“He’s a dirty boy.” Ralph didn’t know if Chuckle was a dirty boy or not, but he was fruitcrackers, no question about that. Chuckle Engstrom liked to hide behind the tree in his front yard with a long tree-branch which he called his Peekle Wand. When a woman in a full skirt passed, Chuckle would tiptoe after her, extending the Peekie Wand under the hem and then lifting. Quite often he got to check out the color of the woman’s underwear (the color of ladies’ underwear held great fascination for Chuckle) before she realized is what was going on and chased the wildly cackling lad back to his house, threatening to tell his mother. The airport fence, pulled out and up by the old oak’s roots, reminded Ralph of the way the skirts of Chuckle’s victims had looked when he started to raise them with the Peekie Wand.

[“Ralph?”] He looked at her.

[“who is Piggyjuan? And why are you thinking about him now?”

Ralph burst out laughing.

[“Did -you see that in my aura?”] [“I guess so-I don’t really know anymore. Who is he?”] [“Tell you another time. Come on.” He took her hand and they walked slowly toward the oak tree where Atropos’s trail ended, into the thickening odor of wild decay that was his scent.

CHAPTER 25

They stood at the base of the oak, looking down. Lois was gnawing obsessively on her lower lip.

[“Do we have to go down there, Ralph? Do we really?”] E “Yes. “I [“But why? What are we supposed to do? Take something he stole?

Kill him? What?”] Other than retrieve Joe’s comb and Lois’s earrings, he didn’t know… but he felt certain he would know, that they both would, when the time came.

“I think for now we better just keep moving, Lois.”

The lightning had acted like a strong hand, shoving the tree violently toward the east and opening a large hole at the bottom on its western side. To a man or woman with Short-Time vision, that hole would undoubtedly look dark-and maybe a little scary, with its crumbly sides and barely glimpsed roots squirming in the deep shadows like snakes-but otherwise not very unusual.

A kid with a good imagination might see more, Ralph thought.

That dark space at the bottom of the tree might make him think of pirate treasure… outlaw hideouts… troll-holes…

But Ralph didn’t think even an imaginative Short-Time kid would have been able to see the dim red glow filtering up from beneath the tree, or realize that those squirming roots were actually rough rungs leading down to some unknown (and undoubtedly unpleasant) place.

No-even an imaginative kid wouldn’t see those things… but he or she might sense them.

Right. And after doing so, one with any brains would turn and run as if all the demons of hell were in hot pursuit. As would he and Lois, if they had any sense at all. Except for Lois’s earrings Except for Joe Wyzer’s comb. Except for his own lost place in the Purpose.

And, of course, except for Helen (and possibly Nat) and the two thousand other people who were going to be at the Civic Center tonight.

Lois was right. They were supposed to do something, and if they backed out now, it was a something that would remain forever done-bun-undone.

And those are the ropes, he thought. The ropes the powers-that-be use to the’e us poor, muddled Short-Time creatures to their wheel.

He now visualized Clotho and Lachesis through a bright lens of hate, and he thought that if the two of them had been here right now, they would have exchanged one of their uneasy looks and then taken a quick step or two away.

And they would be right to do that, he thought. Very right.

[“Ralph? What’s wrong? Why are you so angry?”] He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

[“It’s nothing. Come on. Let’s go before we lose our nerve.”]

She looked at him a moment longer, then nodded. And when Ralph sat down and poked his legs into the gaping, root-lined mouth at the foot of the tree, she was right beside him.

Ralph slid beneath the tree on his back, holding his free hand over his face to keep dirt from crumbling into his open eyes. He tried not to flinch as root-knuckles caressed the side of his neck and prodded the small of his back. The smell under the tree was a revolting monkeyhouse aroma that made his gorge rise. He was able to go on kidding himself that he would get used to it until he was all the way into the hole under the oak, and then the kidding stopped. He raised himself on one elbow, feeling smaller roots digging at his scalp and dangling flaps of bark tickling his cheeks, and ejected as much of his breakfast as still remained in the holding-tank. He could hear Lois doing the same thing on his left.

A terrible, woozy faintness went rolling through his head like a breaking wave. The stench was so thick he was almost he could see the red stuff they had followed to this t eating it, and nightmare place under the tree all over his hands and arms. Just looking at this stuff had been bad; now he found himself taking a bath in it, for God’s sake.

Something groped for his hand and he almost gave in to panic before realizing it was Lois. He laced his fingers through hers.

[“Ralph, come up a little bit! It’s better You can breathe.” He understood what she meant at once, and had to restrain himself, haul himself down, at the last moment. If he hadn’t, he would have shot up the ladder of perception like a rocket under full thrust.

The world wavered, and suddenly there seemed to be a little more light in this stinking hole and a little more room, too.

The smell didn’t go away, but it became bearable, Now it was like being in a small closed tent full of people with dirty feet and sweaty armpitsnot nice, but something you could live with, at least for awhile.

Ralph suddenly imagined the face of a pocket-watch, complete with hands that were moving too fast. It was better without the stench trying to pour down his throat and gag him, but this was still a dangerous place to be-suppose they came out of here tomorrow morning, with nothing left of the Civic Center but a smoking hole on Main Street? And it could happen. Keeping track of time down here-short time, long time, or all time-was impossible. He glanced at his watch, but it was meaningless.

He should have set it earlier, but he had forgotten.

Let it go, Ralph-you can’t do anything about it, so let it go.

He tried, and as he did, it occurred to him that Old Dor had been a hundred percent correct on the day Ed had crashed into Mr. West Side Gardeners’ pickup truck; it was better not to mess into long-time business. And yet here they were, the world’s oldest Peter Pan and the world’s oldest Wendy, sliding under a magic tree into some slimy underworld neither one of them wanted to see.

Lois was looking at him, her pale face lit with that sick red glow, her expressive eyes full of fright. He saw dark threads on her chin and realized it was blood. She had quit.just nibbling at her lower lip and had begun taking bites out of it.

[“Ralph, are you all right?”]

[“I get to crawl under an old oak tree with a pretty girl and you even have to ask? I’m fine, Lois. But I think we better hurry.

[“All right.” He felt around below him and placed his foot on a gnarled rootknuckle. It took his weight and he slid down the stony slope, squeezing beneath another root and holding Lois around the waist. Her skirt skidded up to her thighs and Ralph thought again, briefly, about Chuckle Engstrom and his Peekie Wand. He was both amused and exasperated to see Lois was trying to pull the skirt back down.

[“I know that a lady tries to keep her skirt down whenever possible, but I think the rule goes by the boards when you’re sliding down the staircases under old oak trees. Okay?”] She gave him an embarrassed, frightened little smile.

[“If I’d known what we were going to he doing, I would have worn slacks. I thought we were just going to the hospital.”] If I’d known what we were going to be doing, Ralph thought, I would have cashed in my bonds, developing softness in the market or not, and had us on a plane to Rio, my dear.