Mr. DeLace may have been dozing off to sleep, but the dog outside the house was showing no signs of sleepiness. It was sitting still as a stone, eyes fixed on the far corner of the street. It didn't move at the sound of a car passing by, or when birds flew overhead. It didn't move at all until midnight.
A woman appeared on the corner that the dog had been watching. She appeared so quietly and quickly that you would think she came right out of the ground.
No one like this woman had ever been seen on Lincoln Street. She was tall, thin, and middle aged, with long blond hair. She was wearing very long robes, a blue cloak, and high heels. Her golden eyes were very bright, and her nose was very long and crooked. The woman's name was Allison Merryweather.
Allison Merryweather didn't seem to realize that she had appeared at a place where she was unwelcome, and was busy rummaging through her cloak for something. But then she noticed the dog watching her, and looked up at it. He seemed amused by the sight of it. "I should have known" he mumbled.
She found what she was looking for in her inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. She flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. She clicked it again, the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times she clicked the UnLighter, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the dog watching her. If anyone looked out of their window now, even Mrs. DeLace, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Merryweather slipped the UnLighter back inside her cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where she sat down on the wall next to the dog. She didn't look at it, but after a moment she spoke to it.
"Fancy seeing you here, Mr. McDonald"
She turned to smile at the dog, but it was gone. In its place was a rather stern looking old man who was wearing glasses in the same shape as the dog's eyes. He was also wearing a cloak, a red one. He had very long, gray hair, and a long beard.
"How did you know it was me" he asked.
" Marcus, I've never seen a dog sit so stiffly"
"You'd be stiff if you sat on a brick wall all day" Mr. McDonald replied.
"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here."
Mr. McDonald sniffed angrily.
"Yes, everyone's celebrating all right." he said angrily "You'd think they would be I don't know, maybe a bit more careful? I mean even the Normles know something is happening. It was on their news." He pointed at the DeLace's front door. "I heard it. Flocks of owls, shooting stars, well they're not completely stupid. They were bound to figure out something was up. Shooting stars down in Alabama, I bet that was Leandera Little. She never had much sense."
"You can't blame them," said Merryweather gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."
"I know that," said Mr. McDonald irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Normle clothes, swapping rumors."
He threw a sharp, sideways glance at Merryweather here, as though hoping she was going to tell him something, but she didn't, so he went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day The One That Shall Not Be Named seems to have disappeared at last, the Normles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Allison?"
"It certainly seems so," said Merryweather. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a gummy bear?"
"A what?"
"A gummy bear. They're a Normle candy I love."
"No thanks" he said sternly, like he didn't think this was the time for candy. "As I say, even if You Know Who is gone…"
"Marcus, surely you can call him by his name? All this "You Know Who" nonsense. For eleven years I have tried to convince people to use his name, Tormonod."Mr. McDonald flinched, but Merryweather, who was unsticking two gummy bears, seemed not to notice. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Tormonod's name."
"I know you haven't," said Mr. McDonald sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know-oh, all right,Tormonod, was frightened of."
"You flatter me," said Merryweather calmly. "Tormonod had powers I will never have."
"Only because you're too, well, noble to use them."
"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."
Mr. McDonald shot a sharp look at Merryweather and said "The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what they're saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?"
It seemed that Mr. McDonald had reached the point he was most anxious to discuss, the real reason he had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a dog nor as a man had he fixed Merryweather with such a piercing stare as he did now. It was plain that whatever "everyone" was saying, he was not going to believe it until Merryweather told him it was true. Merryweather, however, was choosing another gummy bear and did not answer.
"What they're saying," he pressed on, "is that last night Tormonod turned up in Rockford. He went to find the Torrances. The rumor is that Emma and Steven Torrance are, that they're, dead."
Merryweather bowed her head. Mr. McDonald gasped.
"Emma and Steven, I can't believe it… I didn't want to believe it"
Merryweather reached out and patted him on the shoulder. "I know… I know…" she said heavily.
Mr. McDonald's voice trembled as he went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Torrance's son, Nathan. But he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Nathan Torrance, Tormonod's power somehow broke, and that's why he's gone."
Merryweather nodded glumly.
"It's… it's true?" faltered Mr. McDonald. "After all he's done… all the people he's killed… he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding… of all the things to stop him… but how in the name of heaven did Nathan survive?"
"We can only guess." said Merryweather. "We may never know."
Mr. McDonald pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes beneath his glasses. Merryweather gave a great sniff as she took a golden watch from her pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Merryweather, though, because she put it back in her pocket and said, "Hallie's late. I suppose it was she who told you I'd be here, by the way?"
"Yes," said Mr. McDonald. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?
"I've come to bring Nathan to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now."
"You don't mean – you can't mean the people who live here?" cried Mr. McDonald jumping to his feet and pointing at the DeLace home. "Allison, you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son, I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for Torrance come and live here!"
"It's the best place for him," said Merryweather firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a note."
"A note?" repeated Mr. McDonald faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Merryweather, you think you can explain all this in a note? These people will never understand him! He'll be famous… a legend… I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Nathan Torrance day in the future… there will be books written about Nathan… every child in our world will know his name!"
"Exactly." said Merryweather, looking very seriously over the top of her half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any boy's head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won't even remember! Can you see how much better off he'll be, growing up away from all that until he's ready to take it?"
Mr. McDonald opened his mouth, changed his mind, swallowed, and then said, "Yes… yes, you're right, of course. But how is the boy getting here, Merryweather?" He eyed her cloak suddenly as though he thought she might be hiding Nathan underneath it.
"Hallie's bringing him."
"You think it wise to trust Hallie with something as important as this?"
"I would trust Hallie with my life," said Merryweather
"I'm not saying her heart isn't in the right place" said Mr. McDonald "just that she can be very mischievous."
Just then, a creature flew near them. It was a tiny humanoid creature with pink hair and wings, what is known as a fairy. She was carrying a tiny baby.
The fairy pointed her tiny wand at the baby. It grew to a normal baby size. "Had to shrink Nathan so I could carry him"
"Hallie, at last"
"At your service"
"No problems were there?"
"No, sir, house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Normles started swarming around. He fell asleep as we were flying over Chicago."
Merryweather and Mr. McDonald bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of brown hair over his forehead they could see a cut in the shape of a flame.
"Is that where —?" whispered Mr. McDonald
"Yes," said Merryweather
"He'll have that scar forever."
"Couldn't you do something about it, Allison?"
"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of Chicago. Well, give him here, Hallie, we'd better get this over with."
Merryweather took Nathan in her arms and turned toward the DeLaces' house.
"Can I say goodbye to him" asked Hallie, giving Nathan a kiss on the cheek, then she started crying.
"S-s-sorry," sobbed Hallie, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying her face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it…Emma and Steven dead — and poor little Nathan off to live with Normles."
Merryweather brought Nathan up to the doorstep and laid him down gently, putting a note from her pocket between his blankets. For a whole minute the two humans and a fairy all stared at the boy, and then they all left, Merryweather returning the lights to the street lamps with her UnLighter.
A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Lincoln Street, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Nathan Torrance rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. DeLace's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Alicia… He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Nathan Torrance… the boy who who survived!"
