'The trainyard's probably gone, isn't it?' Bill asked.

The cabbie laughed again, delighted. 'For someone who moved away when he was just a kid, you got a good memory, mister.' Bill thought: You should have met me last week, myFrench-speaking friend. 'It's all still out there, but it's nothing but ruins and rusty tracks now. The freights don't even stop no more. Fella wanted to buy the land and put up a whole roadside entertainment thing pitch 'n putt, batting cages, driving ranges, mini golf, go –karts, little shack fulla video games, I don't know whatall — but there's some kind of big mixup about who owns the land now. I guess he'll get it eventually — he's a persistent fella — but right now it's in the courts.'

'And the Canal,' Bill murmured as they turned off Outer Center Street and onto Pasture Road — which, as Mike had said, was now marked with a green roadsign reading MALL ROAD. 'The Canal's still here.'

'Ayup,' the cabbie said. 'That'll always be here, I guess.'

Now the Derry Mall was on Bill's left, and as they rolled past it, he felt that queer doubling sensation again. When they had been kids all of this had been a great long field full of rank grasses and gigantic nodding sunflowers which marked the northeastern end of the Barrens. Behind it, to the west, was the Old Cape low-income housing development. He could remember them exploring this field, being careful not to fall into the gaping cellarhold of the Kitchener Ironworks, which had exploded on Easter Sunday in the year 1906. The field had been full of relics and they had unearthed them with all the solemn interest of archaeologists exploring Egyptian ruins: bricks, dippers, chunks of iron with rusty bolts hanging from them, panes of glass, bottles full of unnamable gunk that smelled like the worst poison in the world.

Something bad had happened near here, too, in the gravel-pit close to the dump, but he could not remember it yet. He could only remember a name, Patrick Humboldt, and that it had something to do with a refrigerator. And something about a bird that had chased Mike Hanlon. What . . . ?

He shook his head. Fragments. Straws in the wind. That was all.

The field was gone now, as were the remains of the Ironworks. Bill remembered the great chimney of the Ironworks suddenly. Faced with tile, caked black with soot for the final ten feet of its length, it had lain in the high grass like a gigantic pipe. They had scrambled up somehow and had walked along it, arms held out like tightwire walkers, laughing — He shook his head, as if to dismiss the mirage of the mall, an ugly collection of buildings with signs that said SEARS and J. C. PENNEY and WOOLWORTH 's and C V S and YORK 'S STEAK HOUSE and WALDENBOOKS and dozens of others. Roads wove in and out of parking lots. The mall did not go away, because it was no mirage. The Kitchener Ironworks was gone, and the field that had grown up around its rums was likewise gone. The mall was the reality, not the memories.

But somehow he didn't believe that.

'Here you go, mister,' the cabbie said. He pulled into the parking-lot of a build ing that looked like a large plastic pagoda. 'A little late, but better late than never, am I right?'

'Indeed you are,' Bill said. He gave the cab-driver a five. 'Keep the change.'

'Good fucking deal!' the cabbie exclaimed. 'You need someone to driv e y o u , c a l l B i g Yellow and ask for Dave. Ask for me by name.'

'I'll just ask for the religious fella,' Bill said, grinning. 'The one who's got his plot all picked out in Mount Hope.'

'You got it,' Dave said, laughing. 'Have a good one, mister.'

'You too, Dave.'

He stood in the light rain for a moment, watching the cab draw away. He realized that he had meant to ask the driver one more question, and had forgotten — perhaps on purpose.

He had meant to ask Dave if he liked living in Derry.

Abruptly, Bill Denbrough turned and walked into the Jade of the Orient. Mike Hanlon was in the lobby, sitting in a wicker chair with a huge flaring back. He got to his feet, and Bill felt deep unreality wash over him — through him. That sensation of doubling was back, but now it was much, much worse.

He remembered a boy who had been about five feet three, trim, and agile. Before him was a man who stood about five-seven. He was skinny. His clothes seemed to hang on him. And the lines in his face said that he was on the darker side of forty instead of only thirty-eight or so.

Bill's shock must have shown on his face, because Mike said quietly: 'I know how I look.'

Bill flushed and said, 'It's not that bad, Mike, it's just that I remember you as a kid. That's all it is.'

'Is it?'

'You look a little tired.'

'I am a little tired,' Mike said, 'but I'll make it. I guess.' He smiled then, and the smile lit his face. In it Bill saw the boy he had known twenty-seven years ago. As the old woodframe Home Hospital had been overwhelmed with modern glass and cinderblock, so had the boy that Bill had known been overwhelmed with the inevitable accessories of adulthood. There were wrinkles on his forehead, lines had grooved themselves from the comers of his mouth nearly to his chin, and his hair was graying on both sides above the ears. But as the old hospital, although overwhelmed, was still there, still visible, so was the boy Bill had known.

Mike stuck out his hand and said, 'Welcome back to Derry, Big Bill.'

Bill ignored the hand and embraced Mike. Mike hugged him back fiercely, and Bill could feel his hair, stiff and kinky, against his own shoulder and the side of his neck.

'Whatever's wrong, Mike, we'll take care of it,' Bill said. He heard the rough sound of tears in his throat and didn't care. 'We beat it once, and we can b-beat it a-a-again.'

Mike pulled away from him, held him at arm's length; although he was still smiling, there was too much sparkle in his eyes. He took out hi s handkerchief and wiped them. 'Sure, Bill,' he said. 'You bet.'

'Would you gentlemen like to follow me?' the hostess asked. She was a smiling Oriental woman in a delicate pink kimono upon which a dragon cavorted and curled its plated tail. Her dark hair was piled high on her head and held with ivory combs.

'I know the way, Rose,' Mike said.

'Very good, Mr Hanlon.' She smiled at both of them. 'You are well met in friendship, I think.'

'I think we are,' Mike said. 'This way, Bill.'

He led him down a dim corridor, past the main dining room and toward a door where a beaded curtain hung.

'The others — ?' Bill began.

'All here now,' Mike said. 'All that could come.'

Bill hesitated for a moment outside the door, suddenly frightened. It was not the unknown that scared him, not the supernatural; it was the simple knowledge that he was fifteen inches taller than he had been in 1958 and minus most of his hair. He was suddenly uneasy — almost terrified — at the thought of seeing them all again, their children's faces almost worn away, almost buried under change as the old hospital had been buried. Banks erected inside their heads where once magic picture-palaces had stood.

We grew up, he thought. We didn't think it would happen, not then, not to us. But it did, and if I go in there it will be real: we're all grownups now.

He looked at Mike, suddenly bewildered and timid. 'How do they look?' he heard himself asking in a faltering voice. 'Mike . . . how do they look?'

'Come in a nd find out,' Mike said, kindly enough, and led Bill into the small private room.

2

Bill Denbrough Gets a Look

Perhaps it was simply the dimness of the room that caused the illusion, which lasted for only the briefest moment, but Bill wondered later if it wasn't some sort of message meant strictly for him: that fate could also be kind.

In that brief moment it seemed to him that none of them had grown up, that his friends had somehow done a Peter Pan act and were all still children.