"She didn't make any sense," he said. "She was delusional. I don't know what she thought I was, but she got frightened and screamed."

"Well, since she's been a turnip for several years now, do we count screaming as an improvement or a deterioration?" asked Bolt. The wry tone was back in his voice, now. He was himself again. Or maybe he had been himself back in the rest home. How could Quentin know?

"I liked Sally," said Quentin.

"Yeah, she's a real charmer."

Quentin looked up at the freeway sign announcing the next exit. Only it didn't say the name of a town.

GO AHEAD

Go ahead?

"I got news for you, Quentin," said Bolt. "From what I know of women, Sannazzaro doesn't like you."

She did, though, for a little while.

The sign that should have announced restaurants at the next exit had also been altered.

OPEN THE BOX

"Of course, what do I know about women?" said Bolt.

The sign promising gas stations now said:

I WANT YOU TO

Go ahead, open the box, I want you to. Gee, thanks, Grandmother.

The little exit sign had also been changed.

DIE

"By the way, have you been noticing the signs?" said Bolt.

"Have you?"

"Somebody doesn't like you," said Bolt. "Can Sannazzaro do that?"

"I doubt it," said Quentin. "It's the old lady. She's a witch. Rowena's a witch. My wife Madeleine was a succubus."

For a moment Bolt was angry. "Rowena's not a witch!"

"Just think about it for a second," said Quentin. "Those words aren't going up on those signs by themselves."

"It's the old lady."

"Yes, it's the old lady. But the other stuff wasn't her. Rowena's the one who keeps her tied down to that bed. It's a war between witches, fighting over a dragon, flinging succubuses around to win the cooperation of the occasional man. Don't think for a minute that just because you loved Rowena, she isn't one of them."

"Yeah, well, what do you know about Rowena?"

"Nothing. I know absolutely nothing about anything, Bolt."

"Me too."

"You can say that again. If you hadn't been acting like a prick back at the rest home, Sannazzaro wouldn't have gotten so angry at me."

"I don't know what gets into me when I'm around that woman," said Bolt. "If there's any witch in this whole business, it's her."

I'm not calling them witches metaphorically, Quentin wanted to say. I'm telling you that the woman you love probably had you enthralled, under control. That's probably what was happening to you back in the rest home.

But there was no point in saying it. Because if it was true, Bolt wouldn't be able to understand it.

"Anyway, it's been a long time since lunch," said Bolt. "If by some chance one of these signs actually says something about food instead of carrying your hate mail, you up for dinner?"

How could he think of eating?

But now that he mentioned it, Quentin was hungry too. "You sure the police won't be looking for us?"

"We've changed counties now," said Bolt. "That sign that said liar about eight times was the county line. Besides, I don't think Sannazzaro really called the cops."

"No, I guess not."

"See? She likes you, Quentin. Not calling the cops on you—man, that's love."

Quentin had to laugh in spite of himself. Bolt was back to himself again. Things would settle down at the rest home, too. Sannazzaro would realize that she overreacted. Mrs. Tyler too. Everything would be fine.

In the meantime, what had he learned? He thought of all the stories of witches he had heard and read. The warty noses and pointy chins were obviously just prejudice against age. The magic potions were the stuff of alchemy, or the lore of folk medicine, which was used to both cure and curse. But the idea of witches calling upon the dead, sending succubuses to sleeping men, collecting macabre body parts from people they knew, all of these must have had roots in true incidents. Even the stories of witches worshiping Satan... for what might happen if this beast that Mrs. Tyler talked of should succeed in taking control of an adult body? There were plenty of people who worshiped Hitler. Caligula made himself a god. What if the beast took over some poor devil of a druid? What would that look like to people who didn't understand what those witches were doing, or who the man they worshiped really was? For the lifetime of the man it inhabited, the beast might well make witches into his personal slaves, holding bacchanals that would fit even the most bizarre medieval accounts. Witches, succubuses, dragons, the devil. To some people they would always be myths. But not to the people who were born with a greater ability to commune with spirits living and dead.

What about me? Quentin couldn't help but wonder. He certainly had nothing like the power of these women, but he had some. He had called to Lizzy without realizing it—and without having any relic of her, either. The moment he imagined having a relic of her, he thought of what that would have entailed, taking some fragment of her body. Wasn't that just what the transplant doctors had done? Organs of her body had been scattered across the country and kept alive, binding her spirit to them until at last they died. He shuddered in revulsion.

"Turn the heat up if you're shivering," said Bolt beside him.

Quentin thought of how Bolt, poor man, was in love with a witch and never realized it. Rowena kissing him in the kitchen. Quentin had been pretty thoroughly enchanted by a succubus; how much stronger must it have been for Bolt, who kissed the witch herself? Was that the exact method a witch used to enthrall a man? The kiss that wakens the sleeping princess. The kiss that turns the frog into a man. A kiss before dying.

He tried to sort through all that Mrs. Tyler had told him about thralls. A man with no will of his own. The beast would leap right past him to the woman who owned him. So if Bolt was enthralled, that would explain why Rowena couldn't use him to open the box. It would expose Rowena as surely as if she opened it herself. But what could a thrall do? Had she sent him to try to murder her mother? Maybe he wouldn't even know that was what he was about to do? His rational mind would have to make up some alternate explanation for his own actions, such as wanting to rearrange the old lady's pillows. He loved and honored Mrs. Tyler; he couldn't possibly imagine killing her. Even if he found himself in the act of murdering her, the idea would be inconceivable to him.

Dangerous people, these witches. As dangerous when they loved you as they were when they hated you. That is, if they ever really loved anybody, instead of just using them.

Quentin pressed the long-distance speed dial number for Wayne Read on the cellular phone. It didn't really matter now if Bolt heard him or not. Rowena and Mrs. Tyler and half the witches in the world could be listening in on all his conversations and he'd never know it.

The salutations over, Quentin got to the point. "If you don't have the address for the so-called Duncans yet, I have more information. The wife was born Rowena Tyler. And their address is probably in the file of Mrs. Anna Laurent Tyler at the Willoughby Retirement Home." He gave him the address.

"We're still checking out other leads too," said Wayne. "If you were just there, why didn't you get the address yourself?"

"I didn't part on good terms with the management."

"So how is our investigator going to get the information?"

"It doesn't have to be admissible in court, Wayne."

"You've been reading too much detective fiction, Quentin. Most private investigators have no burglary skills whatsoever."

"Most burglars have no burglary skills. Just walk in during business hours, take the file, Xerox the sheet with the address, and walk out. They're shorthanded right now."