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I took his arm and we moved along the mirrors as I read the names.
“The dates under the names,” Henry commanded. “They getting closer to now?”
1935. 1937. 1939. 1950. 1955.
And with names, names, names to go with them, all different.
“One too many,” said Henry. “We done?”
“One last mirror and date. October thirty-first. Last year.”
“How come everything happens to you on Halloween?”
“Fate and providence love wimps like me.”
“You say the date, but …” Henry touched the cold glass. “No name?”
“None.”
“She going to come add a name? Going to show up making noises just a dog hears, and no light down here. She—”
“Shut up, Henry.” I stared along the mirrors in the cellar night where shadow-phantoms ran.
“Son.” Henry took my arm. “Let’s git.”
“One last thing.” I took a dozen steps and stopped.
“Don’t tell me.” Henry inhaled. “You’re fresh out of floor.”
I looked down at a round manhole. The darkness sank deep with no end.
“Sounds empty.” Henry inhaled. “A freshwater storm drain!”
“Beneath the back of the theater, yes.”
“Damn!”
For suddenly a flood of water gushed below, a clean tide smelling of green hills and cool air.
“It rained a few hours ago. Takes an hour for the runoff to get here. Most of the year the storm drain’s dry. Now it’ll run a foot deep, all the way to the ocean.”
I bent to feel the inside of the hole. Rungs.
Henry guessed. “You’re not climbing down?”
“It’s dark and cold and a long way to the sea, and if you’re careless, drowning.”
Henry sniffed.
“You figure she came up this way to check those names?”
“Or came in through the theater and climbed down.”
“Hey! More water!”
A gust of wind, very cold, sighed up out of the hole.
“Jesus Christ!” I yelled.
