A moment later, Theodora came out, and walked toward us. As she got nearer, her eyes on Jack's face, she began to frown; then, stopping before him, she simply looked at him questioningly. Jack nodded. "Yeah," he said uneasily. "Honey, Miles and I feel – " He stopped as Theodora slowly nodded her head.

"Never mind," she said tiredly. "If you're going back, you're going back; it doesn't matter why. And where you go, I go." She shrugged. Turning to me, she managed a wan smile. " 'Morning, Miles."

When Becky came out, her nightgown and my pyjamas rolled into a bundle under her arm, her face was anxious and intent, full of what she had to say. "Miles" – she stopped in front of us – "I've got to go back. It's all real, it really is happening, and my father – " She stopped talking as I nodded.

"We're all going back," I said gently, taking her elbow, leading her toward the car, Jack and Theodora walking along with us. "Only first, for lord's sakes, let's go get us some breakfast."

At two minutes after eleven that morning, Jack shifted into second and began to curse, as we turned off the highway onto the Santa Mira road, and the last few miles to home. We were charged with a terrible urgency to get there, now – to move, to act – but this road was a hopeless dusty mess of great twisted ruts, sharp-edged little chuckholes, and frequent wider, deeper holes that could break an axle if you did more than slowly ease your car into and out of them again. "The one road into Santa Mira," Jack said angrily, "and they let it fall apart." He pulled hard on the wheel to bring us out of a rut and avoid a miniature gully just ahead. "Typical town-council stupidity," he burst out. "They let this one go to pieces because the new state road was coming through town, then change their minds, and veto the new road. Miles, you read about that?" I said no, and Jack said, "Yeah, in the Tribune. The council's against the highway now; it would spoil the quiet residential quality of the town, they say," Jack said bitterly. "And now surveying's stopped, and looks like they'll re-route the new highway. Leaving us with one practically impassable road, and with the winter rains coming on, there's no point fixing it now." The rear bumper guards scraped dirt, as the back wheels lurched out of a hole, and Jack cursed and complained steadily until eleven-thirty, when we passed the black-and-white Santa Mira City Limits sign, population 3,890.

Chapter twelve

I don't know how many people still live in the towns they were born in, these days. But I did, and it's inexpressibly sad to see that place die; far worse than the death of a friend, because you have other friends to turn to. We did a great deal, and a lot of things happened, in the hour and fifty-five minutes that followed; and in every minute of it my sense of loss deepened and my sense of shock grew at what we saw, and I knew that something very dear to me was irretrievably lost. Moving along an outlying street, now, I had my first actual feeling of the terrible change in Santa Mira, and I remembered something a friend had told me about the war, the fighting in Italy. They would come, sometimes, into a town supposedly free of Germans, the population supposedly friendly. But they'd enter with rifles at the ready, just the same, glancing around, up, and back, with every cautious step. And they saw every window, door, alleyway, and face, he'd told me, as something to fear. Now, home again in the town I was born in – I'd delivered papers on this very street – I knew how he'd felt entering those Italian villages; I was afraid of what I might see and find here.

Jack said, "I'd like to run up to our place for a few minutes, Miles; Teddy and I need some clothes."

I didn't want to go with them; I was sick with the thoughts and feelings moving through me, and I knew I had to see this town, to look at it up close, hoping to be able to tell myself that it was still the way it always had been. I had no Saturday office hours to worry about, so I said, "Let us out, then, Jack, and we'll walk. I feel like it, if Becky doesn't mind, and we'll meet you at my place."

So Jack let us out on Etta Street, south of Main; maybe a ten-minute walk from my house. Etta is a quiet residential street, like most of the others in Santa Mira, and as the sound of Jack's car died, Becky and I walked along toward Main, and there wasn't a soul in sight, and hardly a sound but our shoes on the walk; it should have seemed peaceful.

"Miles, what's wrong with you?" Becky said irritably, and I stared at her. She smiled a little, then, but there was still a little edge of irritation in her voice. "Don't you know I'm awfully close to being in love with you; can't you tell?" She didn't wait for an answer; she just looked at me as though I were simple-minded, and added, "And you'd be with me, if you'd just relax and let go." She put a hand on my arm. "Miles, what's the matter?"

"Well," I said, "I hadn't wanted to tell you this, but there's a curse on my family; we Bennells are doomed to walk alone. I was the first in generations to try marriage, and you know what happened. If I tried again, I'd turn into an owl, and so would anyone who tried with me. I don't mind for myself, but I wouldn't want you to be an owl."

She didn't answer for a few steps, then she said, "Who are you afraid for, you or me?"

"Both." I shrugged. "I wouldn't want either of us to get on a first-name basis at our neighbourhood divorce court."

She smiled. "And you think that would happen to us?"

"My record's perfect so far. I might be the type who makes it a habit. How can I tell?"

"I don't know. I don't know how you can tell; your logic is flawless. Miles, I'd better move home."

"I'd tie you down first," I said. "You're not moving anywhere. But from now on, we won't even shake hands" – I grinned at her maliciously – "wonderful as it was sleeping with you."

"Go to hell," she said, and grinned.

We walked on, then, not talking about anything important, for half a dozen blocks, and I looked around me at Etta Street. I'd driven the streets of Santa Mira every day; I'd been in this very block not a week before. And everything I was seeing now had been here to see then, except that you don't really see the familiar until it's thrust on you. You don't actually look, you don't notice, until there's a reason to do so. But now there was a reason, and I looked around me, really seeing the street and the houses along it, trying to soak up every impression they could give me.

I couldn't possibly describe any specific way in which anything I saw seemed different; yet it did, in a way words can't explain. But if I were an artist, painting the way Etta Street seemed to me, walking along now with Becky, I think I'd distort the windows of the houses we passed. I'd show them with half-drawn shades, the bottom edge of each shade curving downward, so that the windows looked like heavy-lidded, watchful eyes, quietly and terribly aware of us as we passed through that silent street. I'd show the porch rails and stair rails hugging the houses like protective arms, sullenly guarding them against our curiosity. I'd paint the houses themselves as huddled and crouching, alien and withdrawn, resentful, evil, and full of icy malice against the two figures walking along the street between them. And somehow I'd depict the very trees and lawns, the street and sky above us, as dark – though it was actually clear and sunny – and give the picture a brooding, silent, fearful quality. And I think I'd make every colour just a shade off-key.

I don't know if that would convey what I felt, but – something was wrong, and I knew it. And then I knew that Becky did, too.

"Miles," she said in a cautious, lowered tone, "am I imagining it, or does this street look – dead?"