By the light of the moon

the cake with her.
    Likewise, she wouldn't have forgotten to turn off the light in
the dining room. Vonetta Beesley had always been as reliable as the
atomic clock at Greenwich, by which all the nations of the world
set their timepieces.
    The house stood in a funereal condition, hung with cerements of
silence, draped in shrouds of stillness.
    The wrongness involved something more than the darkness
peering in at the windows, involved the house itself and something
within the house. He could hear no evil breathing, no demon on the
prowl, but he sensed that nothing here was right.
    Jilly must have been alarmed by the same queer perception. She
stood precisely on the spot where she had been unfolded, as though
afraid to move, and her body language was so clearly written that
her tension could easily be read even in these shadows.
    The quality of light issuing from the dining room wasn't as it
should be. The chandelier over the table, which Dylan couldn't see
from this angle, was controlled by a switch with a dimming feature,
but even at this low level of brightness, the glow had far too rich
a butterscotch color and too moody an aspect to have been thrown
off by the brass-and-crystal fixture. Besides, the light didn't
originate from chandelier height; the ceiling in the next room was
troweled in shadow, and the light appeared to fall to the floor
from a point not far above the top of the table.
    'Shep, buddy, what's happening here?' Dylan whispered.
    Having been promised cake, Shep might have been expected to go
directly to the cinnamon glory cooling in a pan under the clock,
for it was his nature to be single-minded in all things, and not
least of all in the matter of cake. Instead, he took one step
toward the door to the dining room, hesitated, and said, 'Shep is
brave,' although he sounded more fearful than Dylan had ever before
heard him.
    Dylan wanted to avoid venturing deeper into the house until he
gained a better sense of their situation. He needed a good weapon,
as well. The knife drawer offered a trove of wicked cutlery; but
he'd had enough of knives lately. He longed for a baseball bat.
    'Shep is brave,' Shep said, with even a greater tremor in his
voice and with less confidence than before. Yet his head was raised
to face the dining-room door rather than the floor at his feet, and
as though defying an inner counsel that always advised him to
retreat from any challenge, he shuffled forward.
    Dylan quickly moved to his brother's side and placed one hand on
his shoulder, intending to restrain him, but Shep shrugged it off
and continued slowly but determinedly toward the dining room.
    Jilly looked to Dylan for guidance. Her dark eyes shone with
reflected clock light.
    In a stubborn mood, Shep could be an inspiration for any mule;
and Dylan detected here an infrequently seen but familiar obstinacy
that experience had taught him could not be dealt with easily and
certainly not quietly. Shep would do in this matter what he wanted
to do, leaving Dylan no option but to follow him warily.
    He surveyed the shadowy kitchen for a weapon but saw nothing
immediately at hand.
    At the threshold, in the burnt-ocher light, Shepherd hesitated,
but only briefly, before stepping out of the kitchen. He turned
left to face the dining-room table.
    When Dylan and Jilly entered the dining room behind Shepherd,
they found a boy sitting at the table. He appeared to be ten years
old.
    The boy did not look up at them, but remained focused on the
large basket filled with adorable golden-retriever puppies, which
lay before him. Much of the basket was complete, but many of the
puppies lacked portions of their bodies and heads. The boy's hands
flew, flew from the box of loose puzzle pieces to empty areas of
the picture that waited to be filled.
    Jilly might not have recognized the young puzzle worker, but
Dylan knew him well. The boy was Shepherd O'Conner.

33
    Dylan remembered this puzzle, which possessed a
significance so special that he could have painted it from memory
with a considerable degree of accuracy. And now he recognized the
source of the burnt-ocher light: a pharmacy-style lamp that usually
stood on a desk in the study. The lamp featured a deep-yellow glass
shade.
    On those occasions when Shepherd's autism expressed itself in a
particular sensitivity to bright lights, he could not simply work a
jigsaw puzzle in the reduced glare made possible by a dimmer
switch. Although virtually inaudible to everyone else, the faint
buzz of