Doctor Sleep: A Novel

Abra, who stroked it and then passed it on without having to be told. The rabbit didn’t seem to mind the attention. Maybe, John thought, it had snarked up a few Valium-laced pellets before the show. The last kid handed it back to Mysterio, who popped it into his hat, passed a hand over it, and then showed them the inside of the derby. Except for the American flag lining, it was empty.
    “Where did the bunny go?” little Susie Soong-Bartlett asked.
    “Into your dreams, darlin,” Mysterio said. “It’ll hop there tonight. Now who wants a magic scarf  ?”
    There were cries of I do, I do from boys and girls alike. Mysterio produced them from his fists and passed them out. This was followed by more tricks in rapid-fire succession. By Dalton’s watch, the kids stood around Mysterio in a bug-eyed semicircle for at least twenty-five minutes. And just as the first signs of restiveness began to appear in the audience, Mysterio wrapped things up. He produced five plates from his suitcase (which, when he showed it, had appeared to be as empty as his hat) and juggled them, singing “Happy Birthday to You” as he did it. All the kids joined in, and Abra seemed almost to levitate with joy.
    The plates went back into the suitcase. He showed it to them again so they could see it was empty, then produced half a dozen spoons from it. These he proceeded to hang on his face, finishing with one on the tip of his nose. The birthday girl liked that one; she sat down on the grass, laughing and hugging herself with glee.
    “Abba can do that,” she said (she was currently fond of referring to herself in the third person—it was what David called her “Rickey Henderson phase”). “Abba can do spoongs.”
    “Good for you, honey,” Mysterio said. He wasn’t really paying attention, and John couldn’t blame him for that; he had just put on one hell of a kiddie matinee, his face was red and damp with sweat in spite of the cool breeze blowing up from the river, and he still had his big exit to make, this time pedaling the oversize trike uphill.
    He bent and patted Abra’s head with one white-gloved hand. “Happy birthday to you, and thank all you kids for being such a good aud—”
    From inside the house came a large and musical jangling, not unlike the sound of the bells hanging from the Godzilla-trike’s handlebars. The kids only glanced in that direction before turning to watch Mysterio pedal away, but Lucy got up to see what had fallen over in the kitchen.
    Two minutes later she came back outside. “John,” she said. “You better look at this. I think it’s what you came to see.”
    12
    John, Lucy, and Concetta stood in the kitchen, looking up at the ceiling and saying nothing. None of them turned when Dave joined them; they were hypnotized. “What—” he began, then saw what. “Holy shit.”
    To this no one replied. David stared a little longer, trying to get the sense of what he was seeing, then left. A minute or two later he returned, leading his daughter by the hand. Abra was holding a balloon. Around her waist, worn like a sash, was the scarf she’d received from The Great Mysterio.
    John Dalton dropped to one knee beside her. “Did you do that, honey?” It was a question to which he felt sure he knew the answer, but he wanted to hear what she had to say. He wanted to know how much she was aware of.
    Abra first looked at the floor, where the silverware drawer lay. Some of the knives and forks had bounced free when the drawer shot from its socket, but they were all there. Not the spoons, however. The spoons were hanging from the ceiling, as if drawn upward and held by some exotic magnetic attraction. A couple swung lazily from the overhead light fixtures. The biggest, a serving spoon, dangled from the exhaust hood of the stove.
    All kids had their own self-comforting mechanisms. John knew from long experience that for most it was a thumb socked securely in the mouth. Abra’s was a little different. She cupped her right hand over the lower half of her face and rubbed her lips with her palm. As a result, her words were muffled. John took the hand away—gently. “What, honey?”
    In a small voice she said, “Am I in trouble? I . . . I . . .” Her small chest began to hitch. She tried to put her comfort-hand back, but John held it. “I wanted to be like Minstrosio.” She began to weep. John let her hand go and it went to her mouth, rubbing furiously.
    David picked her up and kissed her cheek. Lucy