Treasure Box Page 0,47

was an engraved wooden box that someone, for some reason, needed his help to open up.

He turned and headed for the door leading to the parlor. But as he approached it, two bright white letters appeared on the door.

NO

"I'm not making this up," he whispered to himself. The letters disappeared. He took another step toward the door.

More letters appeared, taster this time, smaller, each word taking the place of the one before.

DON'T

COME

IN

GET

OUT

GET

OUT

DEATH

DEATH

LIVES

HERE

He backed away from the door, looked around at the gloomy walls. In the cold dark fireplace something flickered. A light. He did not move closer; rather he recoiled from it, fearing what it would be. Yet he couldn't take his eyes away.

A rat emerged and perched atop the pile of ancient lumber stacked there. It looked him piercingly in the eye. As Grandmother had done. It opened its mouth.

"Find me," it said.

This was not madness, Quentin knew that now. It was not his mind creating a false reality. On the contrary, his mind was correctly apprehending that the rules that he had always believed reality to be governed by did not apply in this house. Something had made a rat speak, had made words appear on a door to a room he must not enter. Something had led him through this house in the dark. Something had made him believe that the woman he loved was at his side as he walked alone along the bluffs. Someone had introduced him to a group of dead people at breakfast and convinced him that he was eating the best food he had ever tasted in his life, while leaving his stomach empty.

All this he understood rationally. But his body was not rational. His heart was pounding, his limbs were cold, his fingers trembled. He dared not turn his back on the rat, on the parlor door, and yet dared not stay in this place another moment. So he did turn, and walked briskly to the front door where his luggage waited for him. He opened the door, picked up his bags, and stepped out onto the snowy porch.

At the foot of the stairs, where the car had stopped last night, Madeleine stood waiting for him, her face calm, even sad.

The terror fled, swept away by his relief. Madeleine was real. Madeleine was here. His love for her washed over him again. It would be all right. She would see him through this episode of - of whatever it was.

"Mad," he said. "You won't believe what I've been going through."

She shook her head. "Oh, Tin, I'm not Madeleine. Not anymore. She's gone."

He walked down the stairs toward her. "Call yourself whatever you want, you're here. I thought I had lost you."

"You lost me years ago, Tin. When I died in that hospital. When I told you to mellow out. When I told you not to keep me tied down."

He stopped, not believing the words coming out of Madeleine's mouth.

"You dig, you dig, you dig?" she said.

And then it wasn't Madeleine's mouth. There was no transformation. It had never been Madeleine.

"Lizzy," he whispered.

"Now you see me," she said. "But you're still not seeing me. It's your own mind putting this shape on what I am."

"Was it you all along?" At once he remembered seeing her in the grocery store, and going into that townhouse.

"That wasn't me," she said. "But that was part of why I came. You have the power to call me. When you thought you had seen me, your need for me brought me back here. Most of us are tied to our bodies, our relics, but I'm tied more to you. I don't mind, really I don't. Especially because when I came, I saw the danger you were in."

"But if it's you, Lizzy, I'm not in danger."

"It wasn't me, don't you get it? It was someone else who found my image in your mind and used it. When I came to you she was making you see that hallucination of me going into the townhouse, but I wasn't inside the thing you saw, Tin, I was with you. There in the car beside you, feeling you call to me. You're so strong when you call to me like that. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I could stay away."

"Why didn't you speak to me then, the way you're doing now?"

"Because she was there. The dead don't have any strength compared to the living. If she wants me silent, if she's paying attention to me, then believe me,