The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,210

So that is where I’m going to go now.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you, Michael. I’m sorry to have disturbed you in your important work.”

“It’s no problem.”

And with that, Gloria Patal had led her husband from the room, taking him, presumably, back to bed to finish whatever it was he’d started in his restless, dreaming mind.

Now, what to make of that? When Michael had told Elton about it the next morning, all he’d said was, “I guess it’s getting to him like the rest of us.” And when Michael had said, “What it? What do you mean by it?” Elton had said nothing at all; he seemed to have no answer.

Brood, brood, brood—Sara was right; he spent far too much time with his head stuck down the hole of worry. The signal was between cycles; he’d have to wait another forty minutes to listen to it again. With nothing else to occupy his mind, he called up the battery monitors on the screen, hoping for good news, not finding it. Bell plus two, a hard wind blowing all day through the pass, and the cells were below 50 percent already.

He left Elton in the hut and went to take a walk, to clear his mind. The signal: 1,432 megahertz. It meant something, but what? There was the obvious thing, namely that the numbers were the first four positive integers in a repeating pattern: 1432143214321432 and so on, the 1 closing out the sequence, which reloaded with the 4. Interesting, and probably just a coincidence, but that was the thing about the ghost signal: nothing about it felt like a coincidence.

He came to the Sunspot, where often there would be people milling about well into the night. He blinked into the light. A single figure was sitting at the base of the Stone, dark hair tumbling over her folded arms, which rested on top of her knees. Mausami.

Michael cleared his throat to alert her of his approach. But as he neared, she glanced his way with only passing curiosity. Her meaning was clear: she was alone and wanted to stay that way. But Michael had been in the hut for hours—Elton hardly counted—chasing ghosts in the dark, and was more than willing to risk a little rejection for even a few meager crumbs of company.

“Hey.” He was standing above her. “Would it be okay if I sat?”

She lifted her face then. He saw that her cheeks were streaked with tears.

“Sorry,” Michael said. “I can go.”

But she shook her head. “It’s all right. Sit if you want.”

Which he did. It was awkward, because the only way to sit properly was to take a place beside her, their shoulders practically touching, his back braced by the Stone as hers was. He was beginning to think this hadn’t been such a great idea after all, especially as the silence lengthened. He realized that by staying he had tacitly agreed to ask what was bothering her, even, perhaps, to find the right words to comfort her. He knew that being pregnant could make women act moodily, not that they weren’t moody to begin with, their behavior at any given moment as changeable as the four winds. Sara made sense to him most of the time, but that was only because she was his sister and he was used to her.

“I heard the news. I guess, congratulations?”

She wiped her eyes with her fingertips. Her nose was running, but he didn’t have a rag to offer her. “Thanks.”

“Does Galen know you’re out here?”

She gave a dismal laugh. “No, Galen does not.”

Which made him think that what was bothering her wasn’t just a mood at all. She had come to visit the Stone because of Theo; her tears were for him.

“I just … ” But he couldn’t find the words. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry. We were friends too.”

She did something that surprised him then. Mausami placed her hand on top of his, twining their fingers together where they rested at the top of his knee. “Thank you, Michael. People don’t give you enough credit, I don’t think. That was exactly the right thing to say.”

For a while they sat without speaking. Mausami didn’t withdraw her hand but left it where it was. It was strange—not until this moment had Michael truly felt Theo’s absence. He felt sad, but something else, too. He felt alone. He wanted to say something, to put this feeling into words. But before he could, two more figures appeared at the far end of the