Doctor Sleep (The Shining #2)(153)

“Very strong feelings here, Sarey.”

Sarey nodded.

“You know there are hot springs where steam comes right out of the ground, don’t you?”

“Lup.”

“This is like that.” Rose bent down to sniff at the grass and wildflowers. Below their aromas was the iron smell of ancient blood. “Strong emotions—hatred, fear, prejudice, lust. The echo of murder. Not food—too old—but refreshing, all the same. A heady bouquet.”

Sarey said nothing, but watched Rose closely.

“And this thing.” Rose waved a hand at the steep wooden stairs leading up to the platform. “Looks like a gallows, don’t you think? All it needs is a trapdoor.”

Nothing from Sarey. Out loud, at least. Her thought

(no rope)

was clear enough.

“That’s true, my love, but one of us is going to hang here, just the same. Either me or the little bitch with her nose in our business. See that?” Rose pointed to a small green shed about twenty feet away.

Sarey nodded.

Rose was wearing a zipper pack on her belt. She opened it, rummaged, brought out a key, and handed it to the other woman. Sarey walked to the shed, grass whickering against her thick flesh-colored hose. The key fitted a padlock on the door. When she pulled the door open, late-day sunshine illuminated an enclosure not much bigger than a privy. There was a Lawn-Boy and a plastic bucket holding a hand-sickle and a rake. A spade and a pickax leaned against the back wall. There was nothing else, and nothing to hide behind.

“Go on in,” Rose said. “Let’s see what you can do.” And with all that steam inside you, you should be able to amaze me.

Like other members of the True Knot, Silent Sarey had her little talent.

She stepped into the little shed, sniffed, and said: “Dusty.”

“Never mind the dust. Let’s see you do your thing. Or rather, let’s not see you.”

For that was Sarey’s talent. She wasn’t capable of invisibility (none of them was), but she could create a kind of dimness that went very well with her unremarkable face and figure. She turned to Rose, then looked down at her shadow. She moved—not much, only half a step—and her shadow merged with the one thrown by the handle of the Lawn-Boy. Then she became perfectly still, and the shed was empty.

Rose squeezed her eyes shut, then popped them wide open, and there was Sarey, standing beside the mower with her hands folded demurely at her waist like a shy girl hoping some boy at the party will ask her to dance. Rose looked away at the mountains, and when she looked back again the shed was empty—just a tiny storage room with nowhere to hide. In the strong sunlight there wasn’t even a shadow. Except for the one thrown by the mower’s handle, that was. Only . . .

“Pull your elbow in,” Rose said. “I see it. Just a little.”

Silent Sarey did as she was told and for a moment she was truly gone, at least until Rose concentrated. When she did that, Sarey was there again. But of course she knew Sarey was there. When the time came—and it wouldn’t be long—the bitchgirl wouldn’t.

“Good, Sarey!” she said warmly (or as warmly as she could manage). “Perhaps I won’t need you. If I do, you’ll use the sickle. And think of Andi when you do. All right?”

At the mention of Andi’s name, Sarey’s lips turned down in a moue of unhappiness. She stared at the sickle in the plastic bucket and nodded.

Rose walked over and took the padlock. “I’m going to lock you in now. The bitchgirl will read the ones in the Lodge, but she won’t read you. I’m sure of it. Because you’re the quiet one, aren’t you?”

Sarey nodded again. She was the quiet one, always had been.

(what about the)

Rose smiled. “The lock? Don’t you worry about that. Just worry about being still. Still and silent. Do you understand me?”

“Lup.”

“And you understand about the sickle?” Rose would not have trusted Sarey with a gun even if the True had one.

“Sicka. Lup.”

“If I get the better of her—and as full of steam as I am right now, that should be no problem—you’ll stay right where you are until I let you out. But if you hear me shout . . . let’s see . . . if you hear me shout don’t make me punish you, that means I need help. I’ll make sure that her back is turned. You know what happens then, don’t you?”

(I’ll climb the stairs and)

But Rose was shaking her head. “No, Sarey. You won’t need to. She’s never going to get near the platform up there.”

She would hate to lose the steam even more than she would hate losing the opportunity to kill the bitchgirl herself . . . after making her suffer, and at length. But she mustn’t throw caution to the winds. The girl was very strong.

“What will you listen for, Sarey?”

“Don’t make me punish lu.”

“And what will you be thinking of?”

The eyes, half-hidden by the shaggy bangs, gleamed. “Levenge.”

“That’s right. Revenge for Andi, murdered by that bitchgirl’s friends. But not unless I need you, because I want to do this myself.” Rose’s hands clenched, her nails digging into deep, blood-crusted crescents they had already made in her palms. “But if I need you, you come. Don’t hesitate or stop for anything. Don’t stop until you’ve put that sickle blade in her neck and see the end of it come out of her f**king throat.”