said. And yes, the idea that the thing in the earth was some sort of spaceship certainly was mad ... but was playing with the possibility, at least until it was disproven, mad? Anne would think so, but Anderson did not. Nothing wrong with keeping an open mind.
Yet the speed with which the possibility had occurred to her ...
She got up and went inside. Last time she had fooled with that thing in the woods, she had slept for twelve hours. She wondered if she could expect a similar sleep-marathon tonight. She felt almost tired enough to sleep twelve hours, God knew.
Leave it alone, Bobbi. It's dangerous.
But she wouldn't, she thought, pulling off her OPUS FOR PRESIDENT T-shirt. Not just yet.
The trouble with living alone, she had discovered - and the reason why most people she knew didn't like to be alone even for a little while - was those voices from the right side of the brain. The longer you lived alone, the louder and more clearly they spoke. As the yardsticks of rationality began to shrink in the silence, those right-brain voices did not Just request attention but demanded it. It was easy to become frightened of them, to think they meant madness after all.
Anne would sure think they did, Bobbi thought, climbing into bed. The lamp cast a clean and comforting circle of light on the counterpane, but she left the thesis she'd been reading on the floor. She kept expecting the doleful cramps that usually accompanied her occasional early and heavy menstrual flow to begin, but so far they hadn't. Not that she was anxious for them to put in an appearance, you should understand.
She crossed her hands behind her head and looked at the ceiling.
No, you're not crazy at all, Bobbi, she thought. You think Gard's getting wiggy but you're perfectly all right - isn't that also a sign that you're wobbling?
There's even a name for it ... denial and substitution. 'I'm all right, it's the world that's crazy.'
All true. But she still felt firmly in control of herself, and sure of one thing: she was saner in Haven than she had been in Cleaves Mills, and much saner than she had been in Utica. A few more years in Utica, a few more years around sister Anne, and she would have been as mad as a hatter. Anderson believed Anne actually saw driving her close relatives crazy as part of her - her job? No, nothing so mundane. As part of her sacred mission in life.
She knew what was really troubling her, and it wasn't the speed with which the possibility of what the thing might be had occurred to her. It was the feeling of certainty. She would keep an open mind, but the struggle would be to keep it open in favor of what Anne would call 'sanity.' Because she knew what she had found, and it filled her with fear and awe and a restless, moving excitement.
See, Anne, ole Bobbi didn't move up to Sticksville and go crazy; ole Bobbi moved up here and went sane. Insanity is limiting possibilities, Anne, can you dig it? Insanity is refusing to go down certain paths of speculation even though the logic is there ... like a token for the turnstile. See what I mean? No? Of course you don't. You don't and you never did. Then go away, Anne. Stay in Utica and grind your teeth in your sleep until there's nothing left of them, make whoever is mad enough to stay within range of your voice crazy, be my guest, but stay out of my head.
The thing in the earth was a ship from space.
There. It was out. No more bullshit. Never mind Anne, never mind the Lubbock Lights or how the Air Force had closed its file on flying saucers. Never mind the chariots of the gods, or the Bermuda Triangle, or how Elijah was drawn up to heaven in a wheel of fire. Never mind any of it - her heart knew what her heart knew. It was a ship, and it had either landed or crash-landed a long time ago maybe millions of years ago.
God!
She lay in bed, hands behind her head. She was calm enough, but her heart was beating fast, fast, fast.
Then another voice, and this was the voice of her dead grandfather, repeating something Anne's voice had said earlier.
Leave it alone, Bobbi. It's dangerous.
That momentary vibration. Her earlier premonition, suffocating and positive, that she had found