care of Mother Abagail. But I have my own doubts about a God that says it’s right to let a poor dumb cow wander around in pain.”

Ralph looked momentarily uncomfortable, and Stu knew what he was feeling. He felt it himself, and it gave him a way to measure how he felt about Mother Abagail himself. He felt that Harold was edging into blasphemy.