Pet Sematary(130)

"Delta Airlines," the voice on the other end said brightly. "This is Kim, may I help you?"

"I hope so," Rachel said. "It's extremely important that I get from Chicago to Bangor tonight. It's... it's a bit of an emergency, I'm afraid. Can you check the connections for me?"

Dubiously: "Yes, ma'am, but this is very short notice."

"Well, please check," Rachel said, her voice cracking a little. "I'll take standby, anything."

"All right, ma'am. Please hold." The line became smoothly silent.

Rachel closed her eyes, and after a moment she felt a cool hand on her arm. She opened her eyes and saw that Ellie had moved next to her. Irwin and Dory stood together, talking quietly and looking at them. The way you look at people you suspect of being lunatics, Rachel thought wearily. She mustered a smile for Ellie.

"Don't let them stop you, Mommy," Ellie said in a low voice. "Please."

"No way, big sister," Rachel said and then winced-it was what they had called her ever since Gage had been born. But she was no one's big sister anymore, was she?

"Thank you," Ellie said.

"It's very important, isn't it?"

Ellie nodded.

"Honey, I believe that it is. But you could help me if you could tell me more.

Is it just the dream?"

"No," Ellie said. "It's... it's everything now. It's running all through me now. Can't you feel it, Mommy? Something like a-"

"Something like a wind."

Ellie sighed shakily.

"But you don't know what it is? You don't remember anything more about your dream?"

Ellie thought hard and then shook her head reluctantly. "Daddy. Church. And Gage. That's all I remember. But I don't remember how they go together, Mommy!"

Rachel hugged her tightly. "It will be all right," she said, but the weight on her heart did not lessen.

"Hello, ma'am," the reservations clerk said.

"Hello?" Rachel tightened her grip on both Ellie and the phone.

"I think I can get you to Bangor, ma'am-but you're going to be getting in very late."

"That doesn't matter," Rachel said.

"Do you have a pen? It's complicated."

"Yes, right here," Rachel said, getting a stub of pencil out of the drawer. She found the back of an envelope to write on.

Rachel listened carefully, writing down everything. When the airline clerk finished, Rachel smiled a little and made an 0 with her thumb and forefinger to show Ellie that it was going to work. Probably going to work, she amended. Some of the connections looked very, very tight...

especially in Boston.

"Please book it all," Rachel said. "And thank you."

Kim took Rachel's name and credit card number. Rachel hung up at last, limp but relieved. She looked at her father. "Daddy, will you drive me to the airport?"

"Maybe I ought to say no," Goldman said. "I think I might have a responsibility to put a stop to this craziness."

"Don't you dare!" Ellie cried shrilly. "It's not crazy! It's not!" Goldman blinked and stepped back at this small but ferocious outburst.

"Drive her, Irwin," Dory said quietly into the silence that followed. "I've begun to feel nervous too. I'll feel better if I know Louis is all right."

Goldman stared at his wife and at last turned to Rachel. "I'll drive you, if it is what you want," he said. "I... Rachel, I'll come with you, if you want that."

Rachel shook her head. "Thank you, Daddy, but I got all the last seats. It's as if Cod saved them for me."

Irwin Goldman sighed. At that moment he looked very old, and it suddenly occurred to Rachel that her father looked like Jud Crandall.

"You have time to pack a bag, if you want," be said. "We can be at the airport in forty minutes, if I drive the way I used to when your mother and I were first married. Find her your tote bag, Dory."

"Mommy," Ellie said. Rachel turned toward her. Ellie's face was now sheened with light sweat.

"What, honey?"

"Be careful, Mommy," Ellie said.

49

The trees were only moving shapes against a cloudy sky backlit by the glow from the airport not too far distant. Louis parked the Honda on Mason Street. Mason bordered Pleasantview on its south side, and here the wind was almost strong enough to rip the car door out of his hand. He had to push hard to shut it. The wind rippled at his jacket as he opened the Honda's hatch and took out the piece of tarpaulin he had cut and wrapped around his tools.

He was in a wing of darkness between two streetlights, standing on the curb with the canvas-wrapped bundle cradled in his arms, looking carefully for traffic before crossing to the wrought-iron fence which marked the boundary of the graveyard. He did not want to be seen at all, if he could help it, not even by someone who would notice him and forget him the next second. Beside him, the branches of an old elm groaned restlessly in the wind, making Louis think of jackleg necktie parties. God, he was so scared. This wasn't wild work; it was mad work.

No traffic. On the Mason Street side, the streetlamps marched away in perfect white circles, casting spotlights on the sidewalk where, during the days after Fairmount Grammar School let out, boys would ride bikes and girls would jump rope and play hopscotch, never noticing the nearby graveyard, except perhaps at Halloween, when it would acquire a certain spooky charm. Perhaps they would dare to cross their suburban street and hang a paper skeleton on the wrought-iron bars of the high fence, giggling at the old jokes: it's the most popular place in town; people are dying to get in. Why is it wrong to laugh in the grave yard?