“No, no, you’re not,” Anna said. “Don’t say things like that.”

“She knows,” Mrs. Only said.

Lydia heard. Frantically Oversoul Seven tried to calm her. Where was the real Lawrence? Why wasn’t he here? Seven tried to call him, but there was no answer. Where were Lydia’s parents or her husband? Why was there no one to help her? But Seven had no time to wait for answers. Lydia’s fear was mounting again, and she’d have a difficult time adjusting if she died believing that her consciousness was really annihilated. He still had to fight against her panic, but he gathered together all of his strength to capture her attention. He needed a suitable vehicle….

Suddenly he knew what to do—if he could do it. Slowly and at first in miniature, he built up the image of the old camper-trailer in her mind. She began to focus upon it; it roused her interest and curiosity. As it did, Seven built up the image, enlarged it, brought it into focus—and then projected it outward until it enclosed them. And he adopted the image of Lawrence.

“Lydia—”

“What?” She looked around, spun around. She was in the camper-trailer, in the front seat. Lawrence was driving. Greenacre, the cat, was on her lap and Mr. George was in his goldfish bowl on the wide shelf under the windshield. She closed her eyes deliberately, then opened them again: everything was still there. The sun was bright through the green treetops by the side of the road, and the air was soft and warm. It was early fall. Her right arm rested on the open window, and the air moved the tiny hairs on her skin. Everything was very real.

“We don’t have far to go,” Lawrence said.

She looked over at him. He looked great, like pictures she’d seen of the aging William Saroyan: funny, philosophical, his dark mustache bristly, his eyes grave and amused all at once.

The hair at the nape of her neck prickled; she felt an odd sense of foreboding, yet she felt more alive than she had in ages. Yet…. “Larry, I had the worst nightmare,” she said. “I dreamed that you’d died and I was dying, and that I ended up in an old peoples’ home after all.” She shivered. “It was so real … yet here we are, our trip uninterrupted … going on as if nothing happened.”

“You were sleeping, snoring too, but I didn’t want to disturb you,” Lawrence said. “If I’d realized you were having a nightmare—But maybe it was something you ate.”

“Mmm,” she said. “But what a strangely lovely day. I mean there’s something positively unearthly about it. And you even seem different, more sure of yourself, maybe; decisive or something; wiser.”

“That’s just my natural superiority,” Lawrence said. “I didn’t know it showed.”