her neck and the sag of flesh which had begun to hang from her upper arms.
She had been crying this morning and was radiantly happy tonight, but Ralph knew that couldn't account for all the changes he saw.
"I know what you're looking at," Lois said. "It's spooky, isn't it?
I mean, it solves the question of whether or not all this has just been in our minds, but it's still spooky. We've found the Fountain of Youth.
Forget Florida; it was right here in Derry, all along."
"We've found it?"
For a moment she only looked surprised... and a little wary, as if she suspected he was teasing her, having her on. Of treating her as "Our Lois." Then she reached across the table and squeezed his hand.
"Go in the bathroom. Take a look at yourself."
"I know what I look like. Hell, I just finished shaving. Took my time over it, too."
She nodded. "You did a fine job, Ralph... but this isn't about your five o'clock shadow. Just look at yourself."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes," she said firmly. "I am."
He had almost gotten to the door when she said, "You didn't just shave; you changed your shirt, too. That's good. I didn't like to say anything, but that plaid one was ripped."
"Was it?" Ralph asked. His back was to her, so she couldn't see his smile. "I didn't notice."
He stood with his hands braced on the bathroom sink, looking into his own face, for a good two minutes. It took him that long to admit to himself that he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing.
The streaks of black, lustrous as crow feathers, which had returned to his hair were amazing, and so was the disappearance of the ugly pouches beneath his eyes, but the thing he could not seem to take his eyes away from was the way the lines and deep cracks had disappeared from his lips. It was a small thing... but it was also an enormous thing. It was the mouth of a young man. And...
Abruptly, Ralph ran a finger into his mouth, along the right-hand line of his lower teeth. He couldn't be entirely positive, but it seemed to him that they were longer, as if some of the wear had been rolled back.
"Holy shit," Ralph murmured, and his mind returned to that sweltering day last summer when he had confronted Ed Deepneau on his lawn. Ed had first told him to drag up a rock and then confided in him that Derry had been invaded by sinister, baby-killing creatures.
Life-stealing creatures. All lines afforce have begun to converge here, Ed had told him. I know how difficult that is to believe, but it's true.
Ralph was finding it less difficult to believe all the time. What was getting harder to believe was the idea that Ed was mad.
"If this doesn't stop," Lois said from the doorway, startling him, we're going to have to get married and leave town, Ralph. Simone and Mina could not-literally could not-take their eyes off me. I made a lot of glib talk about some new makeup I'd gotten out at the mall, but they didn't swallow it. A man would, but a woman knows what makeup can do. And what it can't."
They walked back to the kitchen, and although the auras were gone again for the time being, Ralph discovered he could see one anyway: a blush rising out of the collar of Lois's white silk blouse.
"Finally I told them the only thing they would believe."
"What was that?" Ralph asked.
"I said I'd met a man." She hesitated, and then, as the rising blood reached her cheeks and stained them pink, she plunged. "And had fallen in love with him."
He touched her arm and turned her toward him. He looked at the small, clean crease in the bend of her elbow and thought how much he would like to touch it with his mouth. Or the tip of his tongue, perhaps. Then he raised his eyes to look at her. "And was it true?"
She looked back with eyes that were all hope and candor. "I think so," she said in a small, clear voice, "but everything's so strange now.
All I know for sure is that I want it to be true. I want a friend. I've been frightened and unhappy and lonely for quite awhile now. The loneliness is the worst part of getting old, I think-not the aches and pains, not the cranky bowels or the way you lose your breath after climbing a flight