Lisey's Story(132)

"Oh shit, somebody pass me the bong, we're f**ked now!" Amanda cried. No rusty giggles now; now she was full-out laughing.

Lisey was also laughing. "Floor it, Lisey!"

Lisey did. The BMW scooted with surprising gusto, and she nipped back into her own lane with plenty of time to spare. Darla, she reflected, would have been screaming her head off by this point.

"There," she said to Amanda, "are you happy?"

"Yes," Amanda said, and put her left hand over Lisey's right one, caressing it, making it give up its death-grip on the steering wheel. "Glad to be here, very glad you came for me.

Not all of me wanted to come back, but so much of me was just...I don't know...sad to be away. And afraid that pretty soon I wouldn't even care. So thank you, Lisey."

"Thank Scott. He knew you'd need help."

"He knew that you would, too." Now Amanda's tone was very gentle. "And I bet he knew only one of your sisters would be crazy enough to give it."

Lisey took her eyes off the road long enough to glance at Amanda. "Did you and Scott talk about me, Amanda? Did you talk about me over there?"

"We talked. Here or there, I don't remember and I don't think it matters. We talked about how much we loved you."

Lisey could not reply. Her heart was too full. She wanted to cry, but then she wouldn't be able to see the road. And maybe there had been enough tears, anyway. Which was not to say there wouldn't be more.

3

So they rode in silence for awhile. There was no traffic once they passed the Pigwockit Campground. The sky overhead was still blue, but the sun was now buried in the oncoming clouds, rendering the day bright but queerly shadeless. Presently Amanda spoke in an uncharacteristic tone of thoughtful curiosity. "Would you have come for me even if you didn't need a partner in crime?"

Lisey considered this. "I like to think so," she finally said. Amanda lifted the Lisey-hand closest to her and planted a kiss on it - truly it was as light as a butterfly's wing - before replacing it on the steering wheel. "I like to think so, too,"

she said. "It's a funny place, Southwind. When you're there, it seems as real as anything in this world, and better than everything in this world. But when you're here..." She shrugged.

Wistfully, Lisey thought. "Then it's only a moonbeam."

Lisey thought of lying in bed with Scott at The Antlers, watching the moon struggle to come out. Listening to his story and then going with him. Going.

Amanda asked, "What did Scott call it?"

"Boo'ya Moon."

Amanda nodded. "I was at least close, wasn't I?"

"You were."

"I think most kids have a place they go to when they're scared or lonely or just plain bored. They call it NeverLand or the Shire, Boo'ya Moon if they've got big imaginations and make it up for themselves. Most of them forget. The talented few - like Scott - harness their dreams and turn them into horses."

"You were pretty talented yourself. You were the one who thought up Southwind, weren't you? The girls back home played that for years. I wouldn't be surprised if there are girls out on the Sabbatus Road still playing a version of it."

Chapter 21

Amanda laughed and shook her head. "People like me were never meant to really cross over. My imagination was just big enough to get me in trouble."

"Manda, that's not true - "

"Yes," Amanda said. "It is. The looneybins are full of people like me. Our dreams harness us, and they whip us with soft whips - oh, lovely whips - and we run and we run, always in the same place...because the ship...Lisey, the sails never open and the ship never weighs its anchor..."

Lisey risked another look. Tears were running down Amanda's cheeks. Maybe tears didn't fall on those stone benches, but yes, here they were the smucking human condish.

"I knew I was going," Amanda said. "All the time we were in Scott's study...all the time I was writing meaningless numbers in that stupid little notebook, I knew..."

"That little notebook turned out to be the key to everything," Lisey said, remembering that HOLLYHOCKS as well as mein gott had been printed there...something like a message in a bottle. Or another bool - Lisey, here's where I am, please come find me.

"Do you mean it?" Amanda asked.

"I do."

"That's so funny. Scott gave me those notebooks, you know - damn near a lifetime supply. For my birthday."

"He did?"

"Yes, the year before he died. He said they might come in handy." She managed a smile. "I guess one of them actually did."

"Yes," Lisey said, wondering if mein gott was written on the backs of all the others, in tiny dark letters just below the trade name. Someday, maybe, she would check. If she and Amanda got out of this alive, that was.

4

When Lisey slowed in downtown Castle Rock, preparing to turn in at the Sheriff's Office, Amanda clutched her arm and asked what in God's name she thought she was doing. She listened to her sister's reply with mounting amazement.

"And what am I supposed to do while you're making your report and filling out forms?" Amanda asked in tones etched with acid. "Sit on the bench outside Animal Registry in these pajamas, with my tits poking out on top and my woofy showing down south? Or should I just sit out here and listen to the radio? How are you going to explain showing up barefoot? Or what if someone from Greenlawn has already called to tell the Sheriff's Department that they ought to keep an eye out for the writer's widow, she was visiting her sister up there at Crackerjack Manor and now they're both gone?"