by Stephen King
In a way, that was exactly what I was afraid of, because since leaving Harlow, Charlie Jacobs had made a career of trickery. As Pastor Danny, he had displayed pigs’ livers and declared them to be extracted tumors. It was not a résumé that inspired trust. Could I be absolutely sure the haggard woman in the wheelchair actually was Astrid Soderberg?
My heart said she was; my head told my heart to be careful and trust nothing. The Knowlton woman could be an accomplice—a shill, in carny terms. The next half hour was going to be an ordeal, but I had no intention of ducking out and allowing Jacobs to affect a sham cure. Of course he would need the real Astrid to pull it off, but many lucrative years on the revival circuit made that a possibility, especially if my long-ago girlfriend found herself hard up financially in her old age.
An unlikely scenario, to be sure. What it came down to was the responsibility I felt to see this through to what was certain to be a bitter end.
“I’ll stick around.”
“As you like.” He smiled, and although the bad side of his mouth still wouldn’t cooperate, there was nothing sneery about this one. “It will be nice to work with you again. Like the old days in Tulsa.”
A soft knock came at the door. It was Rudy. “The women are in the East Room, Mr. Jacobs. Miss Knowlton says they’re ready when you are. She says the sooner the better, because Miss Soderberg is in a lot of discomfort.”
• • •
I walked side by side with Jacobs down the hall, carrying the mahogany box under my arm, until we got to the East Wing. There my nerve temporarily failed me, and I let Jacobs go in while I stood in the doorway.
He didn’t notice. All his attention—and considerable charisma—was focused on the women. “Jenny and Astrid!” he said heartily. “My two favorite ladies!”
Jenny Knowlton gave his outstretched hand a token touch—enough for me to see that her fingers were straight and seemingly untouched by arthritis. Astrid made no attempt to raise her own hand. She was hunched in her wheelchair, peering up at him. There was an oxygen mask over the lower half of her face, and a tank on a wheelie-cart beside her.
Jenny said something to Jacobs, too low to hear, and he nodded vigorously. “Yes, we must waste no time. Jamie, would you—” He looked around, saw I wasn’t there, and beckoned to me impatiently.
It was no more than a dozen steps to the center of the room, which was filled with brilliant early light, but those steps seemed to take a very long time. It was as if I were walking underwater.
Astrid glanced at me with the disinterested eyes of one expending all her energy to cope with her pain. She showed no recognition, only looked down at her lap again, and I had a moment’s relief. Then her head jerked up. Her mouth fell open inside the transparent mask. She covered her face with her hands, knocking the mask aside. It was only part incredulity, I think. Most of it was horror, that I should see her in such a state.
She might have hidden behind her hands longer, but she didn’t have the strength for it and they dropped into her lap. She was crying. The tears washed her eyes and made them young again. Any doubts I might have had about her identity passed away. It was Astrid, all right. Still the young girl I’d loved, now living inside the failing wreck of a sick old woman’s body.
“Jamie?” Her voice was as hoarse as a jackdaw’s.
I got on one knee, like a swain about to propose. “Yeah, honey. It’s me.” I took one of her hands, turned it over, and kissed the palm. The skin was cold.
“You should go away. I don’t want you to . . .” There was a whistling sound as she drew in breath. “. . . to see me like this. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”
“It’s all right.” Because Charlie’s going to make you better, I wanted to add, but didn’t. Because Astrid was beyond help.
Jacobs had drawn Jenny away and was conversing with her, giving us our moment of privacy. The hell of being with Charlie was that sometimes he could be tender.
“Cigarettes,” she said in that hoarse jackdaw voice. “What a stupid way to kill yourself. And I knew better, which makes it even stupider. Everybody knows better. Do you want to know something funny? I still want them.” She laughed, and that turned into a harsh chain of coughs that clearly hurt her. “Smuggled in three packs. Jenny found them and took them away. As if it would make any difference now.”
“Hush,” I said.
“I stopped. For seven months, I stopped. If the baby had lived, I might have stopped for good. Something . . .” She drew a deep, wheezing breath. “Something tricks us. That’s what I believe.”
“It’s wonderful to see you.”
“You’re a beautiful liar, Jamie. What’s he got on you?”
I said nothing.
“Well, never mind.” Her hand had strayed to the back of my head, just as it used to when we were making out, and for one horrible moment I thought she might try to kiss me with that dying mouth. “You kept your hair. It’s lovely and thick. I lost mine. Chemo.”
“It’ll grow back.”
“No it won’t. This . . .” She looked around. Her breath whistled like a child’s toy. “A fool’s errand. And I’m the fool.”
Jacobs led Jenny back. “It’s time to do this thing.” Then, to Astrid: “It won’t take long, my dear, and there will be no pain. I expect you’ll pass out, but most people have no awareness of that.”
“I’m looking forward to passing out for good,” Astrid told him, and smiled wanly.
“Now, now, none of that. I never make absolute guarantees, but I believe that in a short time, you’re going to feel much better. Let’s begin, Jamie. Open the box.”
I did so. Inside, each item nestled in its own velvet-lined depression, were two stubby steel rods tipped with black plastic, and a white control box with a slide switch on top. It looked exactly like the one Jacobs had used the day Claire and I had brought Con to him. It crossed my mind that, of the four people in the room, three were idiots and one was crazy.
Jacobs plucked the rods from their nesting places and touched the black plastic tips together. “Jamie, take the control and move that slide switch the tiniest bit. Just a nudge. You’ll hear a click.”
When I did, he pulled the tips apart. There was a brilliant blue spark, and a brief but powerful mmmm sound. It didn’t come from the rods but from the far side of the room, like some weird electrical ventriloquism.
“Excellent,” Jacobs said. “We’re good to go. Jenny, you need to place your hands on Astrid’s shoulders. She’ll spasm, and we don’t want her to come around on the floor, do we?”
“Where are your holy rings?” Jenny asked. She was looking and sounding more doubtful by the second.
“These are better than the rings. Much more powerful. More holy, if you like. Hands on her shoulders, please.”
“Don’t you electrocute her!”
In her harsh jackdaw’s voice, Astrid said, “The least of my worries, Jen.”
“Won’t happen,” Jacobs said, adopting his lecture-hall voice. “Can’t. In ECT therapy—shock treatments, to use the layman’s term—doctors employ up to a hundred and fifty volts, thus provoking a grand mal seizure. But these . . .” He tapped the rods together. “Even at full power, they would barely budge the needle of an electrician’s ammeter. The energy I intend to tap—energy present in this room, all around us at this very moment—can’t be measured by ordinary instruments. It is essentially unknowable.”
Unknowable was not a word I wanted to hear.
“Please just do it,” Astrid said. “I’m very tired, and there’s a rat in my chest. One that’s on fire.”
Jacobs looked at Jenny. She hesitated. “It wasn’t like this at the revival. Not at all.”
“Perhaps not,” Jacobs said, “but this is revival. You’ll see. Put your hands on her shoulders, Jenny. Be prepared to press down hard. You won’t hurt her.”
She did as she was told.
Jacobs turned his attention to me. “When I place the tips of the rods on Astrid’s temples, slide the switch. Count the clicks as it advances. When you feel the fourth one, stop and wait for any further instructions. Ready? Here we go.”
He put the tips of the rods in the hollows at the sides of her head, where delicate blue veins pulsed. In a prim little voice, Astrid said, “So nice to see you again, Jamie.” Then she closed her eyes.
“She may be frisky, so be ready to bear down,” Jacobs told Jenny. Then: “All right, Jamie.”
I pushed the slide switch. Click . . . and click . . . and click . . . and click.
• • •
Nothing happened.
All an old man’s delusion, I thought. Whatever he might have done in the past, he can’t do it any long—
“Advance two more clicks, if you please.” His voice was dry and confident.
I did so. Still nothing. With Jenny’s hands on her shoulders, Astrid was more hunched over than ever. Her whistling respiration was painful to listen to.
“One more,” Jacobs said.
“Charlie, I’m almost at the end of the—”
“Did you not hear me? One more!”
I pushed the slide. There was another click, and this time the hum on the other side of the room was much louder, not mmmm but MMMOWWW. There was no flash of light that I saw (or that I remember, at least), but for a moment I was dazzled, anyway. It was as if a depth charge had gone off far down in my brain. I think Jenny Knowlton cried out. I dimly saw Astrid jerk in the wheelchair, a spasm so powerful that it flung Jenny—no lightweight—backward and almost off her feet. Astrid’s wasted legs shot out, relaxed, then shot out again. A security alarm began to bray.
Rudy came running into the room, closely followed by Norma.
“I told you to turn that blasted thing off before we started!” Jacobs shouted at Rudy.
Astrid pistoned her arms up, one right in front of Jenny’s face as she came back to put her hands on Astrid’s shoulders again.
“Sorry, Mr. Jacobs—”
“Shut it OFF, you idiot!”
Charlie snatched the control box out of my hands and slid the switch back to the off position. Now Astrid was making a series of gagging sounds.
“Pastor Danny, she’s choking!” Jenny cried.
“Don’t be stupid!” Jacobs snapped. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright. He looked twenty years younger. “Norma! Call the gate! Tell them the alarm was an accident!”
“Should I—”
“Go! Go! Goddammit, GO!”
She went.
Astrid’s eyes opened, only there were no eyes, just bulging whites. She gave another of those myoclonic jerks, then slid forward, legs kicking and jerking. Her arms flailed like those of a drowning swimmer. The alarm brayed and brayed. I grabbed her by the hips and shoved her back in her chair before she could land on the floor. The crotch of her slacks was dark, and I could smell strong urine. When I looked up, I saw foam drizzling from one side of her mouth. It fell from her chin to the collar of her blouse, darkening that, too.
The alarm quit.
“Thank God for small favors,” Jacobs said. He was bent forward, hands on his thighs, observing Astrid’s convulsions with interest but no concern.
“We need a doctor!” Jenny cried. “I can’t hold her!”
“Bosh,” Jacobs said. There was a half-smile—the only kind he could manage—on his face. “Did you expect it to be easy? It’s cancer, for God’s sake. Give her a minute and she’ll be—”
“There’s a door in the wall,” Astrid said.
The hoarseness had left her voice. Her eyes rolled back down in their sockets . . . but not together; they came one at a time. When they were back in place, it was Jacobs they were looking at.
“You can’t see it. It’s small and covered with ivy. The ivy is dead. She waits on the other side, above the broken city. Above the paper sky.”
Blood can’t turn cold, not really, but mine seemed to. Something happened, I thought. Something happened, and Mother will be here soon.
“Who?” Jacobs asked. He took one of her hands. The half-smile was gone. “Who waits?”
“Yes.” Her eyes stared into his. “She.”
“Who? Astrid, who?”
She said nothing at first. Then her lips stretched in a terrible grin that showed every tooth in her head. “Not the one you want.”
He slapped her. Astrid’s head jerked to the side. Spittle flew. I shouted in surprise and grabbed his wrist when he raised his hand to do it again. I stopped him, but only with an effort. He was stronger than he had any right to be. It was the kind of strength that comes from hysteria. Or pent-up fury.
“You can’t hit her!” Jenny shouted, letting go of Astrid’s shoulders and coming around the wheelchair to confront him. “You lunatic, you can’t hit h—”
“Stop,” Astrid said. Her voice was weak but lucid. “Stop it, Jenny.”
Jenny looked around. Her eyes widened at what she saw: a delicate pink wash of color beginning to rise in Astrid’s pale cheeks.
“Why are you yelling at him? Did something happen?”
Yes, I thought. Something happened. Something most surely did.
Astrid turned to Jacobs. “When are you going to do it? You better hurry, because the pain is very . . . very . . .”
The three of us stared at her. No, it was the five of us. Rudy and Norma had crept back into the East Room doorway, and they were staring, too.
“Wait,” Astrid said. “Wait just a darn minute.”
She touched her chest. She cupped the wasted remains of her breasts. She pressed her stomach.
“You did it already, didn’t you? I know you did, because there is no pain!” She pulled in a breath and let it out in an incredulous laugh. “And I can breathe! Jenny, I can breathe again!”
Jenny Knowlton went to her knees, raised her hands to the sides of her head, and began to recite the Lord’s Prayer so fast she sounded like a 45 rpm record on 78. Another voice joined her: Norma’s. She was also on her knees.
Jacobs gave me a bemused look that was easy to read: You see, Jamie? I do all the work and the Big G gets all the credit.
Astrid tried to get out of the wheelchair, but her wasted legs wouldn’t hold her. I got her before she could do a face-plant, and put my arms around her.
“Not yet, honey,” I said. “You’re too weak.”
She goggled at me as I eased her back onto the seat. The oxygen mask had gotten twisted around and now hung on the left side of her neck, forgotten.
“Jamie? Is that you? What are you doing here?”
I looked at Jacobs.
“Short-term memory loss after treatment is common,” he said. “Astrid, can you tell me who the president is?”
She looked bewildered at the question but answered with no hesitation. “Obama. And Biden’s the vice president. Am I really better? Will it last?”
“You are and it will, but never mind that now. Tell me—”
“Jamie? Is it really you? Your hair is so white!”
“Yes,” I said, “it’s certainly getting there. Listen to Charlie.”
“I was crazy about you,” she said, “but even though you could play, you could never dance very well unless you were high. We had dinner at Starland after the prom and you ordered . . .” She stopped and licked her lips. “Jamie?”
“Right here.”
“I can breathe. I can actually breathe again.” She was crying.
Jacobs snapped his fingers in front of her eyes like a stage hypnotist. “Focus, Astrid. Who brought you here?”
“J-Jenny.”
“What did you have for supper last night?”
“Sloop. Sloop and salad.”
He snapped his
fingers in front of her swimming eyes again. It made her blink and recoil. The muscles beneath her skin seemed to be tightening and firming even as I watched. It was wonderful and awful.
“Soup. Soup and salad.”
“Very good. What is the door in the wall?”
“Door? I don’t—”
“You said it was covered with ivy. You said there was a broken city on the other side.”
“I . . . don’t remember that.”
“You said she waits. You said . . .” He peered into her uncomprehending face and sighed. “Never mind. You need to rest, my dear.”
“I suppose so,” Astrid said, “but what I’d really like to do is dance. Dance for joy.”
“In time you will.” He patted her hand. He was smiling as he did it, but I had an idea he was deeply disappointed at her failure to remember the door and the city. I was not. I didn’t want to know what she had seen when Charlie’s secret electricity stormed through the deepest recesses of her brain. I didn’t want to know what was waiting behind the hidden door she had spoken of, yet I was afraid I did.
Mother.
Above the paper sky.
• • •
Astrid slept all morning and well into the afternoon. When she woke, she declared herself ravenous. This pleased Jacobs, who told Norma Goldstone to bring “our patient” a toasted cheese sandwich and a small piece of cake with the frosting scraped off. Frosting, he felt, might be too rich for her wasted stomach. Jacobs, Jenny, and I watched her put away the entire sandwich and half the cake before setting her fork down.
“I want the rest,” she said, “but I’m full.”
“Give yourself time,” Jenny said. She’d spread a napkin in her lap and kept plucking at it. She wouldn’t look at Astrid for long, and at Jacobs not at all. Coming to him had been her idea, and I have no doubt she was happy about the sudden change for the better in her friend, but it was clear that what she’d seen in the East Room had shaken her deeply.
“I want to go home,” Astrid said.
“Oh, honey, I don’t know . . .”
“I feel well enough. I really do.” Astrid cast an apologetic look at Jacobs. “It’s not that I’m not grateful—I’ll bless you in my prayers for the rest of my life—but I want to be in my own place. Unless you feel . . . ?”