"Like those people who try to get their kids into college-prep nursery schools?"
"I guess."
"Or flashcards. They make their babies learn words from flashcards."
"She got the kid to call things it didn't have the brains to control. I don't care how smart a one-year-old is, Tin, walking and talking and all, it doesn't know how to deal with something as old as life itself. It came and the baby was gone, just hanging on to its own body like a passenger hanging from the back of the bus, begging the driver not to close the door."
"How did you learn all this, if the old lady doesn't know it?"
"After the passenger's been dragged long enough, he starts begging the driver to close it. Cut him loose. Even if it means he crashes onto the pavement."
"You found baby Paulie."
"I didn't like anybody else in that house. Baby Paulie was lonely and scared. I didn't realize how he was connected until now."
"So he was still there."
"Only sort of. Mrs. Tyler wasn't wrong. Best thing she could have done was cut him loose from a body he'd never have the use of again. If only she'd actually done it, instead of leaving him lingering, attached to that treasure box. But of course now it's too late. When that box opens, somebody's going to find themselves looking down the throat of the beast. And Paulie will still be along for the ride, as will the person the beast devours."
"Me."
"I hope not," said Lizzy. "Please don't."
"So I should run."
"I don't know. Maybe you should stay and win."
"Can I?"
"These witches are powerful, but you're not nothing. You've got some strength in you. And there's something else, too. You aren't trying to get something out of this."
"What, survival is nothing?"
"No, you don't even really care about that, either. One thing's for sure about all these guys, the witches and the beast. They want something. They're so hungry it hurts to be around them. They think that being hungry is the same as being strong. So the less you want, the weaker you look. Maybe that'll protect you."
"How hungry was Paulie when the beast took him?"
"Very, very hungry. Babies are nothing but hunger, and his mother was teaching him what to be hungry for. You can bet that even if the beast hadn't come, he would have grown up to be a monster."
Quentin laughed. "Yeah, I've seen children like that."
"No joke, Quentin. Monsters aren't born, they're made. By monster parents, or they make themselves by their own desires. But they don't come out of the womb deformed. There's always a path that leads away, even if they don't take it."
"Our parents weren't perfect either, Lizzy."
"But they were good people, and we knew that, we saw it. That's enough, if the child also wants to be good."
"And you learned all this by being dead?"
"No, Quentin. I learned all this by looking into your memories and seeing what you've learned without even realizing you learned it."
"What, is this like Madeleine? Am I talking to myself again?"
"Ever since I died, Quentin, when you talk to yourself you're talking to me. I'm in there. I'm part of you. You didn't have to steal some relic of mine, the way those witches do. I gave you my heart long before they cut it out of me. Along with my kidneys and my corneas."
"Nowadays they take livers and lungs, too."
"Car parts, body parts—automobile accidents are the great growth industry of America."
"I know you got that out of my head," said Quentin. "I read that somewhere."
"Quentin, you are hungry for something."
"What?"
"For a good life. For a life worth living."
"Sure I am. Who isn't?"
"But what if the price of that was killing somebody else?"
"Come on, Lizzy."
"Sometimes good people have to do terrible things. Mrs. Tyler had to decide what to do when the beast took her baby, no matter whose fault it was that it got invited in. Mom and Dad had to decide to let them cut me apart and kill my body so some good use could come from it."
"I've never forgiven them for that, either."
"They've never forgiven themselves, either. But they went on living, like Mrs. Tyler goes on living. Because that's what good people do. They make the terrible choices sometimes, and then they live with the results, because they did right, or at least the closest thing to a right choice that they could find."
"So who are you telling me to kill?"
"The beast, Quentin."
"But you said when the box opens..."
"Find the beast and kill it. Send it back out into darkness."
"It'll just find somewhere else to come in again."
"Maybe not for a long time. And then someone else will have to find it and kill it. But you will have done your part here and now."
"Lizzy, I've never even hit anybody in anger in my life."
"Don't be angry now, either. No matter who it is, no matter what they've done to you. Even the beast itself—don't be angry, don't be hungry for revenge. Because if it takes you down its throat, then you'll be the one begging for someone to cut you free."
"Like you begged me."
She shrugged. "Look. Baltimore signs. That's close to Washington, right?"
"Like halfway from Philadelphia, maybe. With this snow I may never get there. I'm insane to be pushing on through like this."
"No, you're close now. You're going to make it."
"Lizzy, why can't you stay with me all the time? Just to talk to? Think what we could do together. The life we could live!"
"Nothing you do can turn it into a life for me. And if I'm here with you, it won't be a life for you, either. You called to me a lot, after that first year, but you didn't see me showing up, did you? Not till you were in real trouble. The rest of the time I left you alone."
"I didn't want you to leave me alone, Lizzy."
"Sometimes we get what we don't want."
It was hard to see, his eyes awash with tears of longing and regret. "Lizzy, I'm scared."
"Good idea."
"And it hurts. Losing you. Losing her."
"Take an aspirin," said Lizzy. She always used to say that when he complained.
"We take Tylenol now. And whatever it is. Advil."
She joined in the old game. "Excedrin. Anacin."
"Bufferin. Goodey's Headache Powders. Lizzy, don't leave me, please."
In that moment she was gone. He paid the toll and went down into the tunnel that would take him under Baltimore. Somewhere on the other side of the tunnel was the witch who had sent Madeleine to him, the witch who had led him to the treasure box, the witch who wanted to feed him to the beast.
16. The User
It was just before dawn when he got onto the belt-way around Washington. With the blizzard there was so little traffic that he made better time than usual. The snow made everything feel silent, though Quentin knew that inside the car the noise was the same as always. He rounded a curve and the Mormon temple loomed, brightly lit as always, but even more dreamlike and fantastic in the falling snow. Right where the temple looked most like a Disneyland castle, someone had written in huge letters on an overpass Surrender Dorothy! The letters had been plastered over, but patches of lighter gray marked where they had been, which made him think of the caption and smile.
Then he thought of the Wicked Witch of the West flying over Oz to write those words in the sky and the smile faded. No flying broomsticks for these witches. But still they flew. Who knew how many witches were observing him here in this car as he drove? Hi, Rowena. Howdy, Mrs. Tyler. Showing me off to the coven? Look, here's the boy! You should have seen him bouncing around with that succubus we sent him! Married her, poor sap! Can you believe it?