the edge of some weird steel coffin. Peter's reaction. Starting her period early, only spotting here at the farm but bleeding like a stuck pig when she was close to it. Losing track of time, sleeping the clock all the way around. And don't forget ole Chuck the Woodchuck. Chuck had smelled gassy and decomposed, but there were no flies. No flies on Chuck, you might say.
None of that shit adds up to Shinola. I'll buy the possibility of a ship in the earth because no matter how crazy it sounds at first, the logic's still there. But there's no logic to the rest of this stuff. they're loose beads rolling around on
the table. Thread them onto a string and maybe I'll buy it - I'll think about it, anyway. Okay?
Her grandfather's voice again, that slow, authoritative voice, the only one in the house that had always been able to strike Anne silent as a kid.
Those things all happened after you found it, Bobbi. That's your string.
No. Not enough.
Easy enough to talk back to her grandfather now; the man was sixteen years in his grave. But it was her grandfather's voice that followed her down to sleep, nevertheless.
Leave it alone, Bobbi. It's dangerous.
- and you know that, too.
BOOK 1. THE SHIP IN THE EARTH Chapter 3. Peter Sees the Light
1
She thought she had seen something different about Peter, but hadn't been able to tell exactly what it was. When Anderson woke up the next morning (at a perfectly normal nine o'clock) she saw it almost at once.
She stood at the counter, pouring Gravy Train into Peter's old red dish. As always, Peter came strolling in at the sound. The Gravy Train was fairly new; up until this year the deal had always been Gaines Meal in the morning, half a can of Rival canned dogfood at night, and everything Pete could catch in the woods in between. Then Peter had stopped eating the Gaines Meal and it had taken Anderson almost a month to catch on - Peter wasn't bored; what remained of his teeth simply couldn't manage to crunch up the nuggets anymore. So now he got Gravy Train ... the equivalent, she supposed, of an old man's poached egg for breakfast.
She ran warm water over the Gravy Train nuggets, then stirred them with the old battered spoon she kept for the purpose. Soon the softening nuggets floated in a muddy liquid that actually did look like gravy ... either that, Anderson thought, or something out of a backed-up septic tank.
'Here you go,' she said, turning away from the sink. Peter was now in his accustomed spot on the linoleum - a polite distance away so Anderson wouldn't trip over him when she turned around - and thumping his tail. 'Hope you enjoy it. Myself, I think I'd ralph my g - '
That was where she stopped, bent over with Peter's red dish in her right hand, her hair falling over one eye. She brushed it away.
'Pete?' she heard herself say.
Peter looked at her quizzically for a moment, and then padded forward to get his morning kip. A moment later he was slurping it up enthusiastically.
Anderson straightened, looking at her dog, rather glad she could no longer see Peter's face. In her head her grandfather's voice told her again to leave it alone, it was dangerous, and did she need any more string for her beads?
There are about a million people in this country alone who would come running if they got wind of this kind of dangerous, Anderson thought. God knows how many in the rest of the world. And is that all it does? How is it on cancer, do you suppose?
All the strength suddenly ran out of her legs. She felt her way backward until she touched one of the kitchen chairs. She sat down and watched Peter eat.
The milky cataract which had covered his left eye was now half gone.
2
'I don't have the slightest idea,' the vet said that afternoon.
Anderson sat in the examining room's only chair while Peter sat obediently on the examining table. Anderson found herself remembering how she had dreaded the possibility of having to bring Peter to the vet's this summer ... only now it didn't look as if Peter would have to be put down after all.
'But it isn't just my imagination?' Anderson asked, and she supposed that what she really wanted was for Dr Etheridge to either confirm or confute the Anne in her head: It's what you deserve,