Treasure Box Page 0,93

thing's for sure about all these guys, the witches and the beast. They want something. They're so hungry it hurts to be around them. They think that being hungry is the same as being strong. So the less you want, the weaker you look. Maybe that'll protect you."

"How hungry was Paulie when the beast took him?"

"Very, very hungry. Babies are nothing but hunger, and his mother was teaching him what to be hungry for. You can bet that even if the beast hadn't come, he would have grown up to be a monster."

Quentin laughed. "Yeah, I've seen children like that."

"No joke, Quentin. Monsters aren't born, they're made. By monster parents, or they make themselves by their own desires. But they don't come out of the womb deformed. There's always a path that leads away, even if they don't take it."

"Our parents weren't perfect either, Lizzy."

"But they were good people, and we knew that, we saw it. That's enough, if the child also wants to be good."

"And you learned all this by being dead?"

"No, Quentin. I learned all this by looking into your memories and seeing what you've learned without even realizing you learned it."

"What, is this like Madeleine? Am I talking to myself again?"

"Ever since I died, Quentin, when you talk to yourself you're talking to me. I'm in there. I'm part of you. You didn't have to steal some relic of mine, the way those witches do. I gave you my heart long before they cut it out of me. Along with my kidneys and my corneas."

"Nowadays they take livers and lungs, too."

"Car parts, body parts - automobile accidents are the great growth industry of America."

"I know you got that out of my head," said Quentin. "I read that somewhere."

"Quentin, you are hungry for something."

"What?"

"For a good life. For a life worth living."

"Sure I am. Who isn't?"

"But what if the price of that was killing somebody else?"

"Come on, Lizzy."

"Sometimes good people have to do terrible things. Mrs. Tyler had to decide what to do when the beast took her baby, no matter whose fault it was that it got invited in. Mom and Dad had to decide to let them cut me apart and kill my body so some good use could come from it."

"I've never forgiven them for that, either."

"They've never forgiven themselves, either. But they went on living, like Mrs. Tyler goes on living. Because that's what good people do. They make the terrible choices sometimes, and then they live with the results, because they did right, or at least the closest thing to a right choice that they could find."

"So who are you telling me to kill?"

"The beast, Quentin."

"But you said when the box opens..."

"Find the beast and kill it. Send it back out into darkness."

"It'll just find somewhere else to come in again."

"Maybe not for a long time. And then someone else will have to find it and kill it. But you will have done your part here and now."

"Lizzy, I've never even hit anybody in anger in my life."

"Don't be angry now, either. No matter who it is, no matter what they've done to you. Even the beast itself - don't be angry, don't be hungry for revenge. Because if it takes you down its throat, then you'll be the one begging for someone to cut you free."

"Like you begged me."

She shrugged. "Look. Baltimore signs. That's close to Washington, right?"

"Like halfway from Philadelphia, maybe. With this snow I may never get there. I'm insane to be pushing on through like this."

"No, you're close now. You're going to make it."

"Lizzy, why can't you stay with me all the time? Just to talk to? Think what we could do together. The life we could live!"

"Nothing you do can turn it into a life for me. And if I'm here with you, it won't be a life for you, either. You called to me a lot, after that first year, but you didn't see me showing up, did you? Not till you were in real trouble. The rest of the time I left you alone."

"I didn't want you to leave me alone, Lizzy."

"Sometimes we get what we don't want."

It was hard to see, his eyes awash with tears of longing and regret. "Lizzy, I'm scared."

"Good idea."

"And it hurts. Losing you. Losing her."

"Take an aspirin," said Lizzy. She always used to say that when he complained.

"We take Tylenol now. And whatever it is. Advil."

She joined in the old game. "Excedrin. Anacin."

"Bufferin. Goodey's Headache Powders. Lizzy, don't leave me,