House of Blues

would fall off it?"
    " You ask too many questions," they said.
"Elders know things that you don't."
    And that was all they would ever say.
    But that night he heard terrible shrieks and screams
that turned the planet into an ugly and fearful place. He dreamed
about crawling things with many legs and writhing things with forked
tongues and winged things with fur and fangs.
    He woke up hot and exhausted and asked the others
what the sounds in the night had been.
    " Oh, that was the Evil One," they said. "We
punished her."
    That was not the only time he heard those screams. He
heard them many times after that, always when something went wrong on
the planet.
    Once the barrels that caught the spaghetti sauce had
been slightly moved so that some of the sauce fell on the ground and
could not be eaten.
    He found out later that the man whose job it was to
set the barrels said the Evil One had moved them.
    Once, one of the children who couldn't yet swim fell
in a river and almost drowned.
    He found out later that the child's mother said the
Evil One distracted her, so she couldn't watch her child.
    Once someone burned a pizza he was making.
    He knew he was not supposed to ask questions, but
that time he was simply too puzzled to keep quiet. "‘Was there
a punishment last night?" he asked.
    "Why, yes, there was," said the people he
lived with.
    "Did they punish the man who burned the pizza?"
    "Of course not," they said. "The Evil
One was punished."
    "But surely it was the man's fault about the
pizza," said Bill.
    "Why did they punish the Evil One for that?"
    "Because it wasn't the man's fault," they
said. "It was the Evil One's fault. She turned up the heat when
he wasn't looking."
    "Why would she do that?" asked Bill.
    " You ask too many
questions," they said.
    * * *
    Grady was thrilled when he
was done, sure he was finally getting somewhere, that this was a
breakthrough at last. However, when he read it over, he thought,
Fine. Good statement of the problem. But no resolution.
    * * *
    Heavy curtains covered the windows, and the lights
were kept on, so that Reed couldn't tell whether it was day or night.
    The television was on as well, and Reed had been
given some books and magazines to read. One hand was free; the other
was handcuffed to the chair she sat in.
    The room itself was beautiful, or nearly so—but
perhaps it was just a beat off. The ceilings weren't quite high
enough for the heavy period furniture, and most of the pieces were
reproductions. Still, they had been chosen with care, almost
certainly by a decorator. The carpet was thick and the curtains were
expensive brocade-gold, not Reed's favorite color, but undeniably
rich-looking. The mantel was genuine—something that had probably
been bought at auction—and so was the clock that stood on it. Above
the mantel hung a dark, brooding European painting of some sort;
nineteenth century, Reed thought. It had probably cost plenty, and it
cast a pall of gloom on the room.
    It was a room that was meant to impress, and in that
it succeeded, with its ostentation if nothing else. A room you'd be
thrilled to get in a bed and breakfast, say, but not one you'd
necessarily want to live in—and certainly not one in which you'd
wish to be handcuffed to a chair.
    She was not gagged. Thinking it might help and
certainly couldn't hurt, she'd screamed loud, hard, and long, to no
avail. It occurred to her that the room must be soundproofed, though
why it would be was beyond her.
    She had nothing but questions about this situation.
    A hand had gone over her mouth the minute she stepped
in the gate at this house, the house where she'd followed the
kidnapper, Once inside the gate, she could see there was a porte
cochere behind the wall, and cars parked
there. The place was lit up as if there were a party going on, and
Reed could hear voices. She was dragged to a side entrance, following
the kidnapper, she thought, but she'd lost sight of Sally and could
no longer hear her.
    It came to her that someone was holding Sally's
mouth, just as hers was being held, and the thought made her break
out in a sweat, followed by a fury she couldn't contain. She whipped
her shoulders back and forth and tried to kick, but the man who held
her was too good—she couldn't get near him. She let her knees bend,
so he'd have to drag her, but he said, "Don't make me hit you.
It'll give you an awful headache," and she saw the wisdom of
that.
    She was taken to a back stairway, and from there she
could see the