Powys looked over his shoulder, half-expecting to see the thing sprouting from the earth behind him.
Fay said, 'I have to say it didn't occur to me for quite a while that what she… what Jean was doing at the stone was trying to generate – in me – enough negative energy for him – Andy, Wort, whatever – to make some kind of final leap. To save himself.. . itself.'
'It occurred to me,' Powys said.
'Well, it would, wouldn't it. You're a clever person. And you know what we thinks about clever people yereabouts.'
Arnold limped towards them and fell over. He stood again and shook himself, exasperated.
Fay Morrison and Joe Powys looked at each other. Eyebrows were raised.
Neither of them had said a word about Arnold's remarkable turns of speed at critical moments. One day, Fay thought, she'd dare to mention that strange, glowing, phantom fourth leg. But not yet.
'He's a dowser's dog,' Joe said laconically.
As she bent down to pick up the dog, a disturbing thought struck her. 'What about the girl… Tessa?'
'She should really be taken away,' Joe said, 'and put through some kind of psychic readjustment programme. Except they probably don't exist, so she'll go on causing minor havoc, until she grows up and turns into something even nastier. Like Jean.'
'Is there nothing anyone can do?'
'World's full of them,' Powys said. 'Crybbe'll always attract them, and sometimes it'll manufacture its own.'
'We can't just leave it.'
'We bloody can.'
'Yes,' Fay said. 'I suppose we can.'
And she turned her back on the town, albeit with an uncomfortable feeling that one day they might feel they had to come back.
They got into the car. They were going to Titley, to Henry Kettle's cottage, which Joe had said was the best sanctuary he could think of. For a few weeks at least, he said, there'd be danger of residual nasties from Crybbe clinging to them. Grace type things.
Fay said, 'Can we handle that?'
'Count on it,' Joe Powys said grimly.
From the back seat, Rasputin the cat mewed in protest at his confinement in the laundry basket.
Fay said, 'When you said you, er, needed me… what did you mean exactly?'
'I don't know. It just came out. Heat of the moment.'
He turned on the engine.
'However.. Joe said, looking straight ahead through the windscreen. 'I know what I'd mean if I were to say it now.'
Fay smiled. 'What did the police say to you?'
They said, "Don't leave town." '
Joe Powys grinned and floored the accelerator.