“Maybe not now, but I could have back then.”

“Yeah, right.”

They stood facing each other, his father staring at him as if seeing a new person. Finally he thrust out his hand. Jack shook it.

Dad looked around and said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Let’s get going on these omelets.”

“You start the eggs,” Jack said, “and I’ll finish dicing the ham.”

A good night. A surprising, shocking, revelatory night. Like nothing he could have anticipated.

He might have enjoyed it even more if he’d managed to bring Carl home. He wondered how the poor guy was doing.

12

Carl looked up at the starry sky, at the misshapen shadows of the surround in trees, at the water in the lagoon, anywhere but at the lights. Leastways he tried not to look. But as much as he wanted to stop it, his gaze kept driftin back to the sinkhole…and the lights.

They’d set him here on the ground, his back against one of the Indian hut support posts. They’d been ready to tie his hands behind him when they remembered that he only had one, so they lashed him to the post with coils of thick rope around his arms and body.

He’d overheard Semelee mention that Jack had found her shell but how’s it would have to wait till tomorrow. Tonight was too important.

The air was warm and wet and thick enough to choke a frog—maybe that was why they weren’t peepin. Even the crickets had shut up. The lagoon and its surroundins was quiet as a grave.

The lights had started flashin a little after dark, strange colors and mixes of colors he never seen nowheres else. That was when it really got crowded around the hole. But there’d been lots goin on before that. Luke and Corley and Udall and Erik had been settin up some sort of steel tripod over the mouth. It had a pulley danglin from the top center where the three legs came together. They threaded a good, long length of half-inch rope through it, then tied that to some sorta chair.

He kept telling himself, Naw, she ain’t really gonna do that. She ain’t that crazy.

But come full dark, when the crazy flashin colors was lightin up the trees and the water, sure enough, Semelee put herself into the chair. She was danglin over the hole, with the lights reflectin even stranger colors off that silver hair of hers, and then Luke and a couple other guys Carl couldn’t recognize cause their pan-o-ramic backs was to him started lowerin her down into the hole.

After she disappeared he could hear her voice echoin up from below.

“What’re you stoppin for? Keep me goin!”

Luke called out, “You’re deeper’n you should be already. How much to go till you hit the water?”

“Can’t see no water. Looks like it all dried up.”

“Then where’s the bottom?”

“Can’t see no bottom, just the lights.”

“That’s it,” Luke said. “I’m haulin you up now.”

“Luke, you do that and I ain’t never gonna speak to you again! You hear that? Never! It’s like nothin I could ever dream down here. The lights…so bright…all around me…feels like they’re gointhrough me. This is so cool. You keep on lettin out that rope. I want to see where they come from.”

Carl wasn’t sure of a whole lotta things in life, but he was damn sure that was a real bad idea. He was glad he was back here, away from the lights. He would’ve liked to be even farther, like in his trailer watchin TV. He was missin all his Friday night shows. But he couldn’t worry about that now. He had to get outta here.

He’d been us in his hand, workin at the knot behind his back, but this was one good knot. When you lived out here in the wilds, specially on the water, you learned how to tie a good knot. But that didn’t keep him from tryin to loosen it up.

“Keep a-goin!” he heard Semelee call up from the hole, her voice faint and all echoey like.

Luke shouted, “We’re almost outta rope!”

“Take me down to the end! As much as you got!”

Good, Carl thought. They’s all concentrated on her.

If he could just get this knot loose, he could sneak down to the water and steal a canoe and slip away real quiet like. He could be long gone before anyone noticed. Then he’d—

He jumped at the sound of a scream, a long tortured sound like someone havin their skin tore off—not just a piece, but the whole thing.

Everbody around the hole started shoutin and callin and movin this way and that. Four-five guys was haulin on that rope as fast as they could. Finally they got to the end. Carl caught a peek between the shufflin bodies and saw Semelee still in the chair. But she was all slumped over like a piece of fish bait and not movin a muscle.

She looked dead.

Saturday

1

Semelee heard herself scream and woke up all sweaty and thrashin.

Where am I?

“Semelee! Semelee, are you okay?”

Luke’s voice…and then his face appeared, hoveringover her.

She sat up, recognized her corner of theBull-ship , then flopped back.

“Here,” Luke told her. “Drink this.”

He tipped a bottle over her mouth and she gulped. Water. Lord, that tasted good.

She looked around again. “How’d I get here? I don’t remember going to bed. I—”

“You was down in the lights,” he said.

The lights! Of course.

She remembered now. She’d been down in the hole, baskin in them strange weird lights like a sun worshipper. But she hadn’t felt strange. She’d felt welcome, more welcome than she’d ever felt in her own home. She remembered wantin to tear off her clothes so the rays could go straight to her skin. But she didn’t get the chance…

Because that was when the voices began.

Whispers at first, so soft she could barely make them out. Not sounds, really. More like voices in her head, like she was a mental case or somethin. She wasn’t even sure they was talkin to her. Maybe they was jawin at each other and their words was passin through her head, but she had a feelin they was talkin to her. Shewanted them to be talkin to her.

“What happened to you down there?” Luke said. “You screamed like I ain’t never heard nobody scream, and when we pulled you up you was out cold. I thought you was a goner.”

Out cold…she jammed her hands against her temples. Damn, she wished she could remember what had happened, and remember more of what them voices had said. She did know she kept hearin about ‘the One.’ All sorts of yammerin about the One, repeatin it over and over again. The One what?

Suddenly she realized they was talkin about a person. The One was preparing the way, everything depended on the One because the One was special.

Wait, she thought, stiffening as a thrill ran through her.I’m special. I got a power like no one else. And then there’s my name…

She levered up to a sittin position and crossed her legs, Indian style. “Yes!”

“What is it?”

“Luke, do you know what my name means?”

“Y’mean Semelee? It means…it means ‘Semelee.’ Just like Luke means ‘Luke.’”

“All names mean somethin. I ain’t got no idea what Luke means, but my momma told me that Semelee means ‘one and only.’ She said she named me that because I was her first and I was a real hard birth, and she wasn’t goin through that again. She said I was her first and last kid, her one and only.”

Luke frowned. “Okay. So?”

“I heard voices down in that hole and they was talkin about ‘the One.’ That has to be me. They was talking aboutme .” She closed her eyes. Excitement flashed like lectric shocks through her body. “And they kept on sayin somethin else too.”

What was it? It was right there, just out of reach…started with anR …but what was the rest?

And then she had it! The name popped into her head like she’d known it all along.

A strange name. She’d never heard nothin like it before. But then she’d never heard nothin like those voices before neither. Was that strange word their name for her, their name for the One? Had to be.