She shuddered. "This isn't funny, Mr. Fears," she said.
"You asked for the truth," said Quentin. "But when I tell you the truth, I stop being Quentin and become Mr. Fears again."
"I don't believe in ghost stories."
"That's good," said Quentin, "because my wife's not dead and neither is Mrs. Tyler."
Sally looked at him for a long moment, her expression shifting among conflicting emotions. Then, abruptly, she reached for the knob and drew the door open.
Bolt practically fell into the room. He laughed nervously as he recovered his balance. "I was just coming in."
"You were listening at the door," said Quentin.
"I thought it was funny," said Bolt, "you trying to convince her of some idea that doesn't fit into her narrow little nurseview of the universe."
Quentin wanted to deck him. "Of course she doesn't believe me. It isn't believable."
"So why did you tell her? You had her eating out of your hand."
Quentin felt unutterable contempt for Bolt. Where was the man he thought he knew back in Mixinack? Did he really think that the conversation between him and Sally was nothing but manipulation? "Let's get out of here," said Quentin.
"About damn time," said Bolt. He shot Sannazzaro a triumphant glance. Quentin took his arm and almost dragged him out of the room.
"What's the rush?" said Bolt. "You were sure taking your time before."
"For a while today I thought I liked you," said Quentin. "But I was wrong."
"Ah, the rest home witch has enchanted you, has she?"
Instead of jabbing an elbow into his mouth, Quentin strode on ahead.
"Mr. Fears! Quentin! Wait!"
He stopped and turned. Sally Sannazzaro had rushed into the hall from Mrs. Tyler's room.
"Quentin, she spoke! She told me to bring you back!"
Quentin turned in surprise to look at Bolt. Bolt looked angry, even ashamed. "She's lying," he whispered. "The old lady is brain dead. She's a vegetable."
"Bolt, I know that she's not, and so do you."
"She's dead," muttered Bolt. And he didn't come with Quentin back up the corridor.
Quentin paused in the doorway to meet Sally's gaze. "I wasn't lying, Sally," he said.
"I trust Mrs. Tyler as a judge of character," she answered softly. "Apparently you have the gift of bringing people back from the dead."
"Wouldn't that be nice."
"I'll leave you alone with her, but don't let Bolt in here, Quentin."
"I won't."
Then he went inside and closed the door behind him. Mrs. Tyler turned her head and looked at him. "Thank you for coming," she whispered.
14. Old Lady Tyler
Her voice was husky from long disuse. When she gestured with her hand it seemed almost translucent in its frailty. She tried to roll over, and it looked as if her body was too heavy for anything to move it; then he helped her roll on her side, to face his chair, and he could feel how light she was, as if she had been shaped of air. Had she no bones? What was it that tied a creature so insubstantial to the earth? Gravity could not possibly hold her here.
"You've borne up well," she said.
He shook his head. "I've hardly been eating the last few days."
"Keep up your strength."
He didn't need motherly advice from this woman. He needed answers. But now that she was speaking to him, he couldn't think of what to ask.
"Why didn't you speak till now?"
"It's not safe for me to stay in my body," she said. "Eternal vigilance."
"That's the price of liberty, as I recall," said Quentin. "You don't look free to me."
"But I'm not dead."
"Who wants to kill you?"
"Rowena."
"Your own daughter?"
"We had a falling-out."
"I guess."
"She picked you, not me," said Mrs. Tyler.
"Picked me for what?" asked Quentin. "Why can't she just open the treasure box?"
"It's evil of her to call it that."
"What is it, then?"
"A coffin. A prison. The gate of hell."
"Yeah, I'm sure I would have opened it for her if she called it that."
"You must never, never open the box."
"Was it you that stopped me before?"
"I helped you stop."
"But I was trying to open it."
"You thought you were. But a wiser part of you was afraid to open it. A wiser part of you was already learning not to trust the succubus."
Until this moment it had not occurred to Quentin that that's what Madeleine had been all along. A succubus. An evil spirit sent to seduce a man in his sleep. He knew of the myths and legends, but he'd never heard of any stories in which the succubus stayed around long enough to marry the man.
"What's in the box?" he asked.
"Pray to God that you never have to know."
"That's not an answer."
"I didn't bring you here to answer your questions. You don't know enough to ask the questions that matter. And I can't stay long inside my body. It's too dangerous. Too much can happen while I'm not watching."
"All right, tell me what I need to know."
"Rowena keeps my body locked down on this bed, and when I send my spirit wandering, she shadows me. Wherever I roam, there she is, blocking me from this, blocking me from that. I try to watch her closely, but I didn't even know you existed until the succubus brought you to the house and she started raising the dead."
"Why me?" Quentin asked. "Do you know why?"
"All I can do is guess. Everything depends on how much she knows. Rowena was such a rebellious child. She hated me as soon as she was old enough to pluck memories out of my mind. She didn't understand what happened, and she wouldn't let me explain. She told me my mind was too loathsome for her ever to want to enter it again."
Daughters entering their mothers' minds. "What are you people?"
"Oh, Quentin, how dim are you really? We're witches. The real ones, not the silly ignorant women who prance naked and try to turn our affliction into a mystical religion. It's not something you can choose. Most people have only the faintest touch of the power. A glimmer now and then, that's all they get of the other side. But we grow up looking at the spirit as well as the body. We can see, we can touch everyone, both spirit and body. We hear words spoken aloud, but at the same time we can also hear the thoughts behind them. We can walk on our legs, but we can also send our spark out flying. We can see the living, but we can also see the dead, and when we know where they're anchored we can call them and make them come to us."
Quentin thought back to Sunday school, to the one story from the Bible that had a witch in it. The witch of Endor.
"That's right," said Mrs. Tyler. "It always bothers Christians and Jews that their scripture has such a tale in it. How could a woman who had chosen evil have the power to call a great prophet back from the dead? So they say it was fakery. Or it was Satan, pretending to be Samuel. But we know what she did and how she did it. All the dead are within reach. Saul knew Samuel. He must have had some relic of the old prophet—some of his hair. Maybe he even dug into his grave and took a piece of him. Brought it to the witch, and she used it to call him, and Samuel spoke to Saul through her. Maybe Saul was like you—he could see a little, if he really tried. It happened then, and that's how it happens now. That's how she called Jude and poor Simon and Stephen and foolish old Minerva."