Dustin looked at Greg. Greg looked back at him with an expression that clearly saidI told you I wanted to be honest.
“He's not a reporter,” Dustin admitted.
“Obviously.” Cathy's voice was steady, but her eyes were calculating. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“Not exactly.”
“Is this about the jump? Devil's Needle?”
“No.”
“Does this have anything to do with why you're wearing a sling?”
“Partly.”
“Dustin.” Her patience was fraying. He could see it in the set of her mouth, in the way her fingers tightened around her mug. “Say what you came to say.”
“I came here because something is keeping me alive,” Dustin said.
The words came out blunter than he'd intended, but then, Cathy wasn't a woman you eased toward anything. She stood in front of you and demanded you get to the point.
So he did.
“I should have died last week,” he said. “I survived a fall that should have killed me. I dropped 800 feet and I walked away without a scratch.” Dustin decided not to mention the duck incident.
Cathy's expression didn't change. Her posture was straight. But something behind her eyes went very, very still.
“Greg is helping me figure out why,” Dustin continued. “And he was wondering if you knewanything about that?”
The kitchen clock ticked.
Cathy didn't look at Greg. She looked at Dustin. Only at Dustin. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she said. “If you'd dropped 800 feet you would be dead.”
“That's mypoint, Mom.”
“You're not making any sense.”
“Only because you're not listening,” Dustin insisted. “There's something supernatural happening here.”
Cathy raised an eyebrow at him as if to say he truly was going insane now.
“Greg,” Dustin said. “Walk through that wall.”
Greg looked at him. Then at Cathy. Then at the wall in question — the one between the kitchen and the living room.
“Now?” Greg asked.
“Now.”
“I just want to note that this is not how I would have chosen to?—”
“Greg.”
Greg stood up and adjusted his glasses, and then he turned and walked straight through the kitchen wall.
Cathy's mug hit the table and coffee sloshed over the rim. She didn't notice. She was staring at the wall—the solid, unbroken, completely intact wall—with her mouth open.
Greg's voice came from the living room, muffled. “Should I come back through?”
