Unable to resist, I drive the Land Cruiser back to The Jolly Corner by way of Old Catton Road, bypassing Elm Haven. There is no crime scene yellow tape at the entrance to the drive, so I turn into the lane.

It is shocking to come down this familiar long driveway with no farmhouse at the end. All that remains of The Jolly Corner is the brick and stone foundation, a four-foot-high remnant of one charred wall of the kitchen, and the tumbled, burned mass of debris falling into the open and black basement. The fire was quite thorough, and I am amazed that they found the key to the Land Cruiser.

Snow in the area all around the ruins of the house has been trampled down by emergency vehicles and footsteps. Far out behind the chicken coop and other sheds, I can see the black, skeletal-steel remains of the old combine. Numerous vehicles have plowed channels through the snow coming and going from there as well. The big barn looks vulnerable with its giant door missing.

I do not even consider getting out of my truck.

Driving back down the lane, I am slightly startled by the sight of a sheriff’s car turning in from County 6. I pull to the right to let it pass and roll down my window when the car stops and Deputy Presser gets out. He peers into the front of my vehicle with the professional curiosity of any cop during a traffic stop.

“On your way out, Professor?”

“Yes.”

“I see your laptop’s working.” He nods toward the ThinkPad, open and activated on the passenger seat, its screen saver cycling.

“I was never any good at folding road maps,” I say and touch the computer’s Pointing Stick. The screen saver disappears, and the Rand McNally road map of the United States is on the screen. My route from the Midwest to Missoula is highlighted in bright green.

Presser chuckles and then lifts a long, canvas-covered object. “Sheriff McKown said that I might catch up to you here. He said that you might want this.”

It is the Savage over-and-under, of course. Probably freshly cleaned and oiled, if I know McKown at all.

“No,” I say. “I won’t be needing it. Give the sheriff my thanks and tell him to donate it to a department yard sale or something.”

Presser looks doubtful for an instant but then salutes me with a tap to the brim of his Stetson, sets the weapon in the backseat of his vehicle, and drives on to The Jolly Corner to turn around.

Idrive south along County 6, past Uncle Henry’s and Aunt Lena’s old place, up the first hill, and past Calvary Cemetery. A single figure stands far back there in the snow amidst the headstones, and there is no car parked outside the black iron gate. The figure seems to be wearing olive or khaki and a campaign hat. I give him only one glance. If there are other ghosts here, they are not mine.

At the intersection with Jubilee College Road, I consider driving into Elm Haven a final time but then dismiss the thought. Elm Haven itself is a sort of ghost in this new century, and I will spare no time for it.

I drive ahead down the cutoff road toward the interstate. Less than a mile later, where I must cross 150A, I have to wait a minute for several trucks heading toward Peoria to rumble past.

The black screen on the computer blinks.

>A long time, do you think?

The road is clear now, but I wait to reach over and type—

>No, not long. I’m sure of it.

I have no specific plan for the coming weeks or months. However long Dale needs to recuperate and recover, to become one again, is however long I will. . . not possess, never possess. . . but do my best to maintain life’s forward movement for him.

I suspect I will see Anne and Mab and Katie some time after I return, and I hope that I do something to help and nothing to hinder Dale’s intentions in that regard. I do not know his precise plans.

Sometime in the coming week or so, I will call Princeton, talk to some people, and then wait until I hear Clare Hart’s voice on the line before I hang up. He has no urge to speak with her, but it may allow Dale to sleep better when he returns if he knows she is alive and well.

If the gift of these weeks—and it is a gift, deliberately given to me, just as I have twice given Dale the gift of another chance—if this gift stretches to a month or two, I think that I will resume work on Dale’s novel. The truths of sunlight and summer and childhood friendships in it are real enough, but it is all too earnest and serious of purpose and artsy, I think. Perhaps I’ll add playful elements as well as the darker secrets and silences that Dale had been too fearful or hesitant to face. Perhaps I’ll have fun with it—turn it into a horror novel. Dale can always change it later if he insists on committing lit’ra-chur. Or together he and I can twist reality like the Möbius loop it is.

I cross 150A and turn right down the interstate access ramp at the KWIK’N’EZ without looking back. Sheriff McKown has topped off the tank and even with this gas-guzzling monster, I can be to Des Moines or beyond before I have to think about stopping.

Once on I-74 the way goes on ahead open and free to the west, and so do I.

About the Author

Dan Simmons is the Hugo Award-winning author of Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion and their sequels, Endymion and The Rise of Endymion. He has written the critically acclaimed suspense novels Darwin’s Blade and The Crook Factory, as well as other highly respected works including Summer of Night, its sequel A Winter Haunting, and Song of Kali, Carrion Comfort, and World’s Enough & Time. Simmons makes his home in Colorado.