THE BEAST ─ five hargreeves

[ 062 ] zara rescues a goldfish from a crazy axe-murderer

"That's . . . good," he said.

"And anyway," she went on, "I can't will you into wanting me. It would be stupid to try. We may as well just be friends and leave it at that."

Force me! thought Five. How little she knew! But even as she said the words, he could see curiosity flicker across her face as she watched him, and he wondered—how much did she know?—how much did she guess? A sudden pang of fear struck him. Were even his own thoughts not safe from her? The thought was so disturbing he visibly shrunk from it.

Zara was looking at him now with the vaguest hint of pity in her eyes.

"Don't be sad about it, Five," she said gently, as if he was one of her snivelling little animals whom she was trying to console. "We're going to go back to the twenty-first century together, see? And then maybe one day, once all this is over, we'll be able to figure something out. That is what you want, isn't it?"

Yes, he thought silently. Yes. Yes. Yes.

A beat of silence elapsed between them.

Then he turned and left the room, leaving nothing behind for her but a curt: "Be downstairs in ten minutes."

For a moment, she leaned back against the closed door, sinking into the loneliness of the room, an eternity drawn out like a note on violin strings.

She closed her eyes and in the blackness that followed, she saw Five. She saw him in all his cold, impersonal glory. That was the way he would always want her to see him. But last night she thought she had seen something else . . .

Five—

(—who had said he felt nothing for her.)

Her hand went to her touch her neck, then her jaw, then her lips. It felt painful. Like adding salt to a blistering wound.

Zara opened her eyes. In front of her was the telephone, lying innocently on the bedside table. One call . . . one call and she would be free of this torture by tonight . . .

And if she did nothing? Then she would be tied forever to him . . . stuck like a fool with a daisy stalk . . . forever exclaiming, "He loves me, he loves me not!" over the last brown petal. No! Never!

Zara picked up the receiver and dialled a number. In a few rings she heard a voice at the other end.

"Ralph? Yes. It's Zara. I've decided. I want you to take me away from this horrible place. But we must leave soon."

. . .

—A BOY, A GIRL, and a parrot stepped off the final Greyhound at the Lonely Lodge Inn in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, at a little past noon on the seventh of September, 1982.

After more than an hour of nonstop riding relieved only by Kiki's occasional commentary, Zara felt like a figment of her own imagination. It was cold. God was clearing His throat and spitting casual snow from a dirty grey sky. Zara had brought only a dress and, after some glaring and gesturing to her hickey, was able to procure Five's blazer, which she wrapped closely around her. But such clothes weren't nearly enough, and they made for the Inn hurriedly.

At the little lodge's front desk they were confronted by a smiling, strawberry-blond clerk of perhaps three hundred pounds. She wore a prim uniform and moccasins on her swollen feet.