Strangers

that, in his sleep, he might have left a message that would help him understand the source of his anxiety. That knowledge was obviously held by his subconscious but thus far denied to his conscious mind. When sleepwalking, his subconscious was in control, and possibly it would try to explain things to his conscious mind by way of the Displaywriter. But as yet, it had not.
        He switched off the machine. He sat for a long time, staring out the window, toward the ocean. Wondering…
        Later, in the bedroom, as he was on his way to the master bath, he found something strange. Nails were scattered across the carpet, and he had to be careful where he walked. He stooped, picked up several of them. They were all alike: 1.5inch steel finishing nails. At the far side of the room, he saw two objects that drew him there. Beneath the window, from which the drapes had been drawn aside, a box of nails lay on the floor by the baseboard; it was only half full because part of its contents had spilled from it. Beside the box was a hammer.
        He lifted the hammer, hefted it, frowned.
        What had he been doing in those lonely hours of the night?
        He raised his eyes to the windowsill and saw three loose nails that he had laid there. They gleamed in the sunlight.
        Judging from the evidence, he'd been preparing to nail the windows shut. Jesus. Something had so frightened him that he had intended to nail the windows shut and make a fortress of his house, but before he could set himself to the task, he had been suddenly overwhelmed by fear and had fled to the garage, where he had hidden behind the furnace.
        He dropped the hammer, stood, looked out the window. Beyond lay only bloom-laden rose bushes, a small strip of lawn, and an ivy-covered slope that led up to another house. A lovely landscape. Peaceful. He could not believe that it had been any different last night, that something more threatening had been crouching out there in the darkness.
        And yet…
        For a while Dom Corvaisis watched the day grow brighter, watched the bees visit the roses, then began to pick up the nails.
        It was November 24.
        

    5.
        

    Boston, Massachusetts
        
        After the incident of the black gloves, two weeks passed without another attack.
        For a few days following the embarrassing scene at Bernstein's Delicatessen, Ginger Weiss remained on edge, expecting another seizure. She was unusually self-aware, acutely conscious of her physiological and psychological conditions, searching for subtle symptoms of serious disorder, alert for the slightest sign of another impending fugue, but she noticed nothing worrisome. She had no headaches, no attacks of nausea, no joint or muscle pain. Gradually, her confidence rose to its usual high level. She became convinced that her wild flight had been entirely stress-related, a never-to-be-repeated aberration.
        Her days at Memorial were busier than ever. George Hannaby, chief of surgery - a tall burly bear of a man who talked slow, walked slow, and looked deceptively lazy - maintained a heavy schedule, and though Ginger was not the only resident working under him, she was the only one who currently worked exclusively with him. She assisted in many - perhaps in a majority - of his procedures: aortal grafts, amputations, popliteal bypasses, embolectomies, portocaval shunts, thoracotomies, arteriograms, the installation of temporary and permanent pacemakers, and more.
        George observed her every move, was quick to note the slightest flaw in her skill and techniques. Although he looked like a friendly bear, he was a tough taskmaster and had no patience for laziness, inaptitude, or carelessness. He could be scathing in his critiques, and he made all the young doctors sweat. His scorn was not merely withering; it was dehydrating, scaring, a nuclear heat.
        Some residents considered George tyrannical, but Ginger enjoyed assisting him precisely because his standards were so high. She knew that his criticisms, though sometimes blister ingly delivered, were motivated solely by his concern for the patient, and she never took them personally. When she finally earned Hannaby's unqualified blessing… well, that would be almost as good as God's own seal of approval.
        On the last Monday in November, thirteen days after her strange seizure, Ginger assisted in a triple-bypass heart operation on Johnny O'Day, a