It is, Rose thought, bearing down even harder. Her tooth crept out of her mouth and skewered her lower lip. Blood poured down her chin and onto her top. She didn’t feel it any more than she felt the mountain breeze blowing through her masses of dark hair. It is me. You were my daddy, my barroom daddy, I made you empty your wallet for a pile of bad coke, and now it’s the morning after and I need to take my medicine. It’s what you wanted to do when you woke up next to that drunken whore in Wilmington, what you would have done if you’d had any balls, and her useless whelp of a son for good measure. Your father knew how to deal with stupid, disobedient women, and his father before him. Sometimes a woman just needs to take her medicine. She needs—
There was the roar of an approaching motor. It was as unimportant as the pain in her lip and the taste of blood in her mouth. The girl was choking, rattling. Then a thought as loud as a thunderclap exploded in her brain, a wounded roar:
(MY FATHER KNEW NOTHING!)
Rose was still trying to clear her mind of that shout when Billy Freeman’s pickup truck hit the base of the lookout, knocking her off her feet. Her hat went flying.
3
It wasn’t the apartment in Wilmington. It was his long-gone bedroom at the Overlook Hotel—the hub of the wheel. It wasn’t Deenie, the woman he’d awakened next to in that apartment, and it wasn’t Rose.
It was Abra. He had his hands around her neck and her eyes were bulging.
For a moment she started to change again as Rose tried to worm back inside him, feeding him her rage and augmenting his own. Then something happened, and she was gone. But she would be back.
Abra was coughing and staring at him. He would have expected shock, but for a girl who had almost been choked to death, she seemed oddly composed.
(well . . . we knew it wouldn’t be easy)
“I’m not my father!” Dan shouted at her. “I am not my father!”
“Probably that’s good,” Abra said. She actually smiled. “You’ve got one hell of a temper, Uncle Dan. I guess we really are related.”
“I almost killed you,” Dan said. “It’s enough. Time for you to get out. Go back to New Hampshire right now.”
She shook her head. “I’ll have to—for awhile, not long—but right now you need me.”
“Abra, that’s an order.”
She folded her arms and stood where she was on the cactus carpet.
“Ah, Christ.” He ran his hands through his hair. “You’re a piece of work.”
She reached out, took his hand. “We’re going to finish this together. Now come on. Let’s get out of this room. I don’t think I like it here, after all.”
Their fingers interlaced, and the room where he had lived for a time as a child dissolved.
4
Dan had time to register the hood of Billy’s pickup folded around one of the thick posts holding up the Roof O’ the World lookout tower, its busted radiator steaming. He saw the mannequin version of Abra hanging out the passenger-side window, with one plastic arm cocked jauntily behind her. He saw Billy himself trying to open the crumpled driver’s side door. Blood was running down one side of the old man’s face.
Something grabbed his head. Powerful hands twisting, attempting to snap his neck. Then Abra’s hands were there, tearing Rose’s away. She looked up. “You’ll have to do better than that, you cowardly old bitch.”
Rose stood at the railing, looking down and resetting her ugly hat at the correct angle. “Did you enjoy your uncle’s hands around your throat? How do you feel about him now?”
“That was you, not him.”
Rose grinned, her bloody mouth yawning. “Not at all, dear. I just made use of what he has inside. You should know, you’re just like him.”
She’s trying to distract us, Dan thought. But from what? That?
It was a small green building—maybe an outside bathroom, maybe a storage shed.
(can you)
He didn’t have to finish the thought. Abra turned toward the shed and stared at it. The padlock creaked, snapped, and fell into the grass. The door swung open. The shed was empty except for a few tools and an old lawnmower. Dan thought he’d felt something there, but it must only have been overwrought nerves. When they looked up again, Rose was no longer in view. She had retreated from the railing.
Billy finally managed to get the door of his truck open. He got out, staggered, managed to keep his feet. “Danny? You all right?” And then: “Is that Abra? Jesus, she’s hardly there.”
“Listen, Billy. Can you walk to the Lodge?”
“I think so. What about the people in there?”
“Gone. I think it would be a very good idea if you went now.”
Billy didn’t argue. He started down the slope, wallowing like a drunk. Dan pointed at the stairs leading to the lookout platform and raised questioning eyebrows. Abra shook her head
(it’s what she wants)
and began leading Dan around Roof O’ the World, to where they could see the very top of Rose’s stovepipe hat. This put the little equipment shed at their backs, but Dan thought nothing of this now that he had seen it was empty.
(Dan I have to go back now just for a minute I have to refresh my)
A picture in his mind: a field filled with sunflowers, all opening at once. She needed to take care of her physical being, and that was good. That was right.
(go)
(I’ll be back as soon as)
(go Abra I’ll be fine)
And with any luck, this would be over when she came back.
5
In Anniston, John Dalton and the Stones saw Abra draw a deep breath and open her eyes.
“Abra!” Lucy called. “Is it over?”
“Soon.”
“What’s that on your neck? Are those bruises?”