that when she left the laboratory in the evening she was going to meet up with Pigskin 
Packer; but right now we were living in our own magic time loop, where anything at all 
was possible, and where there were no rules.
    Shelley grudgingly moved over for Rheta, and I started the Mercury's engine and drove 
out of the Iron Kettle parking lot. I turned on the radio to fill in the silent moments. 
We glanced at each other from time to time, and smiled, but I think we were both aware 
how fragile this interlude was, and how little it would take to finish it before it had 
even really begun. On the radio, Nils Lofgren was singing Slow Dancing.
    The minutes to New Preston passed like a projector slide show. A view of Northville 
fire station. Trees, rocks, and white weatherboard houses. A steep-sloping side-road 
through the showering leaves. My front driveway. My front door. My living-room.
    By the fire, I unbuttoned her russet wool coat for her. I kissed her forehead, the 
tip of her nose, her lips. She hesitated momentarily, and then kissed me back. Her coat 
fell to the floor.
    I looked at her, and said softly: 'This is one of those moments that I've been 
waiting for.'
    She looked back at me. The fire crackled brightly in the hearth, and the whole room 
was filled with the warmth of our suddenly-flowering affection. I twisted the top button 
of her blouse free, and glimpsed a bare-look nylon bra. Then a voice said: 'Mr. Perkins?'
    I jerked up my head in shock. Rheta pulled away from me, and buttoned up that one 
vital button again. Standing in the open kitchen doorway, in a torn plaid shirt and 
jeans, his face scratched and bruised and his hair tousled, was young Paul Denton, the 
nine-year-old boy Carter had been looking for with a whole posse of deputies since late 
yesterday. He was pale and shaking, and it looked as if he hadn't eaten or drunk anything 
since he went missing. He blinked at us, and swayed, and then he fell against my drinks 
trolley and sent glasses and bottles and cocktail sticks cascading on to the rug.
    I knelt down beside him and lifted his head. He was still conscious, although his 
breathing was laboured, and his eyes flickered as if he was concussed. I said: 'Paul? 
What's the matter, Paul? Where have you been?'
    'Mr. Perkins,' he whispered.
    'Rheta,' I said, 'go call Carter. Tell him he's going to need an ambulance, too. This 
kid looks terrible.'
    'Mr. Perkins,' repeated Paul. 'Mr. Perkins.'
    'Just stay quiet,' I told him. 'Rheta's gone to call the police.' Paul shook his head 
desperately. 'No police, please. No police, Mr. Perkins, not yet. Please.'
    Rheta was already dialling. I said: 'Everybody's been worried sick about you, Paul. 
We have to tell the police.'
    'No!' he shouted. '/ promised I wouldn't!' I raised my hand to Rheta. 'Hold it a 
moment, Rheta. Don't call them yet. Paul-what do you mean you promised you wouldn't? Who 
did you promise?'
    Paul was trembling now. Every muscle in his body was tense and quivering and he had 
to speak between clenched lips. He reminded me of a woman I had taken to hospital after a 
bad road accident on the Danbury road. Shocked, almost incapable of speech, and yet 
determined to tell me what had happened.
    I said: 'Who did you promise, Paul? Who said you mustn't call the police?'
    He stared at me with a wild expression. 'No police, Mr. Perkins, please, no police. I 
promised.'
    'I'm not going to call the police, Paul. But you have to tell me what's happened. 
Where have you been? Have you been with someone?'
    He nodded. 'I saw them-both of them.'
    'Who? Who did you see?'
    'They were hiding in the woods. It was dark. I didn't know what I was doing there.'
    Rheta brought over a cushion and I lifted Paul's head so that she could tuck it under 
him. As I laid him back, I asked him gently: 'Tell me who it was, Paul. I need to know. 
Who was hiding in the woods?'
    'They asked for you, Mr. Perkins,' he said, as if he hadn't heard me. 'I heard them 
calling, and I went to see what they wanted. I couldn't believe it when I saw them. I 
didn't understand at all. But they talked to me, and they said they had to see you. They 
said it was life or death. That was what they said. Life or death.'
    'Paul,' I insisted, 'who was it? Who said it was life or death? I can't help if I 
don't know who it was.'
    Paul's eyes rolled up into his head so that only the whites were exposed. In a 
shaking whisper, he said: 'It was Jimmy and Alison Bodine. They said they were Jimmy and 
Alison Bodine.'
    'They said they were?' asked Rheta. 'Surely you know them well enough to know for 
sure?'
    'It was dark,' Paul said huskily. His eyes flickered again, and the pupils 
re-appeared. 'I don't know what I was doing there, but it was so dark.'
    I sat up straight, biting at my thumbnail. Paul lay there among the broken glasses 
and scattered cocktail sticks, still shaking, and I said to Rheta: 'I think you'd better 
call Carter. Whatever he promised, he needs medical help.'
    Rheta nodded, and went to the phone. I heard her talking to Phil More, one of 
Carter's deputies, and then she came back and told me that a police car and an ambulance 
were on their way. Paul was shuddering more feebly now, his eyes opening and closing and 
turning around as if they were completely uncontrolled, and it seemed to me that he was 
in a heavy state of shock. 'Don't try to talk,' I said quietly. 'You'll be okay in a 
little while.'
    Paul muttered for a while, and then he said, in quite a clear voice, but with a 
curiously detached kind of intonation: 'I was lost, you see. I was on my bicycle and I 
knew that I had to go into the woods. But once I was there I didn't know where I was.'
    'It's all right, Paul,' I comforted him. 'You don't have to talk. Just rest easy and 
we'll have some people around to help you in a while.'
    But Paul was unstoppable. He spoke as if he was under hypnosis, as if every word had 
been taught to him while he was in a trance. In his high, childish voice, he said: 'I 
felt I was close to the place. I didn't know for sure. But I had a feeling I was. It was 
the great place that you read about in books. I was frightened, but not too much. I could 
hear things I never heard before. Loud noises, loud shouts.'
    'Did you hear what was being shouted?' I asked him. But again he ignored me, and 
whispered: 'I knew what was going to happen. I would have to wait. It was almost dark 
then. I waited and waited, and then I knew that I had to walk as far as the Coleman 
house. It was very dark, and I fell over four or five times. I scratched my face on the 
trees.'
    'Was that when you saw Jimmy and Alison?'
    Paul nodded. 'They called to me, from the bushes. They said I mustn't come close. 
They said I had to go find you, and bring you out to the woods. They made me promise no 
police. If you go with police, or anybody else, you won't ever find them.'
    'Did you see them?' asked Rheta.
    Paul shook his head. 'It was too dark. They looked like they were wearing blankets 
over their heads. I didn't understand why.'
    I bent forward again. 'Their voices,' I asked Paul. 'Did you hear their voices