"Come in the house," she ordered.
"Nope. That would look like I was scared, or ashamed. I'll wait for him here. You can go in if you want."
Swearing under her breath, Pat retreated, but only long enough to take the screaming teakettle from the stove and make herself a cup of coffee. She was just in time. As she crossed the yard, carrying her cup, she saw the Friedrichs family emerge from their back door and advance on Mark.
Kathy looked like a brand-new china doll, her sweep of shining hair tied back by a blue ribbon, her complexion perfect as plastic. She wore a blue-and-white-checked dress with a wide ruffle around the bottom of the skirt, and white sandals. Her father was dressed as impeccably, his brown slacks creased to knife sharpness, his dark hair brushed back from his high forehead. They looked like a family paying a polite social call on friendly neighbors.
Mark, still squatting, his scarred hands dangling, appeared much cooler than Pat felt. Josef's dark eyes met hers. His face was quite impassive, but his lower lip was definitely out of kilter.
He came to a stop a few feet from Mark and looked up at the tottering pyramid of wood and the boy atop it.
" 'Something there is,' " he asked, " 'that doesn't love a wall?' "
His tone was neutral. That was better than Pat had ex-pected, and she relaxed a little.
"I thought," Mark answered, "that it was time for walls to come down."
He meant every word of it, but he had enough ham in his soul to let the statement stand, in its theatrical glory, for the admiration of the hearers. Then he went on, more prosaically, but quite as intensely: "Mr. Friedrichs, if I said I was sorry about last night, that would be the understatement of the year. If you want to slug me, go ahead. You've got it coming."
Friedrichs' lip twitched.
"No, thank you. But I'll take a rain check. There may- no, there undoubtedly will-be occasions in the near future when I will feel like hitting you. Why don't you get down off that heap of trash and clean up? I'm taking your mother to lunch. You can come along if you wash."
Mark obeyed, sliding down the stack amid a clatter of collapsing scraps. Pat suspected the boy's movement had not been planned. She had seen his breath go out in a vehement whoosh of relief when Josef accepted his apology; his relaxation had probably destroyed his balance.
"I'll cook lunch," he offered, grinning from ear to ear. "We can talk better here."
"We can talk anywhere," Josef said. "I refuse to eat any more of your cooking, thanks just the same. Get moving."
Mark ran off, one hand clapped to the seat of his pants-to hide a rip or soothe a puncture, Pat wasn't sure which. After a half-defiant glance at her father, Kathy followed.
"What made you change your mind?" Pat asked. It was a beautiful day. A warm breeze brushed her cheek, the sun shone… and Josef was smiling. The expression was not as symmetrical as it had once been, but it was still pleasant.
"The wall, in part," he answered, glancing at the heaps of debris. "One can't help admiring the idea, and the energy. But there were other things Kathy told me about last night. I can't thank you-"
"If she told you I flung myself into the breach to defend her she's not entirely accurate," Pat admitted. "My impulse was to crawl under the bed with Jud. I don't know what made me move, but it certainly wasn't heroism."
"I won't argue with you. I'll even admit that your disgusting son is right again. Running away won't solve the problem."
"Come in and have some coffee while I change," Pat said.
"Why change? You look fine."
Pat looked down at her wet, dirty sneakers. Who was she to argue with him?
As they walked side by side, Josef matching his stride to hers, she knew the real reason for his change of heart. He was facing the same unpalatable fact she had already recognized: that physical removal from the scene of earlier attacks might not be enough to save Kathy. If the thing could cross eighty feet of ground, why not eight miles, or eight hundred?
III
Monday was not a popular day for lunching out. The Inn in Poolesville was almost empty, so they were able to talk without reserve. Not that Mark was bothered by eavesdroppers; his mother had to keep reminding him to lower his voice, and once or twice the waitress, overhearing a fragment of conversation, gave Mark a startled glance.
He came close to another fight with Josef when he insisted that Pat and Kathy recapitulate their experience, in harrowing detail. However, the majority consensus overruled Josef's objections. Mark cross-questioned the women mercilessly.
"You felt it too?" he asked Kathy. "The second ghost?"
"Sssh." Pat indicated the waitress, who had stopped dead in her tracks, balancing two bowls of soup.
Mark subsided until the woman had left, but then he returned to the question.
"Well, Kath?"
"I don't know," Kathy said uncertainly. "I felt something. Like a-a breath of cool air in a hot, closed-up place. I thought it was you." Her wide blue eyes admired Pat, who realized, with somewhat cynical amusement, that Kathy had added her to her list of Robbins heroes.
"It didn't feel like me," Pat admitted. "I was horrified when I realized I was actually walking toward the damned thing."
"Damned is right," Mark said. "Why are you all looking so depressed? Don't you realize this is the most encouraging thing that has happened?"
Pat looked at him in surprise. "I don't see why."
"I'm afraid I do." Josef put down his fork. "Mark is implying that some other entity has come to our aid. Hell," he added, with a flash of irritation, "it worries me, the way I can read your tricky little mind. If I thought my own mental processes resembled yours…"
"Jeez." The idea obviously appalled Mark as much as it did Josef. They gazed at one another in mutual consternation. Pat was tempted to laugh.
"Anyhow, you're right," Mark went on. "I think somebody else was there-somebody hostile to Peter, somebody who wants to help."
"We will now take a poll on the identity of that somebody," Josef said sarcastically. "Pat?"
"How on earth should I know?"
"The brother, maybe," Kathy offered. "Eddie."
"You're just saying that because you think he's kind of cute," Mark said crushingly. "It wasn't Edward."
"You know what makes this whole thing unreal?" Pat demanded. "It isn't the idea of spirits or supernatural attack; it's the way you all bicker and quarrel, like twelve-year-olds."
"You mean we ought to take it with deadly seriousness?" Josef smiled at her. "That isn't the way people behave, Pat. Only Socrates could conduct a dialogue on the subject of his own death. Besides, the whole situation is so unbelievable I find myself relapsing into trivia as a release from intolerable stress. One can't live at the height of tension without some break now and then."
"Hmph," Pat said.
"You're avoiding the question," Mark said. "Who do you think the second-"
Pat waved him to silence in time to spare the sensibilities of the waitress, who was bringing their entrees. When the woman had retreated, rather more hastily than she had come, Pat said,
"You obviously think you know, Mark. Who?"
"Mrs. Bates, of course. Louisa."
They considered the suggestion-if Mark's dogmatic statement could be called that. As was to be expected, Kathy was the first convert.
"Sure, that makes sense," she exclaimed.
"A nice, motherly ghost," Pat murmured. "I suppose one aging mom would attract another's spirit…"
The irony with which she infused this comment was lost on Mark-and on Kathy, who nodded approvingly. Pat realized that they were now taking for granted a point that had appalled them when it first arose-the identification of Kathy with Susan Bates. Apparently Mark had discussed this with the girl, and helped her to accept it without distress.