CHAPTER TWELVE

When I no longer felt the sensation of hurtling through space, the connection between us snapped like a cable wire. I assumed that we had all stopped, and something about here made it impossible to connect through mind, although that was only what we were. I considered that, and discovered that I could, in fact, feel my body, my legs and arms, and I could tell that my mind was in my brain, which was safely held in my head. I was here, and my mind had created this illusion.

I opened my eyes, and immediately wished I had not. There was light, and only light. Blinding, electric, terrifying. I closed my eyes again, but the light now penetrated through my closed eyelids, and I covered them with my hands. The lights were not upon me, I was not in them, but it was terrifyingly close.

'Where are the others?' I thought to myself. I re-examined what had just happened when I had opened my eyes, and caught details that I had missed when I was actually looking at it.

The first important thing was that this was indeed where the turtle had taken me the first time. There was no door, and I had not seen the turtle, but I knew without a doubt that this was the exact location of where I had been. But, like shallow ground near the ocean at high tide, the Deadlights had completely taken over, where they had been quite distant before.

I decided that he had probably moved, and considered for a minute how great the power must have been to see the turtle in motion.

I reluctantly stopped daydreaming, and focused on the important thing at hand. The second important fact that I had missed the first time around was that my friends, the others, were all here beside me. All floating in space.

"Don't open your eyes," Bill said from somewhere ahead of me.

"Gee, thanks for the forewarning, Big Bill," Richie said, sounding quite miffed.

"Anyone know where we are?" Beverly's voice piped up from somewhere on my left.

"Floating in midair," Mike said, sounding dazed, his voice drifting out from behind me.

"This is where I came through," I spoke up. I realized then that my lips did not move when I talked. I realized with a start that they had never moved when I was speaking in the macroverse. They had always stayed firmly shut, and even when I was talking with Bill, his mouth had never opened, either. This seemed so obvious now…but it had stayed well hidden before.

"Is everyone here?" Bill asked, after a moment of thought. I tried to probe around with my mind, to establish connection with each of them. But I could not. My mind stayed locked down completely. I felt trapped and powerless, and the lights, those damn lights, they kept shining and shining, and I thought that I would go crazy if I were here too long.

"I am," Eddie said.

"Here," Ben said.

"Disgruntled, but here," Richie said.

"Here." Mike.

"Yah." Beverly.

"Over here," I said.

There was a long pause while we counted everyone up in our head.

"Stan?" Mike asked, after a minute of tentative silence.

Nothing.

"Stan!" Beverly shouted.

I quickly tore through my brief memory again, the one of opening my eyes. I counted everyone I had seen. I had not seen Mike, but I had heard his voice behind me. The others, however…

I tallied up everyone who I had seen, and every one of them had been there. All of the six I could see. So Stan was here, but he was not answering.

"Stan!" Eddie shouted.

I sighed, wrenched my hands away from my eyes as I opened them, and quickly looked for Stan. My eyes were open for about five seconds while they adjusted, and during that space of time, the Deadlights seemed less terrifying and more…comforting. I cast my gaze around for Stan lazily, not longer fearing the Deadlights. Snatches of a song was occurring to me, "Float on."

(and we'll all float on okay)

"Stan!" I shouted as I saw him. His jaw was locked shut, and he looked dreamy and tired, as though he were asleep. He was gazing directly at the Deadlights. My own lazy content was startled away as I saw him, as hypnotized with these lights as he'd ever been with me.

(and we'll all float on alright)

I quickly dove forwards and slammed into him, driving his gaze away. I covered his eyes while closing my own. His hand grabbed my wrist and tried to take it off. I held firm. He tried again, but the struggle was much weaker, and he did not try again.

(already we'll all float on now don't you worry we'll all float on alright)

I quickly explained to the other six what had happened, what was going on. I talked quickly, and lost focus several times. Each time something important came up, the music in my head would turn up, driving out all other thoughts, and someone would have to ask me to continue, and prompt me to where I had been, and only then could I continue talking.

"Are you…" Beverly began after I had finished, but before she could finish the question, we were being hurtled through space again. This time was at a faster rate, so fast that there was only a brief sensation of movement before we snapped back into our bodies back at the clubhouse. So fast, in fact, that Beverly finished her question before she realized that we had moved.

'Alright, Stan?' her voice had sounded as though she were speaking out loud when she was talking in the macroverse, although her lips had probably not been moving. Now, she continued to speak with her mind, and we heard it for what it was; mind speak.

"Dunno," he replied slowly, sounding shaky and unnerved. "It had me, there. That…that was close. Way too close. "

"What happened?" Ben asked. "What the hell just happened?"

"It pulled me in before I could close my eyes," Stan said, his voice turning into a dull monotone. "And I was…" his voice trailed off, and he closed his eyes and shook his head. "Nevermind."

"Wh-What, Stan?" Bill asked. I noted that whatever it was that I had done with his mind was probably now wearing off. His stutter was creeping back into his voice.

"I was connected to It," Stan said unhappily. "And Bill, you were there."

"What are you t-talking about?" Bill asked, sounding as though he already had an idea.

"You sound like you're free, but It still has you. It's stepped back for a while, but It's still there. It wasn't in that thing it stabbed you with at all."

"But I was in his mind," I said. "I would've noticed…"

"No," he said. "I was already in the Deadlights. I knew. You told me to stop being so logical about everything, and now I'm telling you: I knew."

As he talked, his mind reflected openly just how close he had come, and I could see enough to know that he was right.

"I would have f-f-felt something," Bill said, confused. "I nuh-knew when it left. I could tell."

"I think It's hiding," I said. "Its…"

My voice trailed off as I got a nagging feeling. The one that I always got when my subconscious mind had figured out something that my conscious mind had not. I concentrated fully, and thought about whatever was bothering me. I probably could have fetched it out easily, but 'Float On' started playing in my head again, at full volume.

(and we'll all float on okay)

(and we'll all float on anyway)

I clutched my head and tried futilely to block it out. I had looked into the Deadlights, and I assumed that It had, now, some sort of power over my thoughts. I hadn't looked for long, and this was probably much worse for Stan, but this was enough to keep this important thought from surfacing.

"Sara?" Eddie asked cautiously. "You alright?"

(and we'll all float on alright)

The song was not even playing in chronological order anymore, but repeating over and over on every line that had the word 'float' in it.

"Just a minute. I'm

(well we'll float on good news is on the way)

trying to think."

I sat down and took a deep breath, expanding my lungs as far as they would go. I summoned as much of my mental powers as I could, and forced the song away…or at least to a lower volume. Almost as soon as I did, the thought I had been waiting for occurred to my surface mind.

It was dying.

I had, indeed, shot it with the silver. And although it had not gone all the way through, the silver had been slowly but surely taking its toll on It. By now, if It were not already dead, it soon would be.

'End of our problems, right?' I consulted my inner voice.

'No. Not by a long shot.'

'Why not?'

'Its still in Bill. And It will live there, and feed there.'

'What should I do?'

'Get It out while It's still divided between Its body and Bill's mind.'

A question occurred to me then, the thought of if this voice that I talked to was me.

'Who are you?' I asked.

'If I am you, or if I am from another side, it does not matter. I'm here to help.'

"It's dying," I said out loud, talking to the others. "The one that's in Bill…It's going to die soon if It is not already dead."

From there, almost the exact same conversation ensued out loud in the same sequence as it had in my own mind: Is this the end of our problems? Nope. Why not? It'll be in his mind. Can we change that? We'll have to work fast.

As we talked, Bill remained silent, watched us talk, looking uncomfortable and even a little bit scared. I had watched him before, watched him closely, and I had never before seen fear on his face. He was thinking, and even projecting a little, about the horrors of what had happened last time. I had not fully understood at the time just how bad it was, but I understood fully now just how horrified that Bill was to have to be facing this again.

'We're going to all go in, I think,' I told the others in mind speak. I was careful to exclude Bill from the thought, which made me feel as treacherous as it had before. 'I'm going to need your help. I need it now. We can get It out quickly, and then he can be free.'

'I'm in,' Eddie said, without a doubt or second thought. He pulled out his aspirator and triggered it down his throat. 'But we do it now.' His voice was suddenly full of commanding; almost the voice of Bill Denbrough; whom Eddie loved to the point of being willing to die for him.

'Yes,' I said, in the agreement of an equal. Had it actually been Bill speaking this thought, then I would have agreed quite a bit more submissively, but some part of me refused to submit to anyone besides Bill. 'Hold on to me, all of you.'

They understood that I did not mean physically, where Bill might see, but mentally, in this space where we had blocked him out. Eddie caught on first. I was looking at him, his eyes, and he was looking at mine. I drew him in carefully, but he threw caution to the wind and dove right in, taking a flying leap. I wondered briefly about where he had found his nerve and daring, but dismissed it for later consideration. When my gaze moved to Beverly, I barely passed my eyes over hers, but she caught onto my mind. My gaze moved, next, to Ben, who also caught on quickly, maybe faster then he would have if he hadn't been joining Beverly when he did so. Mike, who seemed to have a knack for this, was next. I didn't have to pull him in, because he climbed on quickly and naturally, making it seem a lot simpler then the others had made it.

I felt heavy. It felt almost pornographic, the way that I was taking to many minds into my own. I felt on the verge of shoving them out, regaining peace in my mind, and never using this sort of power again. But it was then that Bill had looked up, and his gaze passed over each of us. I wondered how much control he had now, and how much he had ever had since he had been taken. I felt another sort of power from him, one that was natural and somehow so much more then whatever it was that I had. And just by him looking up, he strengthened my resolve, and I moved on to struggle with pulling Stan and Richie on. They didn't want to, in the back of their minds, making it that much more difficult to get them on. But we all worked together, and pulled them on.

Bill glanced up, first at the window, and then straight at me. When he did, I stormed into his mind without warning, and pulled the others along with me, as though with a fishhook. They stayed put for a minute, but then they moved in with me. And then, in that instant, we were in his mind, ready to get our leader and friend back.