It was true, then. What he had seen a week ago was not an hallucination. She was changing. She was not human.
But surely Nancy must be able to see that?
They were squatting at the riverside now, Nancy sponging the Anna-thing’s forehead with river water, and where the water touched her skin the feverish blue light seemed to fade. Far off, there was the sound of motors revving as the tent revival ended.
Changing, Travis thought. Though not precisely the way he had expected.
He squinted at the faint figure of Anna at the riverbank, and ancient fears rose up in him.
If this goes on, he thought dazedly, then soon, soon, there would be nothing left of Anna Blaise at all.
Chapter Ten
Nancy was not sure precisely when or how the fear had descended on the town. She knew only that it had come. The Courier was full of frightening headlines. Doors were more often locked. She was apt to be scrutinized when she was out after dark. The Depression had deepened; in Idaho the farmers had set up blockades, dairy farmers had spilled their milk into the road rather than sell it for two cents a gallon. In Washington the Bonus Expeditionary Force had been routed by the Army. A murderous contagion was abroad in the land, and Haute Montagne was sealing its borders.
She had never felt more alone. This is what it means, Travis had told her, and it seemed like infinities ago. This is what it means to be a misfit.
Nancy lay on the rosette bedspread in her room. Her mother kept the small house meticulously neat. They were not rich, but her mother’s job at the bakery was much envied, and she earned enough to keep them. Until recently, too, there had been Nancy’s salary from the Times Square. But that was gone. Mr. O’Neill had not forgiven her for walking out before the dinner rush. Nor had her mother forgiven her for losing the job. It meant a degree of hardship.
Nancy had some money saved back. Listless, she felt under the mattress for the pastille can she kept there and when she found it she thumbed it open. The last of her own cash. A little over seven dollars. Saved for a rainy day. Well, surely that day had come? In fact, it was raining, a lackluster rain sliding down the fogged windows. She hated to go out, but she had to.
Anna needed food.
This thing Anna had said was going to happen, Nancy thought—I just wish it would. Now. Regardless of the consequences.
She was tired.
When she went downstairs her mother was in the parlor, upright in a cane-backed chair with her feet flat on the carpet. “Surely to God,” Faye Wilcox said dully, “you cannot be going out now.”
“Have to, Mama.”
“Need I ask where? Or why?”
Nancy said, “I thought you had a meeting.”
“Damn the meeting,” her mother said, and Nancy was shocked. Faye Wilcox did not curse, not ever. Cursing, she had told Nancy, was of the devil.
It occurred to her that maybe she was now the more religious of the two of them, in some strange way: at least, she prayed more often. Clipped, furtive, practical prayers. Please God, let me get through this. She believed in Anna Blaise… and was that not in itself a kind of religious faith?
“Mama, don’t make yourself late.”
“There is nothing for me there. Not anymore.” She focused a sullen look on Nancy. “You’ve seen to that.”
“Mama, don’t.”
“Don’t tell me what to do! Do I tell you what to do?”
“I don’t want to argue.”
“I try. God knows. But you have wandered so far. Is it that Fisher boy? They say he’s living like filth at the edge of town. Is that where you’re going—to wallow in his filth? Or have you gone back to Greg Morrow? That foulmouthed trash. A girl is known by the company she keeps. Lie down with pigs and rise up with pigs. If Martin were here—” “I wish he was,” Nancy said. “Why? So that he could see what you’ve made of yourself? My God! Are you proud of it?”
In truth, she remembered her father only dimly. A child’s memories: the smell of pipe tobacco and the rattle of newspapers. But he had been good, and kind, and he had understood when Nancy recoiled from her mother’s absolutism; he had been somebody to go to when she needed to be consoled. She had been almost ten years old the last time she saw him.
“I thank the Lord sometimes,” Nancy’s mother said, “that he is not alive to see this.”
“Mama, stop it. You know he’s not dead.”
“I know no such thing!” Her mother rose up from her straight-backed chair. She had lost weight these last weeks, though she was still immense; her skin hung in flaccid pockets. “He died, of course he died! Why else… why else would he?…”
Why else would he leave me! she meant. But in fact he had not died. Nancy remembered too well the arguments, her mother’s petulant impatience with his drinking, his job, his language: how he had broken at last on the reef of her righteousness; she remembered him saying a secret good-bye to her, hugging her and saying he loved her: “Nancy, girl, this town is too small to contain me.” The trains had carried him off.
She had been tear-stricken but proud. This town, yes, this high-collared and corsetted town (which had previously seemed so huge to her): why, yes, of course, no such town could hold him! She should have known. Heart and soul, he was too big for it.
The memory always brought back the tears. She blinked and said, “All right, Mama. He’s dead. All right. I know.”
“You have to go out?”
“Yes.”
“I shall pray for you.”
“Yes, Mama.”
The money was running out quickly. She stopped by the bakery and calculated whether she ought to buy a loaf of bread to go with the canned goods and the paraffin. Anna did not seem to mind the cold; fortunately, since the switchman’s shack afforded scant protection from it. When it rained, the roof leaked in three places.
Susan Farris was behind the counter at the bakery. Nancy stood at the door, uncertain. Susan had been a year ahead of her in high school and it was Susan who had systematically barred her from the company of the popular girls. Susan’s hatred for her had been in some way instinctive, seemed to spring from nowhere… though it did not help, perhaps, that Susan had already been employed part-time at the bakery under the supervision of Faye Wilcox. Nancy did not imagine that her mother was a particularly kind or forgiving employer.
She turned on her heel. But Susan had caught sight of her and hailed her back. “Well, Nancy.” Her lilting voice concealed a knife-edge of sarcasm. Susan’s eyes were very blue, her hair blond, her broad Scandinavian mouth scarlet with Tangee lipstick. “You want something today?”
“Loaf of bread,” Nancy said. “The day-old.”
“Come down to bakery bread, are we? I thought your mother did her own.”
“We ran short.”
Mechanically, Susan loaded a crusty loaf into a paper bag and rang up the sale on the thick black keys of the cash register. Nancy tendered a dollar bill from her pastille can and took the change from Susan’s perfectly manicured hand. She examined the clutch of coins.
“I’m short a dime,” she said.
Susan turned back to her, squinting. “What’s that?”
“The change. You owe me a dime. You gave me—”
“I gave you change from a dollar, Nancy dear, no more no less. I counted.”
Wearily, Nancy extended her hand. “Count again. You must have—”
But Susan knocked her hand away. The change spilled out over the peeling tiles of the bakery floor; a tarnished quarter ran under the display case. Nancy dived after it. “Goddamn you, Susan Farris!”
“Curse me all you want,” Susan said loftily. “I would be ashamed if I were you.”