GARY SHOCKLEY

The Lightning Bug Wars

PART I

THE SUNFISH REFUSED TO die or drift away. It swam on its side close to the raft, splashing intermittently, a tendril of bright blood leeching from its gills into the muddy water. It seemed like hours ago that William had stuck the metal tip of a rope stringer down its throat and spun it until the hook came free with a flap of gizzard. After that the impulse to fish had left him, yet he kept a line in simply to be doing something. The shores remained far away, the raft at midriver, and without an oar he had no idea when the situation might change.

Ahead and to his right, a heron dropped from a tree to skim low over the surface, retreating downriver for the umpteenth time. William watched it settle in a deadwood on the left bank, then turned back to the bobber waltzing ten feet behind, a damsel fly perched on its tip. With a yawn he adjusted his straw hat against the midday Sun, slouched back in the folding leather chair, and was soon asleep.

A scraping sound woke him. The air had cooled off. It was late evening, and the Sun hugged the horizon, glinting through trees. He did not relish the idea of spending the night on the river. As he swatted at a mosquito, the scrape came again, and now he saw what it was. The raft no longer drifted, nor was it in midstream. Swinging wide around a bend, it had caught a snag in close to shore. He rose quickly. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for. With care he could walk the log to shore and escape the river at last. But he hesitated, feeling a strange compulsion to push off, to continue his aimless and endless drift -An

An odd tapping sound broke the spell. He studied the cottonwoods and willows along the shore, thinking it a woodpecker. But it was too harsh for that, almost metallic, and seemed to come from close to the ground. Now curious, he picked up the anchor by the rope and underhanded it hard toward shore, just making it. He then stutter-stepped along the log and only got one foot wet making it to shore.

After securing the anchor, he followed the tapping up the bank. At times it stopped. At times he simply misread its direction. But slowly he closed in on the source. Passing through a mix of black locust, crabapple, and sumac, he tracked it to a jumble of rocks. Among them was a cleft, a cave.

His first thought was "bear." But he saw no tracks, nor was there an animal scent. The opening was small and steep, almost vertical. Tossing several sticks in, he ducked back as two bats fluttered out. The tapping stopped. He dug about in the vest he had found in the raft's hold and was rewarded with a small flashlight. Shining it into the opening, he made out a limestone floor five feet below. Putting aside his hat and vest, he cautiously lowered himself within.

Barely had he settled when something lunged at him with a howl. He fell backward, banging his head. To make matters worse, the flashlight winked out. Head throbbing, vision scintillating, he heard laughter. It was deep-throated and feminine, with just a touch of echo from the small cave. Then the tapping began anew. Turning the flashlight back on, he shone it about and then into a niche. A young woman crouched there, rock in hand, tapping the wall.

"I frightened you, didn't I," she said, sounding pleased. She had her ear to the wall and seemed to be listening.

"Yes, you frightened me!" He checked his scalp for blood, felt none, but the throbbing persisted. "What if I'd had a weak heart?" Which in fact he did, the result of a childhood illness.

She tapped some more, not answering. She was dressed in black. Black leotards, black cape, black shoes. Even her hair was black. Yet her hands and face had a startling whiteness about them.

"What are you doing down here?" he asked, easing back against the wall, only to think better of it and step clear. He brushed at his back with the flashlight.

"Conversing with the turtles," she said, tapping some more. "They root about on the bottom and bang their shells on rocks. And I can hear them." She pressed her ear tighter to the wall. "They talk to me."

"You understand them?"

"No." She listened for a moment. "Not yet. They talk to me, and I talk to them. But we don't understand each other. Eventually we will, and then I'll learn what I need to know."

Did she really believe all this? Or was she putting him on? "Who are you?" he asked.

"Certainly you can guess." She snarled, showing two white fangs.

He decided to play along, at least for now. "So you're a vampire. Wonderful. What name are you going by this century?"

She snarled again, crawling out of the niche. Then she got up and spat the fangs into her hand. "Okay, so I'm not a vampire. You happy?" She skulked past him and climbed out of the cave.

He followed, wondering what this was all about. She had gone down the bank to stand at river's edge. Retrieving his hat and vest, he joined her there.

"How long you been on the river?" she asked, looking at the raft.

"Ever since morning."

"That's not long. Not long at all."

He didn't know what she meant by that. Then again, there were a tot of things he didn't know right now.

"What do you know about this river?" he asked.

"Pop's the one who knew it. He taught me some, but not much." She picked the anchor up by the rope and swung it lazily back and forth. "What do you want to know about it?"

"Well, for one thing, where is it headed? I haven't seen a bridge all day, and I never hear cars -- just an occasional plane or tractor in the distance. Doesn't that seem odd?"

She lengthened her grip on the anchor rope, still swinging it. "Sometimes, if it's got something to teach you, and you're a slow learner, it doesn't go anywhere. Not for a while."

He laughed. "Well, I must be a very slow learner."

She swung the anchor overhead and underhanded it outward.

"Hey!"

It hit the raft with a clunk, reverberating into the empty oil drums that gave it buoyancy.

"Why did you do that!" As he watched, the raft pin-wheeled off the snag and began to drift downriver.

She shrugged.

The sky was stained crimson with sunset, and a light breeze lifted fine strands of her glossy black hair into it. She held a blade of grass between her teeth. He could still smell the earthy rot of the cave. It came from her. He studied her profile, how the black cape snugged the small of her back, how her long hair fell loosely to her waist. She was late teens, certainly no more than twenty.

"The name's Lana," she said.

"William." He decided not to offer his hand. She was watching the sunfish splash lamely about in the shallows, floating awry. Her face betrayed no emotion.

"You've got a wife, and three children," she said. "No, make that four."

Three had been correct, all grown up. He watched the raft now far from shore, wheeling further about, drifting steadily downstream. "My wife passed away six months ago."

"How did she die?"

"Plane crash." It seemed easier to talk to a stranger. "She was supposed to take flight 1038, only it wasn't convenient for me to pick her up. So she changed it to 1137. That's the one that went down." He felt empty, saying it. It seemed like another world.

She looked upward into the sky, her hair reaching midthigh. "I'd rather drown."

Two deer came down to the opposite bank, spotted them, and went bounding off. Lana slapped at a mosquito.

"I've got some repellent," he said, fumbling with his vest.

"No. I'm fine." Suddenly she turned to him. "Here."

He looked at her extended fist. "What is it?"

"It's for you. Go ahead. Take it."

He hesitated, then held out his hand.

She dropped a large white grub into his palm.

He watched it squiggle. Then he cupped it to his mouth and pretended to chew.

She laughed. "You're strange."

He tossed the grub into the water. "And what does that make you? Why do you dress like a vampire?"

She shrugged. "I like bats."

"You like bats." He didn't know what to make of such a statement.

"My pop hooked one once. He was casting out across the river when a bat flew over. It got tangled in the line down by the hook and flopped in the water. Pop was reeling it in when a blue cat struck. Twenty-one pounds. Pop had it mounted with the bat in its mouth. He says bats are chunks of the night that get bored, so they tear themselves loose and flap about looking for something to do. Only they don't have enough substance about themselves to do more than cause weird phenomena, like ball lightning, hailstones with crickets in them, crop circles -- stuff like that."

"That's why you like bats?"

She nodded, her long hair cascading like black falls. "I like the night."

He noticed that the Sun was down and twilight was quickly settling in. Lightning bugs began to flash.

"You'd better be getting home."

"Not until morning," she said.

They were silent for a time. He studied her, puzzled by everything she said.

"You really came out here to talk to the turtles?"

She pointed. She pointed at a spot on the river directly in front of them. She held that pose for a long time before speaking. "That's where Pop died."

"On the river?"

"He drowned. Eleven years ago."

He was silent.

"We were fishing. Carp, crappie, bluegill, but mostly catfish. That's what we were after. Yellows, channels, maybe a blue or two. A stringer full. I caught the biggest. A blue cat. Mom stood up and fell in. I thought she did it on purpose, it happened so fast. Pop jumped in after her. It was all a joke. They had gone for a swim. I wanted to go swimming too. But Pop, he wouldn't answer me. Turned out he was too busy trying to save Mom. He couldn't."

"She died too?"

"Nope. She just disappeared. They pulled Pop's body out a week later. Said the turtles probably got Mom. But that isn't so. She could hold her breath a long time. I saw her do it in the pool. She held it until she reached the ocean and then held it a good deal longer. Living in Costa Rica now. That's where she always wanted to vacation."

Her expression was somber. She appeared dead serious. William followed her gaze out to midriver and back. "You really believe that?"

"Of course." She looked at him, suddenly spirited. "You like games?"

He felt the back of his head. A large knot was forming. "Not the kind you play."

"This is a real game. Like pinball."

"Pinball. Isn't that a little before your generation?"

She spat out the blade of grass. "Come on."

He looked at the raft drifting onward and made a helpless gesture. "Apparently you're the only game in town." He followed her up a path to a van parked in the woods. It was dusty black with fancy gold hubcaps and bright amoeba-like markings on the sides.

"This yours?" he asked. It didn't seem to fit her.

"I have a car," she said. "Two of them. But I prefer this."

He climbed in next to her. "Three cars? You must have inherited a bundle."

She started out at a crawl. He thought it was just because of the forest, but when they hit a decent dirt road, she continued at 35 miles per hour.

"Don't like driving much," she admitted. "Too dangerous."

"Your parents were well off?" he pressed.

"Pop was the biggest vegetable farmer in these parts. He owned over a thousand acres. In fact, he would deliver vegetables to the markets in a van like this -- except his was white. Everyone respected him. He knew the land, its quirks, its needs. He was an expert hunter, trapper, and fisherman. He knew all the spots. Something of a legend, I guess. Mom, she ran a greenhouse for a time. Exotic plants. But it got flattened by a freak dust devil. That's what Pop said anyway. Other people said it was a tornado. But she never rebuilt. I don't know why."

She turned into a large driveway, toggled an electric gate open and closed around her passage, and headed into a large estate. The grass was tall and weedy, with topiary hedges mutated beyond recognition. A large mansion swung into view.

"All this, and all you've got is pinball?" he asked.

"Oops." She hit the brakes, whipped the wheel, and floored it, tearing up the lawn in turning around. She zipped back down the lane and veered off toward a woods, stopping near it.

"Now what?" he asked her.

She pulled two mason jars from the glove compartment and handed him one. "We need lightning bugs." She jumped out and ran toward a flash. "Ten of them each." She made a dash for another one. "Better get fifteen just to be safe."

He climbed out and made several clumsy attempts at catching one.

"You okay?" she asked.

He huffed, hands on knees. "Sure. Just not much for vigorous exercise."

It took them fifteen minutes to catch that many, and she had to help him with his.

"Sometimes I like driving," she said, tearing up the lawn on the way back to the driveway.

At the mansion, she ran up to the front door. "Come on."

William climbed slowly from the van and studied the mansion. "Who all lives here ?"

"Me, me -- " She pushed the door inward against a long ominous creak. " -- and me."

He stepped up beside her. "It's a mighty big place for just the three of you."

She glanced at him, then stepped inside. "No family. No husband. Not even a boyfriend."

"Maybe you frighten them off."

She giggled. "I think I do."

He followed her inside. A grandfather clock stood in the hallway. A chandelier hung in the dining room off to the right. Cabinets full of knickknacks stood against the walls. Even from afar William could see that everything was dusty. The smell of garbage came from the kitchen.

"Come on. It's upstairs."

He paused, looking at what appeared to be a very long living room, except that the floor was concrete.

"That used to be the pool," she said. "Mom would do fifty laps every day. She was very athletic."

He followed her up the curving staircase. The ornately carved banister appeared to be walnut. He paused suddenly, wondering what he was doing here. He looked down at the front door.

"What's the matter? Afraid you'll lose?"

In the upstairs hallway she led him to the second door on the right. "This is where it is." She opened the door and turned on subdued lights. The floor was strewn with dirty clothes. She stepped in, scuffing them aside. Most were black. He followed. Then he stopped. He stared at a four-poster canopied bed.

"That's where I sleep," she said, dashing over to jump on it. "But only in the daytime. Night is too precious to waste on sleep."

Just past the bed, a black curtain hung across the room. Sparkles had been stuck to it, giving the impression of a starlit night.

She pulled back the black curtain. A lone coffee table occupied the far half of the room. Centered upon it was a fifty-gallon aquarium. It alone seemed free of dust in this place. Four fluorescent tubes glowed brilliantly in the top. William stepped closer, noting that the tank contained no fish nor even water, but an assortment of plants.

He studied them, recognizing a few. The most identifiable were the Venus flytraps. The pitcher plants were also self-evident. He pointed to several squat plants whose leaves glistened. "What are those?"

"Various sundews."

The plants thrived, filling the aquarium. Flytraps and sundews carpeted the mossy bottom, while some pitchers rose trumpet-like to within inches of the glass lid.

"Sarracenia flava," she said, pointing to a tall yellow pitcher. "Darlingtonia californica, commonly called the cobra lily." It was green with a closed hood and prominent mustache. "Sarracenia purpurea." Squat and purplish.

He noted that each plant had a label near its base bearing a number: ten, twenty-five,, fifty, seventy-five, one hundred. "Pinball," he said, beginning to understand.

"Mark them as you put them in," Lana said, rolling a tiny bottle of fluorescent blue paint his way. "Just a tiny dot on the tip of a wing." She tossed him a tiny brush. "And only ten of them. I'll catch you if you cheat."

He did as she said. She had cut twenty small access hatches in the Plexiglas sides as well as the top of the aquarium. She scampered about, opening these, stuffing in bugs,, sealing them up. William did likewise.

Then they sat back and watched.

Some of the lightning bugs fell prey to Venus flytraps. Others entered the hoods of cobra lilies and slipped down their stems to join other decaying organic matter. Some became mired in the stickiness of various sundews. William studied the point values for each plant. The flytraps were worth a hundred points, which was the maximum. The cobra lilies, seventy-five. Other pitcher plants ranged from twenty-five to sixty points. The sundews were ten to fifty.

"Why are the sundews worth fewer points?" he asked.

"Because the bugs die fastest in them," she explained.

He nodded, puzzled that so demented a scoring scheme should make sense to him.

"In the cobra lily, they sometimes live for days," she said. "A flytrap, it's hard to say, but once it catches something, it won't open again for a week. And if it misses, it still takes hours to reopen. So I make them a hundred." She jumped up, went over and shut off the lights. Then she carefully tiptoed back. "Notice anything?"

"What do you mean?"

"Look at the plants."

Then he saw. Several of the plants flashed, and others glowed. The flytraps were the most striking.

"Isn't it eerie?" she said.

As he focused on the glowing lights, his perspective shifted. Suddenly he was viewing a city from a great height. Sometimes he wondered what it had been like for his wife. Most likely she was huddled in her seat leaning forward in crash position for the good it would do her. But in his dreams she had a clear view of the ground rising to meet her, of El Paso with its thousands of lights growing immense all at once.

"What's the matter?"

"I have...dreams, like this. Sometimes."

"Dreams are good."

He snapped out of it. Lana was on all fours, pressing her face to the glass.

"Isn't it eerie?" she repeated. Her body was catlike. She crouched close by him, only inches away.

"Truly." He studied her face and hands. They seemed to glow as well.

Two hours later, using a black light, they identified their respective bugs and counted up the points.

"I win!" she shouted. "I win!" She leapt upon the bed, bouncing and bouncing and then falling limply into an unladylike sprawl. "I won."

He stood there, unable to take his eyes off of her.

"Too bad you didn't win," she said, "'cause then I'd have to do something for you."

Considering her inviting sprawl, he wondered at her meaning. Was she some sort of demented siren? But no, she was little more than a child, and this had been simply that, a game.

She rolled off the far side of the bed and began to strut about the room, kicking her dirty clothes about. "But I won." Her eyes flashed. "And now you have to do something for me."

"Pray tell."

"You'll help me. I'm hardly strong enough, but with your help I can do it."

"Do what?"

She laughed, opened the bedroom door, and stepped out. He heard her footsteps down the stairs.

"Hey. Hey, wait up!" He caught up with her outside and followed her to a shed.

"We need two shovels," she said.

He was puffing again. "What for?"

"You're going to help me dig something up."

"What?"

"My pop."

"Lana." When she ignored him, he grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her about. "Lana!"

She thrust a shovel into his hands

He looked at it and found himself asking, "Your pop?"

"Yep." She walked over to the van, tossed the two shovels recklessly in the back, and climbed m. "Come on."

"Your pop?" he asked again.

After twenty minutes driving down the dirt road, never topping thirty-five, she parked the van beneath a large oak, and they walked to what she claimed was a graveyard. There were a few markers, though they were wrecklessly atilt, and where she chose to start digging was entirely unmarked.

William crouched before a crooked stone. It was ancient, the engraving too worn away to decipher. Lana had begun to dig, and she scolded him for not keeping the flashlight on her work. Aiming it back her way, he continued to look about. This went beyond weird. This was crazy. What if they were caught? This was graverobbing. Then again, he still questioned whether this was really a cemetery. The smell of fresh-turned earth filled his lungs. It was her smell. She had removed her black cape, under which she wore black leotards. He watched her small breasts buck against the thin fabric as she kicked the shovel in.

"You're supposed to be helping," she said, stopping to wipe her brow.

"I'm no grave robber."

"That's the last time you play with me." She went back to digging.

"Besides," he said. "Your father isn't buried here."

"He is."

"There's no marker."

"He didn't want a marker."

He played the light along her black leotards, then angled it away, realizing he was watching the tightening of her buttocks as she kicked the shovel in. At last he climbed to his feet and came forward. "This is crazy. You know that?"

As he began to dig, he felt like a fool and a criminal combined.

"Why do you want to dig him up?" he asked.

"To see if he's turned into a fish."

"Oh." He continued to dig. Her craziness was infectious. Ludicrous as it all was, he found himself getting caught up in it.

A blinding light interrupted his latest thrust.

"Hey! You hold it right there."

It was a watchman.

Before he could react, Lana scooped up handfuls of dirt and flung them into the watchman's face. "Come on!" she shouted.

He lumbered after her, relieved that the watchman appeared to be in worse shape than he was.

"Climb in, quick!"

Lana had already begun to drive off when he threw himself into the van.

As they sped off, Lana was frightened. "That was almost it, wasn't it?" she said. "We almost got caught. What's the punishment for grave-robbing? Would we have ended up in prison? God, that was close." But as she continued to drive, she grew angry. "Stupid watchman. What's a watchman doing out there anyhow? We should have knocked him out. That's what we should have done. We almost had Pop. Damn that watchman!" Then her anger gave way to amusement, and she laughed at how William had run, and how she had almost driven off without him. "It was the shovel," she said. "That's the only reason I waited for you."

By the time they reached the mansion, she had grown quiet. She braked to a halt and turned the ignition off.

He climbed out and waited. She remained sitting at the wheel.

"Lana?"

She sat there, unmoving.

He walked around the van and opened her door. He nudged her. She was catatonic. He tried repeatedly to wake her. Then, as gently as he could, he slid his arms under and around her and hefted her up, finding her heavier than he had hoped. But somehow he managed to carry her to the front door, which she had left unlocked, and then up the stairs to her room.

Dumping her on the four-poster bed, he collapsed in a nearby armchair to wheeze and grip his chest. He hadn't thought to bring his pills. He didn't think he would need them. Now he had the ugly vision of police swarming the bedroom, the coroner speculating, rumors flying -- Forcing aside such nonsense, he turned his attention back to Lana. With an effort he rose and went to her.

"Lana?" He ran a hand through her long black hair. "Lana, can you hear me?" He gripped her chalky hand.

"Pop?" she said. "Pop?"

"It's William," he said.

He stayed until she was sound asleep. For a time he considered spending the night on the sofa downstairs. But the place bothered him. He wasn't entirely certain she had told the truth about living alone. And what would it look like if other family members showed up to find him sleeping here? At last he left, careful to lock the door after him.

Walking down the long lane under a full Moon, he puzzled at why it did not lead to any major road, just the dirt one that they had followed up from the river, that they had followed to the graveyard. Then, to his surprise, he saw the river. It wasn't far from the mansion at all. Having nowhere else to go, he headed for it.

Reaching the bank, he saw something drifting in close to shore. The raft! How could that be? He had watched it go downriver. Nonetheless, here it was, soon to drift by. Wading in up to his knees, he managed to throw himself onto its deck. There he lay, staring up at the stars, reviewing the day's events, trying to make sense of it all.

The splash was all too familiar. Peering over the edge, he saw framed in the Moon's reflection the sunfish floating on its side, blood still trailing from its gills. He drew back quickly, sickened, then retreated further to the folding leather chair, where he sat down, exhausted, and drifted off to sleep.

PART II

He slept fitfully throughout the night, ever wakened by little sounds or the bite of a mosquito. Dawn found him tired and irritable, hungry too. As he banged around in the storage compartment, the heron took flight once more, advancing further downstream. He found a propane cooker, which inspired him to try fishing again. Baiting up, he put in the line.

Cicadas sawed, a raccoon chittered. Bluejays dipped out of trees to play tag low over the water. A breeze sprang up, driving cottonwood fluffs on a patch of still water back into the air. Two tiger swallowtails flitted past. A deerfly buzzed relentlessly about his hat.

He drifted.

Edging around a bend, he spotted the barest island up ahead. The heron stood on it. He sat very still, wondering how close he could get before it took flight. It did not. As he drifted closer, he realized it wasn't the heron at all but a young girl dressed entirely in white.

She stood there, unmoving, looking out across the river. She couldn't have been more than ten. She wore a white bonnet and a frilly white dress and seemed unaware of his approach.

"Are you stranded?" he asked, coming abreast.

She looked down at herself, then up at him.

"Do you need a lift?"

As if only now realizing her predicament, she stepped toward him into the water.

"Wait. Hey, wait! Maybe I can get closer --" He hefted the anchor, ready to underhand it toward the island. But he held up as she continued to wade toward him. By the time she reached the raft, she was up to her waist in water. He knelt and reached down to help her, but she found the rungs of a ladder he had not known existed and climbed aboard by herself.

As she stood there dripping on the deck, he realized how familiar she looked. She had the eyes and nose of Lana, though the chin was different, as was the hair. And she was only half Lana's age.

"You'll catch your death of cold," he said with concern. She was soaked, and there were no towels or blankets aboard. "How long you been waiting like that? What were you up to?"

She sat down on the edge of the raft and wrung out the folds of her dress. "Daydreaming." Then she pulled up her legs and took off her shoes. Her feet were unusually white.

"Never mind, never mind. My name's William. Yours?" She looked at him, then down at the anchor beside her. She shifted away from it. "Raelene."

"That's a pretty name."

"That's what everyone says."

The sunfish splashed next to the raft. He glimpsed it swimming akilter along the surface, cutting wide arcs. It bumped the raft, cut another arc, bumped again.

Raelene watched it like one might a fireplace.

"What you using for bait?" she asked.

"Worms."

"Got any minnows?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know what bait you got?"

"I don't know much of anything."

She got up and walked over to the storage hold. "I know one thing. You stole this raft."

"Oh?"

Opening the trapdoor, she reached down, banging things about. "Nope, no minnows." Closing it, she grabbed up his rod and reeled in his line.

"You gotta fish deeper," she said, looking at the bobber position. "Or you'll just keep gettin' sunfish like that. Go down five or six feet for the blues and channels. 'Course, you'll get snags, too, and bullheads and carp, but that's just the river, no way around it."

He watched as she adjusted the bobber, put on a fresh worm, and cast out.

"I didn't steal it," he said.

She let out some line, then clicked the bail and put the pole in the fork.

"I saw it and was curious," he said. "It looked abandoned. When I stepped aboard, it just unmoored itself."

"Where'd you find it?"

"Now, that's a good question. I don't know the region very well. But I was standing on a bridge, and when I looked down, I saw it."

"Tattler's Bridge."

"Couldn't tell you. Like I said, I don't know the region."

"No one goes there anymore. Were you going to jump?"

He looked at her, startled. "You ask a lot of questions." He went over and sat down. He watched a muskrat cutting a V-wake to shore. "I could be asking you a lot of questions, you know."

"It just unmoored itself."

He wasn't certain whether he was amused by her interrogation or losing patience. "Like I said, I stepped aboard and suddenly it was adrift."

"Why didn't you just row back to shore?"

He laughed. "No oars. Imagine that."

"You could've swum back to shore."

"I don't swim. Now, isn't it about my turn? What are you doing out here alone? Are you a runaway?"

She shook her head. "My folks live downstream."

"Really." He slapped his thighs. "Well, seems we're headed in the right direction then. Take the chair, Cap'n." He rose, but when she made no move for it, he settled back.

He watched as she tidied things up. She kept dripping. It occurred to him even her bonnet seemed wet.

"You shouldn't leave the bait out in the Sun," she said.

"I should know better," he grumbled, watching her put things back in the hold. "Your parents raised you well. It shows."

She now worked at the anchor rope. Untying it from the corner of the raft, she pushed the rope and then the anchor over the side. He stared in disbelief.

"Did you just do what I think you did?"

She ignored him.

"You just threw away our anchor!"

"I don't much care for anchors."

"Well, that's all well and good. But it wasn't your anchor to toss!"

"Not yours either."

"Yeah, yeah." He leaned back with a sigh. "Well, looks like we're on the express now, no stops between here and -- " He didn't finish.

"You're from the city, aren't ya."

"It shows, does it? Well, I'm thinking of going country."

"All city folks say that."

"I mean it."

"When will you go back?" she asked.

"I just got done telling you -- " he caught himself, caught his own lie.

"When I feel ready."

She sat down, facing downstream. "Same here."

Tugging the brim of his straw hat low over his face, he closed his eyes and chuckled. "We're a pair. Aren't we the pair."

Some fifteen minutes later he slapped the brim up and leaned sharply forward.

"That's it," he said, listening to the familiar tapping. "Just like before. Only it can't be, unless we're going in circles. Could we -- ?" He twisted about to address Raelene, but she wasn't there. He was alone on the raft.

Settling back, he reviewed all that had happened with Raelene, how he had spotted her on the island, picked her up, their argument about whether he had stolen the raft, how she had tidied things up, adjusted his bobber -- He snapped back to the moment, spotting a familiar snag. The raft was drifting once more toward it.

He had no way of securing the raft, now that the anchor was gone. As soon as the raft made contact, he waltzed haphazardly ashore. The raft shifted uncertainly behind him, threatening to break free, threatening to stay.

Not until he found the cave was he sure this was the same spot. Once more he slid down in, flashlight in hand. Crouching in the darkness, he listened. The tapping had ceased. "Lanai" he whispered. "Lana?" He waited a full five minutes before switching on the flashlight. When he did, he leapt backward with a shout at someone only inches away. The flashlight popped loose and went out as he banged his head. He lay there, dazed.

"William," a deep feminine voice reached him. "It is you, isn't it?"

"Lana?" He knew it had to be, but he dared not believe it.

The flashlight came on in front of him, in her hand. She aimed it up at her face, producing a ghoulish countenance with two large white fangs. She laughed. It was a deeper, softer laugh than he remembered.

"Still on the river, I see." It was more statement than question.

He sat up slowly, rubbing his head. "Oh, I've become quite the drifter. It seems all I'm able to do these days. And you. I see you're still a creature of the night." He started to chuckle, but it sounded all wrong and it hurt his head. "So. What do the turtles tell you these days?"

She turned the flashlight off. A moment later he felt her slap it into his hand. He left it off.

"I went to Costa Rica," her voice reached him through the darkness. "Spent a month looking for Mom. I don't think she's there. I think the turtles are holding her hostage somewhere in the river."

He was thankful she could not see his expression. "Hostage?"

"She's in the river somewhere. I'm certain of it."

William turned on the flashlight, aiming it off to the side so as not to blind her. She was dressed much the same as last time. Black cape. Black leotards. Long black hair. "They've made demands?"

Her hands seemed to ball into fists, but it was just the play of shadows as she shifted about.

"I still don't understand their language. I think they keep changing it so humans can't figure it out." She stepped past him and climbed up out of the cave. He waited a moment, uncertain how he wanted to handle this encounter, then followed.

They stood on the bank of the river as dusk settled in.

"Do you have a sister?" he asked.

"Sister? Why do you ask? But yes. I did have one. Little Raelene. But she was killed by a life belt."

He felt a sudden chill. "She's dead?"

"Mom and Pop always made us wear life belts when we were near the water. We had a raft out on the river, anchored in place. It was deep there. Maybe twenty, twenty-five feet. Raelene, she liked to jump in and pull herself down the anchor rope, all the way to the bottom. Sometimes she'd toss in pretty stones, then go down and get them. That's where they found her, down by the anchor. Her belt had clipped to the rope where it tied to the anchor, and she couldn't get it undone. So she tried to climb. That's what the coroner said. She grabbed the rope and tried to pull herself and the anchor all the way to the top. Only she didn't quite make it."

Still shaken, William tried to find something to say. "The river has not been kind to your family."

"The river doesn't feel, it doesn't pick and choose. It's just water trying to get away."

Lightning bugs began to flash in the trees on the far shore. Looking aside, he saw that she had grown more angular, now very much a woman. Her hair was the same glossy black, only longer, hanging to her knees. A delicate wind caught it, filled the space behind her with it. Her paleness was startling, making him wonder if the Sun ever touched her. She shaded her eyes with a hand, as though the lightning bugs were too bright. She still smelled of the cave.

"Saw my pop finally," she said, chewing on a blade of grass. "He had gills. Some whiskers, too. A bit of a dorsal fin. But it's too early. Sc) I put him back in the ground."

He eyed her uncertainly. She looked around at him and chuckled. Why, he wasn't certain. Perhaps she knew the implausibility of all that she said.

As he watched her standing there in the breeze, her hips forward, shoulders back, arms half -- folded, a contemplative look on her face, he realized how much he was drawn to her. It wasn't just her physical charms, which were considerable. It was her mind. Yes, her mind captivated him. But it also disturbed him. For though he wanted to believe her games all playful pretense, there remained the real possibility that she was genuinely deranged.

"You know something, William," she said, studying her fingers as she flexed them. "You're the only person who understands me. The only person I ever let into my confidence. I'm glad I met you. The first time. And now."

She walked slowly along the bank to the left, looking very tired ..... tired of life. He watched her, sensing that they were parting company, never to meet again.

He looked out on the river, at the spot where her father had drowned and her mother had disappeared, and he tried to imagine her mother holding her breath all this time, and how she was trapped in a cage even now somewhere on the bottom, with turtle sentinels patrolling the area, tapping the bottom rocks to communicate with each other. And he tried to imagine Lana's father turning into a fish.

"Well?"

He looked aside. She stood with her hands on her hips, looking impatient, or perhaps just impish.

"Well, what?"

"The game," she said. "We must always play the game."

He followed her through the forest to her van, only this time it was lavender, with inexplicable yellow bubbles painted on the rear half. She had become a more conservative driver, now keeping to thirty miles an hour. He tried to enjoy the scenery, but found himself increasingly impatient. As they started up the drive, he asked, "Don't we need lightning bugs?"

Lana hit the brakes, whipped the wheel, and floored it, running over several shapeless hedges. She drove back clown the lane and veered off toward the forest, just like before. But, arriving there, she just sat for a while.

"What am I thinking?" She slowly brought the van about and back to the lane and eventually to the mansion.

Stepping through the front door, William stopped in amazement. Rubber bands stretched everywhere, between lamps and tabletops and across bookcases and table leg to table leg, from nails embedded in walls to other nails, or to the chandelier or wall pictures, across doorways and from ceiling to floor. There were thousands of them, long, short, thick, thin, long chains of them stretched in every conceivable direction between every conceivable object.

"I see you have a new hobby," he remarked as they wended their way up the stairs. It was an obstacle course of taut rubber bands.

"Oh?"

"These rubber bands," he said.

"My pop thought rubber bands were the greatest invention in the world," she said. "Next to ice cream. He fixed boat motors with them. I saw him do it. Said if they'd used rubber bands on that Shuttle, it wouldn't have blown up."

William could have done without the mention of an air disaster.

They worked their way further up the stairs.

"Rubber bands give the place a sense of tension, an impending feeling," she said. "As if something is about to happen. Listen."

He stopped, heard a snap. Some time later he heard another. And then another.

"They wear out after a while," she explained. "It takes a couple months, usually. But they can last from minutes to years, depending. The laws of probability say they will someday break all at once. It will destroy this mansion, surely. And we'll be buried alive." She hugged the thought to herself, savoring it for a moment. "Would you like some ice cream?"

"No thanks."

She hesitated, as if considering whether she wanted some, then resumed the assault on the stairs.

Reaching the upper floor, they headed down the hallway. This time she stopped at the first door. Smiling at him, she opened it.

Inside, the walls, floor, and ceiling were covered with lightning bugs. Some flew about, and with dusk upon them they flashed. Their patterns varied. Some had the on-off, on-off signal indigenous to the area. But others flashed twice in rapid succession, stayed off for a second, then repeated. A few stayed on for fifteen seconds or more, slowly fading.

"You raise them yourself?" he asked. She nodded, closing the door behind them. "And make hybrids. Of course, the plants don't care. They're all just so much food, right?" She handed him a mason jar. "We'll need a hundred each."

"A hundred!"

"The stakes are higher this time."

He wanted to ask her more about the stakes, but did not. The lightning bugs were easy enough to catch. They were everywhere. When he had gathered up a hundred, he followed her back out into the rubber-band-choked hallway and to the next door. She opened it. "Go on inside," she said. "I'll be back in a minute."

He stepped inside. Rubber bands stretched everywhere, floor to ceiling to wall, between dressers, nightstand, bedposts, closet doors, even piles of clothes. He stared at the four-poster canopied bed. It was thickly strung with rubber bands, crosswise from post to post, from the canopy down to the posts, with rubber bands connecting rubber bands. The bedspread was more obscured than visible.

"Here's your ice cream."

He turned to her. She held two dishes of ice cream. Both were vanilla. He considered pointing out that he had said no, but decided to let it pass. It was a big bowl. A small spider crawled along the lip.

"Whoops," she said, seeing it. She guided it onto her hand and brushed it onto a lamp. It climbed upward.

"Pop said that spiders are naturally clumsy, and that's why they have eight legs -- to compensate. He studied them a lot."

"He liked spiders?"

"The small ones. If they were smaller than a quarter, legs and all, he'd leave them alone in the house. But bigger than that, he'd squash them. Me, I don't mind them up to a silver dollar. But that's my limit." She moved over to the bed, set her ice cream down. "I've got some tarantulas. You want to see them.?"

"No."

"Come on. They won't bite. Well, not usually."

"I don't like spiders."

Nonetheless she dug out a small wire cage from beneath the bed. He could see several tarantulas inside. She scooped them up, sat down against the side of the bed, tugged the straps of her leotards off her so-white shoulders, and placed a tarantula on each.

"They tickle. You should try it. It tickles."

He forced himself to look. Something was wrong with them. They could hardly move. They wobbled and bobbled. With horror he realized that their legs were far too short.

"They were bigger than a silver dollar," she explained, "so I had to trim them down."

He shuddered and backed away. "Put them away. Just put them away!"

The revulsion welling up in him failed to quell an equal fascination. Feeling ever less in control, he looked at the bed behind her and imagined her tied there, tied down with countless rubber bands, while he thrust into her, thrust and thrust like some grub because his limbs had been trimmed.

He rubbed his eyes and was relieved to see her putting away the tarantulas.

"See?" she said, pulling aside the curtain that blocked off the far half of the room. "I told you I'd improved it."

The coffee table and aquarium were gone. In their place was a glass miniature of the mansion. They could both have stood in it with room to spare, had it not been overflowing with plants. Stepping close, he admired the lush greens, reds, purples, and yellows, all set ablaze by miniature fluorescent bulbs and tubes in strategic locations. Some plants grew in hanging pots upstairs and in the attic. These were Nepenthes, she explained. Tropical vines sporting tublike pitchers. Other plants carpeted the soil medium at the bottom. In all there were forty or more hanging pots, and a virtual jungle of ground-cover carnivores.

He walked around it, fascinated by the attention to detail, the variety of plants, the ingenious lighting, all the tiny one-way access funnels for introducing the lightning bugs. But equally he felt apprehensive, wondering at the stakes.

"Well? Shall we begin?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I'd like to study it a bit more."

"Smart," she said. "You're getting smarter." She insinuated herself among the rubber bands on the bed, squeezing her way in and among them until she lay watching him, captive of elasticity. "I'll give you fifteen minutes."

He could have used more time. She was a constant distraction. Rubber bands kept snapping, and he was aware of her watching, ever watching, from the bed.

"You won't win," she said.

He turned and pieced together her black-shrouded body among the rubber bands. "Supposing I do?"

She taunted him with a whimsical smile. "You won't."

"Well, we shall see." He rubbed his hands together, signaling his readiness.

The game commenced. William marked his bugs and introduced them nearest the cobra lilies and other large pitcher plants. Though flytraps were worth more, they were mixed in with sundews of much lower point value. To his surprise, Lana utilized the very strategy he had rejected, dumping most of hers in low. He watched with delight as several immediately became mired in sundews.

"You're doing very well," she conceded after fifteen minutes." I believe you have the early lead."

He still felt he had the lead after half an hour. But the tables were beginning to turn. Her bugs were now hitting the flytraps hard. Meanwhile, his bugs were taking flight from the pitchers only to land in the sundews below.

"There, you did well there," she granted, pointing to a stout hairy pitcher. "Cephalotus follicularis. Eighty-five points."

But it was a rare high score for him right now. The sundews were killing him. And Lana had begun to trumpet his every small defeat. "Hail ye, Drosera tracyi," she said as one of his succumbed to a sundew. "Hail ye, Drosera capensis."

He watched in despair as his lead dwindled.

For her own scores, she had a different and irritating chant. "Sarracenia oreophila, ka-ching! Dionaea muscipula, ka-ching! Nepenthes hirsuta, ka-ching!"

An hour later, even though several lightning bugs continued to wander, he knew that he was beaten. Lana went over and turned off the lights. The glass model of the mansion flashed and glowed with nearly two hundred trapped lightning bugs. The vision was hypnotic. As he stared at it, William suddenly felt himself failing from a great height toward a neon-lit city. He tried to shake free of the horrific vision. He tried to close his ears to the screams, the weightlessness soon to end, city lights looming up

"Concede?"

He jumped, felt the cold sweat on his brow. Try as he might, he could no longer picture in his mind his wife's face. Slowly he nodded.

"You're getting good at this," she said, rising to turn the lights back on. "If we play again, you just might get your way." She retreated into a walk-in closet. "But not this time."

He rose slowly, shakily. He could hear her changing clothes. "What now?" he asked. She seemed to be struggling a bit with whatever she was putting on. "Please, not another graveyard."

"William," she scolded, her voice straining with her efforts. "I've matured!"

When, moments later, she stepped from the closet, he felt a serious escalation in his misgivings. She was dressed in a black skin-tight rubber suit.

"Pop isn't in the ground anymore," she said, holding out another suit for him. "I checked last month. It took me a while to locate him after that. Go on. Change into this. If it doesn't fit, I've got others."

After considerable more goading, he took his turn in the closet, feeling like a pervert on top of being a fool. "So, where is he?" he dared to ask.

"In this zoo," she said. "In one of the aquariums. He's too heavy for me to get out by myself. So that's why you've volunteered."

At last William waddled out, feeling ridiculous. "Lana. This is crazy."

"You played the game," she snapped. "You lost. You knew the stakes." Her voice softened. "It's not far. Just down the road."

He found it hard to believe that anything -- let alone a zoo -- could be just down the road.

Lana had made other preparations, buying an old beat-up Cadillac from a private owner, into which she had installed a huge aquarium in the back seat. As she took corners, it sloshed ominously. For once thirty felt too fast. She drove down the dirt road that seemed to go nowhere. An hour passed, and still they had not hit a main road. Occasionally in the glow of the headlights he glimpsed corn or soybeans, sometimes cattle. Once he spotted an abandoned tractor. But not once did he see a house or barn. And though telephone poles marched next to them, they never branched off, never led to a building or to lights. Nor did any spot on the horizon glow with the hint of some distant town.

Then, abruptly, absurdly, they came upon a parking lot. Two other cars were present, which Lana parked well away from.

"You've got to be kidding," he murmured, staring at the sign on the distant gate. It read, "Toledo Zoo." They were nowhere near Toledo.

Climbing out, she pulled a heavy-duty trash bag from the glove compartment and worked air into it. It was big enough to hold a person. Reluctantly he squeaked out the passenger side.

"Where did you get the key?" he asked as she worked the lock to the front gate.

She didn't answer.

They slipped through the shadows past the chatter of monkeys and parrots to the aquarium building. She had a key to that as well. Inside, she directed him down the rows of fish tanks to a large one in the corner. He gaped at the huge dark fish swimming about inside. Then he looked at the label.

Malapterurus electricus.

He sensed what it was even before he read its common name: Giant African Electric Catfish.

Now he understood the rubber suits.

"William, meet Pop."

He stared at the creature. It swam upside down along the surface, its belly black, its stomach white. The inscription noted that this was its normal feeding orientation. He looked for an indication of its weight but found none.

"Step back," she said.

Barely had he done so when she swung a crowbar, cracking the Plexiglas. She had to hit it several times. William heard splashes in nearby tanks as other fish panicked. Water squirted out, then came in a deluge, and suddenly the catfish was flopping about on the floor.

"Quick! Put him in the bag!"

It was easier said than done. But once he got the head started, he was able to nudge the rest in after it. Drawing the bag closed, he tried to heft it over his shoulder only to find it too heavy. The squirming didn't help.

"Come on, come on!" Alarms had started, and Lana was running for the door.

Backstepping clumsily, he dragged it after him.

Outside the gate, halfway to the car, he heard a police siren. Lana was at the car, the backdoor open, preparing the aquarium.

"Hurry up!" she hissed.

He tried to speed up, but it was impossible. A squad car screeched to a halt beside him, lights flashing, and a policeman leaped out.

"Hold it right there. Halt! On the ground! Now!"

He struggled onward until the pavement slammed him in the side.

"Damn you!" Lana shouted.

As he wrestled with the policeman, he saw Lana looming over them. She flashed in the squad car's strobe, her expression dark and sinister. The crowbar in her upraised hands flashed too. But she seemed frozen, indecisive, until the crowbar fell from her grip. Then with a terrifying animal growl she grabbed hold of the bag and tugged it away. The policeman reacted swiftly, grabbing it as well. As the two engaged in a tug-o-war, William twisted aside, knocking the policeman over.

"Go on!" he shouted, lunging atop the policeman.

As he fought to keep the upper hand, he saw Lana at the car, squeezing into the back seat past the aquarium, dragging the bag in after her. She climbed out the other side.

"Come on!" she shouted.

But the policeman was on top again, on the verge of pinning him. He heard the engine rev.

"Come on!" she called again.

The car lurched to a stop beside them.

"Fuck you, William!" she seethed. "Fuck you!" She floored it and was gone.

With an inhuman effort he twisted onto his stomach. His hand found something. It was the crowbar. He turned and swung it hard. The policeman howled, gripping his knee. And then William was up and running.

He ran after taillights that gradually faded, and for an instant it seemed he was falling upward, away from a city. But leaves and twigs stung his face, he was in a woods, stumbling over roots, bouncing off saplings, barely able to see the river in time to halt on its bank.

The river. Gasping for breath, feeling the dangerous pounding of his heart, he gazed out over its placid surface. The howling continued, but now it came from above, a wind in the trees; and the squad car's strobe had given way to lightning bugs flashing all about. Something dark drifted past. He knew what it would be, and he lost little time wading in. Waist deep in muddy water, he groped desperately along its sides for the ladder that had to be there. The effort might have been too great for him had not small hands found his and a soft voice spoken words of encouragement, coaxing him upward and aboard.

PART III

RAELENE WAS OLDER now, perhaps fifteen. She found a change of clothes for him in the hold. While she turned her back, he squeaked out of the suffocating rubber with relief. Soon he was sprawled in the folding leather chair, sipping ram water she had collected, feeling the tension draining out of him.

"You've met my sister," said Raelene.

Did she know? Or was it a question? "Yes. A couple of times."

Raelene had been frying up crappie when he came aboard. It smelled delicious. She dished out a filet on a catalpa leaf and handed it to him. "Is she over it yet?"

He nibbled at the filet, then ate ravenously. "She's, uh, still working out some issues."

The sunfish splashed in the water near the raft. She watched it for a time, then went back to cooking. "Too sensitive. Lana was always too sensitive. Pop worried about her. Still does."

He gave her a sharp look. In the moonlight, her face seemed angelic.

"You're not over it either," she said.

He shifted uncomfortably. He still didn't know how to get over it. Looking up, he realized Raelene was studying him at length, her eyes incredibly moist.

"Perhaps I will stay with you a while," she said.

They drifted downstream an indeterminate amount of time. He was aware of ice on the river, of spring thunderstorms, tornadoes weaving in the distance, and then the sweltering heat of long hot summer days, and it all started over again. How they survived the bitter winters, he wasn't quite certain, as he wasn't sure of anything about this place he had fallen into. His nightmares did abate, but in their place he had strange visions of the river becoming a waterfall, down which he fell in slow motion. What awaited him at the bottom, he had no way of knowing.

Over this period of time, Raelene grew disproportionately older. On one particular chilly autumn day as they kissed, he noticed the deep and wizened crinkles about her eyes and how gray her hair had become. He wasn't certain when exactly they had become lovers, but it had a peculiar valence. She was always damp, and cold. She tried to apologize for this, but he would not stand for it, assuring her that her touch was comforting, he had grown to enjoy it, as if she were the river itself. For he had developed a deep appreciation for the river, despite its many troublesome aspects.

While at first Raelene managed the raft for him, catching minnows, baiting hooks, pulling in his catch, as well as keeping everything organized and put away, soon he was doing it for himself. She taught him the ins and outs of the river, how to read its bends, where it was deep, where shallow, what fish lurked where, what their appetite was at any given time.

"Your pop would be proud of you," he said at one point, then wondered if he should have phrased it in the present tense. "You've become the woman of the river."

"Pop knew much more," she said. "Much much more."

And always the sunfish was there, flopping about on its side, making desperate little circular runs, bleeding for an eternity.

"When will it die?" he asked her. "Why won't it die?"

She would not attempt an answer.

Occasionally a turtle would lift its head like the periscope of a miniature sub. Raelene had taught him to recognize the snappers. Several times he watched snappers approach the sunfish, only to turn away inexplicably.

One day he woke from a nap in late evening. As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, something about the river gave him pause. The bend up ahead looked familiar.

"This is the spot," he said, sitting forward, listening for the tapping. Though there was none, he remained certain of it. "This is where I met your sister."

When he looked over his shoulder, he found himself once more alone. The raft barely brushed the snag this time. He made a daring leap, tottered precariously, then managed his way to the shore. Meanwhile, the raft drifted onward.

Already apprehensive as he huffed up the bank, he grew more so. There was still no tapping. Was something wrong? Had he been mistaken about this spot? Then he stopped in his tracks. Through the weave of limbs and foliage before him, where he would have expected the cave, he saw a dark and foreboding structure. Drawing closer, he recognized it for a house. A mansion. There was no driveway, no cars, no nothing, just a big black front door edging on wilderness.

The black bat-shaped knocker was cold to the touch. He gave it a sharp rap, again, and still again. Turning the knob, he found it unlocked. He shielded his eyes as brightness spilled out. Warm humid air took away his breath. Plants were everywhere, covering the floor, filling bookcases, sitting atop tables and cabinets, and banging from the ceiling. The inner walls were of glass, as was the ceiling, and through them, clouded by condensation, he could see adjacent rooms, upper-floor rooms, all filled with plants. In one of the rooms overhead, he spotted the four-poster canopied bed.

He looked about for the spot where the cave should be. Sure enough, there was a trapdoor. Lifting it, he descended a ladder into a passage that jackknifed sharply to keep out light from above. Following it, he soon stepped into the darkness of the cave. He had brought his flashlight, but was hesitant to use it. Instead he sat down. Though there was no sound, no evidence whatsoever that anyone was present, he sensed her crouched in that crevice before him, rock in hand, pausing in her communications with the turtles. Hoping that his eyes would soon adjust, he waited, but to no avail.

Something stirred in the darkness and stepped around him. Puzzled, he rose and followed, glimpsing white feet going up the ladder. He gave her a moment before climbing after her. Once more the fluorescent lights blinded him. Shielding his eyes, he spotted her halfway up the staircase.

"Lana ?"

Without looking back, she motioned him to follow.

Up there, in the room that had been filled with lightning bugs the last time, she dumped a bin full of lightning bugs into a large trash bag.

"So, you've come to play the game once more," she said.

She looked older and wiser. Her face was long and gaunt, haunted by the years. Yet it made her all the more beautiful.

He felt himself flushing with anger. "Lana. Ask me how I've been."

She ignored him.

"Lana!" He grabbed her shoulders and spun her about. "Ask me how I've been!"

She turned back to her work. "Okay, William. How have you been?"

"Well, I got away. After you sped off, I did get away. Not that you seem to care."

She brushed lightning bugs off the lip of the bin and into the trash bag. "My pop spent time in prison. Said it was good for him. Taught him patience. I never saw him give up on anything. Not ever." She seemed to reflect on this as she closed the trash bag.

He sighed, feeling his anger dissipate like so much mist. "How is Pop?"

"Fine," she said. "He's in the river now. I do appreciate your help getting him from the zoo. But he hasn't found Mom yet. He will. He will." She slammed the bin lid shut and stood there for a second, her knuckles white as she clutched the top of the bag. Then she swung the bag around and dropped it at his feet. "These are yours. They're already marked and counted. Count them again if you must." She began to fill a second trash bag from another bin.

He hefted the bag, testing its weight. "How many are we talking here?"

"Five thousand."

"Five thousand!" He felt suddenly afraid. Of her. Of the game. "Just what are the stakes this time.?"

"You know I don't talk stakes until afterward. It would spoil the game."

"To hell with suspense."

She studied him for a moment. "Pop is having trouble getting downstream. There are dams in the way. They have to be...removed."

William dropped the bag and walked over to the doorway. He shook his head, looking back at her. "Lana. This is getting totally out of hand. Don't you understand how impossible it is for your mother to have held her breath all this time, or for your father to have turned into a catfish ? Not just any old catfish, either. No, this one's a giant African electric catfish! Lana, have you seen your pop since you put him in the river? "

She was silent.

"That catfish is native to the Nile! Have you ever heard of the Nile freezing over?"

"I'll blow the dams up myself.

He studied her carefully, then came back to grab up his bag. "With this many, how do we count the points ?"

"I'll know who's won," she said.

He gave her a suspicious look.

"I -- " She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture, unable to explain it. "I'll know. Go on, now. Look around. I'll give you fifteen minutes to study things."

He walked through the mansion, amazed at the wide variety of carnivorous plants. He heard occasional jets of mist, felt moisture settle on him like the softest silk. The collection of Nepenthes was cosmopolitan. Their vines hung everywhere, ending in colorful pitchers, some tub-like, others trumpetlike. He studied them and the other plants, getting a feel for their organization, and after fifteen minutes he returned to find Lana waiting for him.

"Seen enough?" she asked.

"Impressive," he said. "You've probably got one of the best collections in the world."

The compliment did not affect her. She pointed to his bag. "You've got five minutes to scatter them. That's not a lot of time, so don't get too picky." Hefting her bag, she trotted off.

He dumped most of his down along the edges of the floor, close to flytraps and sundews, hoping they would choose the former. Some of them he dumped upstairs on the walls, as close to the ceiling as possible. Why, he wasn't sure. He just did it. When he was done, he retired to Lana's room, where she lay facedown on the bed. He sat down in a rocking chair, where he held his curiosity in check for a full hour.

"Lana? What happened to the old place?"

"Destroyed by the laws of probability," she said into the pillow, emphasizing each syllable. She turned over and stared at the ceiling. "It was late last year. All those rubber bands broke at once, just like I said they might. The whole place came apart like a house of cards. Even lost the van. So I rebuilt here."

He rocked for a moment, looking about. "This must be more convenient for you. You can hold communion with the turtles any time you want."

She stared at the ceiling and said nothing.

"Have you learned their language yet?"

She looked sharply at him, appearing angry. Then she turned back over and buried her face in the pillow.

He let her be after that. He grew sleepy. He dozed. Eventually he fell into a deep sleep, and he dreamed.

He was coming to meet Lana again. Only this time he arrived early. He had brought bear traps with him, which he set throughout the cave. Then he waited. He waited in the recess where she would always listen to the turtles. At last she appeared, a shadow in the entranceway, climbing downward, stepping forward. Clack! A shriek. Clack! Another cry. And she fell backward. Clack! Clack! The cave reverberated to her screams. He stepped forward, shining his light into her pale face, noting the long gleaming fangs. "Lana," he spoke. "This time you lose." He pointed the flashlight at the tags on the traps, each bearing a negative number. She laughed through her tears and made a sarcastic remark. He didn't quite catch it, but he knew it was sarcastic. So he pulled from his carry-bag the stake and mallet. He positioned the stake over her heart and cocked his arm far back for the fatal blow. But a rumble had started behind him. The rocks fell aside, letting in a great rush of river water that filled the cavern to his waist. That was when he saw it. A giant catfish moving his way, the water shimmering with the lines of its electromagnetic force.

He woke with a start as it brushed his stomach, then gave an even greater start, for in the darkness before him he saw the lights of a city, a city all about, as if he had already hit it and was now absorbed into its asphalt, its steel, its neon. Only then did he spot the bedposts nearby. Lana had sat up and was studying him. She had apparently turned out the lights. Through translucent plant membranes everywhere, lightning bugs flashed and glowed.

"Pop always liked lightning bugs," she said, looking at one that crawled across her hand. "You know what their flashes really are?" She held the lightning bug up in front of her face. "Synapses firing in the brain of God. That's what Pop said."

He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. "Pop believed in God, then?"

"I don't think so. I think he was just speaking figuratively. He did that a lot." The lightning bug took flight. She watched it land on a Nepenthes overhead. "You were having a nightmare, weren't you."

"Just a dream."

She seemed peeved by his reluctance to open up After a moment she got up and walked out.

He found her down by the river. The lightning bugs should have ceased their activity by now, but they still flashed in the trees all about, the river reflecting it all. Synapses in the brain of God. He wondered if she had released mutant varieties into the wilds that would flash all night. She stood there at the edge of the water, chewing on a blade of grass, her white face and hands seeming brighter than the lightning bugs themselves.

"Lana?" he said. "What's wrong?"

After a pause, she spit out the blade of grass. "I think maybe the turtles got my mom." She tugged another one from the bank. "I mean, I think they ate her. She could hold her breath a long time, but not this long."

He was surprised to hear her say this. He wanted to comfort her, give her hope, but that would just feed the madness that she seemed about to overcome.

"You're winning, you know," she said. "The river has taught you much since you were here last time."

He shrugged. "I'm not certain I've learned anything."

She toed the muddy water, sending gentle ripples outward. "The river teaches you, whether you think so or not. It giveth, and it can taketh away."

Suddenly she tossed her cape aside and kicked off her slippers. "Come on, William. Let's go swimming."

Fear seized him. "No, Lana. Lana, I don't know how to swim."

"Then you just watch me." She peeled off her leotards and kicked them off.

William squinted. She shone like a giant lightning bug. "Lana. This isn't a good idea."

She lifted her arms high overhead and stretched. William had never seen anything so beautiful. He watched as she launched herself horizontally into the water. The river erupted from silence. Ripples flowed outward, distorting lightning bug reflections. Her arms swung overhead, splashing the night. He looked out past her, imagining the spot where her parents had drowned. As if cueing off his line of sight, she angled in that direction. Before long she was at the spot. She maneuvered about and looked back at him. She looked at him for an eternity, the waves damping away as she gently treaded water.

"Good-bye, William," she said.

"Damn you!" he shouted at the top of his voice, kicking off his shoes and tearing at his shirt. There was hardly a ripple to mark the spot where she had been. Stumbling into the water, he hit a sharp root and fell forward. He thrashed about in a crude dog-paddle, choking on water. He had not taken off his pants; they created a drag. But he continued to thrash and choke on water, modifying his movements slowly to increase his forward motion.

After endless minutes of flailing, he arrived exhausted at the spot where he thought she had gone under. Taking several deep breaths, he ducked his head and tried to dive. It proved more difficult than he could have imagined, but he stuck with it and fought his way under. He kicked and paddled downward, groping about, determined to stay under until he found her. His lungs felt ready to burst when he bumped something. Snagging an arm, he struggled upward. He was desperate for air, but the water held him down. He felt himself passing out. And then his hand broke the surface. His head followed, and he exhaled explosively, then choked on water on the inhale. He nearly lost the arm as he choked and choked. The shore seemed impossibly far away. He struggled to bring Lana's head above water while thrashing the surface, still choking, inching toward shore.

When his hand struck something, he instinctively grabbed hold. It couldn't be the shore, because his toes still hadn't found bottom, He twisted about for a better view.

The raft.

He groped along its side until he found the rungs of the ladder. Somehow gaining a toehold, he leveraged himself up with one hand while keeping a tight grip on her wrist. He weighed a ton coming out of the water, and it took a monumental effort to roll onto the raft's deck. Then he did something even more difficult. With all the power of his being he pulled Lana up out of the water, grabbed her about the waist, and -- the raft dangerously atilt -- wrenched her sprawling onto the deck beside him.

Exhausted though he was, he knew this was not the time to rest. He turned Lana onto her stomach and pushed hard on her back. Water poured out of her mouth. He did it again and again, not knowing if he was doing it right. He turned her onto her back and pressed on her chest. More water came out, and with it a sudden choking sound. He turned her onto her side so the water would drain out of her mouth.

"Lana?" he said.

She did not answer. But she was breathing.

He knelt at her side, sobbing, listening to her glorious signs of life. The river had quieted to the barest ripples spreading from the raft. Lightning bugs flashed all about. One landed on her cheek, and he left it there.

"It's okay, Lana," he said. "Everything's okay now."

Seeing her shiver, he grabbed up the flashlight and crawled to the hold. Lifting the trapdoor, he shone the light down and about. As he feared, there were no towels or blankets, nothing to dry her off. But something else caught his attention down there, which made him beat a hasty retreat to her side. Sprawling next to her, he tried to put out of his mind the sight of box upon box of dynamite.

As he lay there, dangerously close to the edge, he heard the sunfish splashing just below. Another sound then reached him. It was a gentle popping. The river had grown still once more, but there was a sinuous wake in the distance, something moving about. Rising on an elbow, he watched it draw closer, growing ever bigger. Something about it seemed askew, and then he realized what it was. It was swimming upside down, the black belly bobbing in and out of sight, gleaming in the moonlight. Nearing the raft, it suddenly vanished. He leaned over the edge, looking for some sign of it. Instead he saw the sunfish directly below, on its side, gill leaching blood. His gaze then shifted aside as something grew out of the depths. As it gently broke the surface, he recognized the big flat head, the wide mouth, the side whiskers...

"Hi, Pop," he whispered.

It lingered there for some time, looking up at him. Then it opened its mouth wide, creating a whirlpool that sucked down the sunfish, after which it sank slowly into the dark depths and was gone.

Lana stirred, gave a little cry.

"It's okay, Lana," he said, comforting her. "Everything's going to be okay.

He lay down and rested his head on Lana's bare, luminous thigh. He heard other sounds now. A plane in the distance. A sputtering tractor. A train whistle. Cars on a road. And again he heard the catfish in the distance, sucking at the surface, making odd little sounds as if it were talking to itself, saying its own name over and over: Pop...pop...pop.